For over 34 years, I have been a scientist. One of the things I learned early on during my freshman year of college was the importance of keeping a good laboratory notebook. Even since the tender age of 19, I have done so. There is a lot to it and much of what I learned was by trial an error. By the time I was in grad school, I was pretty refined in how I kept one.
When I started to do woodworking in 2015, I shortly after realized that I should probably keep some sort of woodworking notebook. It documents what I do and can help me in the future determine what dimensions something was, how long or difficult a step was, or what finish did I actually use on a piece. Of course, much of that is in my memory but I still like to have it written down.
I thought some of you might be curious about what I keep in my woodworking notebook so I am going to share this. Firstly, I like an artist thick paper type sketch pad that has like 9x12" pages. I dislike lines (feel like they constrain my imagination - yea, I know how goofy that sounds; back in grad school when I was trying to come up with new synthetic pathways and ideas, I disliked the lines as well. Organic synthesis was part art and part science and I didn't want to stifle my creativity with lines. I also strongly preferred soft leaded mechanical pencils for the way it felt on paper. Yes, it is goofy and I will stop digressing.)
In the front, I record the date and % humidity in the shop. Since I've been doing this for like 4 or 5 years, I have a pretty good feel what is the range of humidity I can expect. I used to record the temp in the shop as well. Since I have installed heating and cooling, I no longer record that. I then reserve several pages for an index. That way, I can find the projects more easily. I put the title, start&stop dates, hours to make, and page number it is on. If I end up with two projects going on at once, I turn the book upside down and start numbering the pages with a prime (1', 2', 3', etc). That way I don't need to worry so much about guessing how many pages to reserve for a project, etc. The book is full when the normal numbers and prime meet up in the middle of the book.
As for the project itself, if I design something, I will have a sketch of what I made. If it is based off of a set of plans, I will cut them out and then tape them into my book. As for the notes themselves, I put the date and approx number of hours I worked and what I did. I will capture any insights and things I learned along the way. If it is a complex project, at the end I will try and put a lessons learned summary - that is what would I do the same or differently next time. On occasion this has been helpful. To a much lesser degree, it serves as I diary and I will write stuff that is on my mind. Often projects are for my wife or daughter so I write what I feel (the good stuff).
And that's that. Most of this was driven my decades of doing so as a hands on scientist. It helps locate all of my woodworking into one location. So, what do you do?
Having a similar educational background as you (in a different field), I thought that when I started woodworking, I'd be able apply some relevant skills to the craft. It didn't really happen that way.
ReplyDeleteWhat I found was that the most important research skill that I had was, well... research. Taking the time to read and interpret some of the tons of stuff that's been already written combined with actual shop time ("lab work") helped the most.
As someone who's handled a LOT of data over the years, I'm personally skeptical of being overly obsessed with data in the craft because it can distract from the big picture. For example, think about your records of humidity. This probably comes from years of reading that you have to be careful about humidity with woodworking, so you think, "oh, I'd better write that down."
But in the bigger picture, most of what you've read was written by people who work in regions with high variance in humidity throughout the year. Where you live, the dew point doesn't change much throughout the year (despite having no precipitation for half of it). So you're not going to see much movement unless you have green wood, or did something wacky, like set up a steamer indoors or something.
I'm saying this because I made the same assumptions; I was always worried about it when I lived in SF. Only after I moved to the east did I experience true seasonal wood movement. (And am glad that I made a lot of stuff with floating panels.) Now, say that I did write down the dew points in my shop here. How would that help? (Probably not much. It's always freakin' dry in the winter and humid in the summer.)
Thanks for the feedback and insight.
DeleteI've been thinking about your comments for a while. You are correct. At this point, having seen that the humidity is relatively stable where I live year round, it really serves no purpose. Having said that, I think out of habit and a desire to record data, I will probably still measure it. Not sure why if it doesn't serve a purpose other than ritual. Luckily it doesn't take that long to do.
DeleteHey, I hope that you didn't take the comment the wrong way; I was sharing my experience, trying (and probably failing) not to sound heavy-handed about it. It sounds to me like your recording technique sparks joy (or at least, adds comfort) to your shop routine. That sounds like something you don't want to "KonMari" away!
DeleteHi Brian. I assumed your comment was meant in a good way. The data doesn't matter for where I live given humidity is almost always between about 50 and 65 percent. Your correct. I still record it mostly becuase I like to. I did find some other data that has been cool to capture. Rather recently I purchase some thick oak to build a "Stumpy Nubs" YouTube style saw benches. I used my pinless moisture meter to measure the moisture. Some boards were in the low teens (what I expected given this meter isn't calibrated for any specific wood and a scrap of thick oak I've had for about 5 years was this same value). Some boards however were in the 30 percent range! I cut up the boards or rough lengths figuring that shorter boards will help it all reach equilibrium faster. Marked the end and middle spots plus % moisture reading and date. Measured a month later and pleasantly surprised how much it has dropped in a month. Still a ways to go. This is a more useful type of measuring.
DeleteI did go back to the lumber store (it is one that specalizes in hardwood). I needed to purchase some more thick oak. Brough the moisture meter to check lumber before I bought it this time. The person who works there was shocked at how much moisture was in some of the thick lumber that was supposedly kiln dried. I asked him what have others said and he said I was the first person who ever brought a moisture meter in. Moving forward I will make this a habit. Normally I try to get the wood I need six months to a year ahead of time so I can let it continue to "dry/equilibrate" in my shop.