That I am taking up woodworking is not big news. A lot of people are in the habit these days. I am creating a reference around it, though, and that is worth announcing. I will come back to the details of that shortly.

The kind of woodworking I am talking about is traditional woodworking; that is, the creation of products from solid wood (not factory-made materials) using hand tools only, many of which are now considered vintage. Traditional woodworking is woodworking like it was practiced at the turn of the 18th century, before the thrust of the Industrial Revolution and the invention of machinery powered by dirty energy.

I have nothing against power tools. Power tools have their place in a modern world, and especially for professional contractors, or anyone needing to work with artificial wood products (plywood, particle board, MDF, laminates, …). I have five aging power tools of my own, and except for the cordless drill that is on its lasts legs, and the orbital sander, I only seem to use them when working with artificial or non-wood materials. But the point here is knowing how to build functional wood products with static implements, wits, and muscle power.

There is a kind of revival, it seems, in doing more by traditional means. You see this in the ranks of do-it-yourselfers, off-gridders, and contemporary homesteaders; the nouveau traditionalists, if you will. I am all for the traditional ways of doing something, whatever the trade or craft. I think traditional ways are practical, and the study of them sets their practitioners apart from those who rely on machine-assisted methods to get things done fast and easy. There is a patience, and connection, and satisfaction from making things by hand and quiet technology that require no use of eye and ear protection.

No doubt the declining state of the world is also encouraging people to do more for themselves, and sensibly so. People are looking at their jobs, lifestyles, routines, and possessions to assess their relevance and impact on the environment. This kind of reflection often leads buying and consuming less, conserving more, being as self-sufficient as possible, and so on. I admit that I am motivated by such reflection, and I will approach woodworking as conscientiously as I can. Besides the practicality of a conservative approach, I see traditional woodworking as a creative outlet, at least, and a therapy, perhaps, and maybe a way to find meaningful community and friendly bonds again. I have lost those.

Unlike most who take up this practice, I am well past the mid-life mark, depending on what that is. Time is not on my side to accomplish a lot, nor at the moment is my domestic situation. I do not live on a farm or in the country by a forest with lots of space and trees at my disposal. I do not live in the city either, thankfully, but I do have constraints to deal with. The biggest one at the moment is a temporary renting situation that leaves me with no space or means to setup a workspace and store salvaged wood. The acquisition of wood, let alone storing it, is another matter. I do not own a vehicle—both a personal choice and by necessity—and I have not for twenty-five years. That will make things challenging, but that is a topic for another time and place.

Let me introduce you to that place now, and how I am working up to things.

Until the time comes that I can set up a functioning workshop, I have been doing two things: researching traditional woodworking tools and techniques (the theoretical side), and acquiring and restoring the tools I will initially need (the practical side). The research and tool acquisition will only get me so far in a hands-on craft, but it is better than doing nothing in the meantime. And I have learned much already; notably that I have a lot of tool restoring and making to do before I get to much else, and that is a good place to start in traditional woodworking.

The theoretical work is approached from the perspective of French history and terminology. This is largely because I live in France and the context is practical. The theoretical work is initially for my own benefit, but since the French perspective is not one that readers of English typically learn the craft by, I have decided to tidy up my notes and share them online in what I call an Almanossary; a portmanteau from almanac and glossary, and reflecting the information’s eventual structure and style.

The Almanossary will be a creative work-in-progress before it is a complete reference, and probably for a while. How long it takes to become a completed reference remains to be seen, and doubtfully matters, but I will strive to have the initial site up soon. It will be located at wood.wion.com. I will link that up when there is something to link to. One can initially expect a homepage, the About material, a dedicated Glossary section with an example page or two, and the utterly critical Bibliography that reflects my research.

A personable journal called the Old Wedge, written in the first-person, will compliment the glossary’s evergreen material in the third-person. The journal’s name is not meant to suggest the editor’s obstinate nature, but that is left for readers to determine.

The glossary section, where the bulk of the Almanossary’s content will eventually be, is proving hard to develop as I want it to function. I aim for an architecture much like this excellent example, where both linked primary terms and non-linked synonymous terms are listed in alphabetical order within respective alphabetical groupings. I work with words, not code, so I am not sure how to get there yet. Friends at Textpattern can hopefully steer me on the magic I need to conjure. There are a few wizards among them.

I envisage that researching, developing, and editing the Almanossary will be as satisfying to me on the theoretical side of learning as the acquisition, restoration, and utilization of old woodworking tools will be on the practical side. I would prefer more time in the atelier working with wood than time at the computer writing about it, but I suspect it will become a balance of both.

And that is all that needs said here about the Almanossary and my woodworking goals. Further addresses about the project and my progress will be in the Old Wedge journal of the Almanossary itself. Here again is the location to keep an eye on, in case you want to: wood.wion.com.

5 June 2022, Haut-Rhin. Progress on the Almanossary is inching along, and that is fine. I expect a lot to change between now and when the site launches, which may take longer than I expected (true to form), but first contact with the site will be better for it. As mentioned, the Glossary section will be a significant part of the effort, and there is still much to get right on the architecture.

Here is a teaser of the current direction; a screen grab from the working dev site.

You may already glean much from this image. The glossary’s simplistic appearance defies the complexity of the architecture under it; the build of which is made vastly easier by Textpattern’s sophisticated tags.

What you see under Categories is the global range of topics for the foreseeable future. ‘Trees’ is more a reference to wood types, but using Wood might be confusing against ‘Timber’. And while ‘Timber’ will make sense to British readers, I will probably change that label to Lumber. Not because it is what we Americans use in that sense, but because Timber may seem too synonymous with Trees. Likewise Wood could be too synonymous with Lumber, if you see what I mean.

In the end, this probably works best for intended purposes: Trees, Trades, Tools, Lumber, Joints, Structures.

As you might begin to appreciate, semantics plays a key role in development of the architecture, but it is somewhat tricky to get right for a broad audience.

Regardless, click one of those top-level categories and the glossary terms at bottom filter accordingly by alphabetical blocks. That is the way it will be for a while, during the glossary’s lean days, and for a couple of the topics, like Timber (Lumber) and Trades, that will be all there is. But I foresee down the road that other topics, like ‘Tools’, for example, will have additional, second-level filtering categories (and third-level, if deemed necessary). These additional sorting terms will appear under their respective parent label as a given parent term is clicked. No point listing them out here, but you get the idea of the function.