Good Work. At Speed

One of my favorite pieces of furniture. It looks like it was made by someone who had a gun to their head.

At the Krenov School, sometimes the students go on a quest to create a flawless piece of furniture.

That means perfection inside and out. Nothing is a secondary surface. Every fiber is in place. All joints are seamless. The grain flows perfectly through the components. Each surface is friendly to the hand and the eye.

This can take weeks of work – even on a small piece.

I understand the desire to build such a project. And the lesson behind it might be this: Obtain perfection (or something as close as possible). Then try to get there again via a shorter route.

John Brown, the Welsh chairmaker, took a different path. When sawing out an armbow, he would take off his wristwatch and place it on the bench. His strokes would correspond to manual ticks of the second hand.

The goal was an accurate cut at a regulated speed. But not too much speed.

“My grandmother had a theory that the heartbeat ha…