A sign of skill

[robinson46176]

This is a message I had posted to another thread. I end up talking about sign making hence the title.
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An old school friend of mine became a steady customer in our shoe repair shop. One day he got to talking about a shoe shop his grandfather had owned when he was growing up. He had spent a lot of time with his grandfather in the shop and at one time wanted to own a shop of his own but he told me that he just could not master the work. Almost everything in rebuilding a pair of boots or shoes is free-hand work. Pretty much all eye-hand coordination. He said that he just could not make the heels come out round and smooth and he couldn't make the heel on one shoe come out looking like the heel of its mate. While he was (and is) a "very" successful businessman he often made friendly expressions of envy about what I could do with his high priced shoes. He has always wished that he could have mastered the art.
Like most things including woodworking, shoemakers fall into about 4 general categories. There are some that are truly remarkable to a spooky level. Some are quite good. Some are functional but not very polished in their daily work. Then there some that should just close the door and go home. The last ones hurt everybody in the occupation... That also applies to woodworkers that are in it to sell stuff to the public.
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There is room for everybody in woodworking as a hobby and we all work differently. My personal choice is to be more of an artisan instead of a technician. As much as I love the machinery and its speed (especially Shopsmiths) in many cases I tend to look at them as something to get me quickly past the rough cut stage and ready for my hand tools to do the finish work.
I don't do huge amounts of lathe work but I think one reason it is so popular is that it is one place where the machine still allows the artisan to be in near complete control of his craftsmanship.
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New part:
I have usually found it pretty easy to do reasonably well at most trades and crafts and can pick them up quickly. There is one that I have never been able to do well and it annoys me to no end. That is freehand sign routing like the guys do at shows and fairs etc. I have a few of those template sets and I can make signs OK with them but I wish I could do those freehand signs where the guy sketches out the sign and then routes it. I suppose some of it comes from having lousy handwriting skills.
Is anyone good at freehand signs?

[a1gutterman]

This is a message I had posted to another thread. I end up talking about sign making hence the title.
-
An old school friend of mine became a steady customer in our shoe repair shop. One day he got to talking about a shoe shop his grandfather had owned when he was growing up. He had spent a lot of time with his grandfather in the shop and at one time wanted to own a shop of his own but he told me that he just could not master the work. Almost everything in rebuilding a pair of boots or shoes is free-hand work. Pretty much all eye-hand coordination. He said that he just could not make the heels come out round and smooth and he couldn't make the heel on one shoe come out looking like the heel of its mate. While he was (and is) a "very" successful businessman he often made friendly expressions of envy about what I could do with his high priced shoes. He has always wished that he could have mastered the art.
Like most things including woodworking, shoemakers fall into about 4 general categories. There are some that are truly remarkable to a spooky level. Some are quite good. Some are functional but not very polished in their daily work. Then there some that should just close the door and go home. The last ones hurt everybody in the occupation... That also applies to woodworkers that are in it to sell stuff to the public.
-
There is room for everybody in woodworking as a hobby and we all work differently. My personal choice is to be more of an artisan instead of a technician. As much as I love the machinery and its speed (especially Shopsmiths) in many cases I tend to look at them as something to get me quickly past the rough cut stage and ready for my hand tools to do the finish work.
I don't do huge amounts of lathe work but I think one reason it is so popular is that it is one place where the machine still allows the artisan to be in near complete control of his craftsmanship.
===================================
New part:
I have usually found it pretty easy to do reasonably well at most trades and crafts and can pick them up quickly. There is one that I have never been able to do well and it annoys me to no end. That is freehand sign routing like the guys do at shows and fairs etc. I have a few of those template sets and I can make signs OK with them but I wish I could do those freehand signs where the guy sketches out the sign and then routes it. I suppose some of it comes from having lousy handwriting skills.
Is anyone good at freehand signs?

I ruin everything that I try to route freehand. Good luck with that!

[tom_k/mo]

Farmer, I've never been able to route successfully freehand either. Fortunately, I have another method at my disposal for making nice looking wooden signs. I put them in my sandcarving cabinet and sandblast the wood. Here's an example of a sign made out of redwood.
[ATTACH]6698[/ATTACH]
They also make a closed-cell foam sign material specifically for carving dimensional signs out of that works real well.

[john]

I have never been able to do anything freehand with a router let alone signs. In my hands, the router seems to have a mind of it's own and doesn't follow my instructions.

Maybe I should try sandcarving.

That is one nice sign that Tom created.

John