I had a man write me once after an article showed me using galvanized pipe clamps. “No, no, no, no, no, no,” was what he wrote. Then he went on to describe what a knucklehead I was for using them and how many other wrong things I did in that article on gluing up.
I wrote him back.
I tore up that letter.
I wrote him back again. Again I tore up the letter.
Finally after a time, I put my thoughts down to him. Simply put, I said this: Please come to my shop and see what I do. My approach may not be right for you, but it works for me. Galvanized pipe clamps work for me. It is how I have figured out how to build. Try it, it might work for you. It works for me and that is all I can write about.
Please don’t speak in absolutes when it comes to woodworking, play calling, or beauty. What works for me may not work for you, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong. No one knows your motivation, tooling, or history at the bench. We make decisions based on what we think is right. Sometimes those decisions are monumentally stupid. This I concede and have experience with. Sometimes they are just right for us, as is usually the case. And finally sometimes they might help another soul wandering along that same path of logic in search of an answer to a problem. Glad I could help. Absolutely.
Shavings 