The Word "Beauty"

I've always hesitated to call anything beautiful. I’ve heard people throw the word around when they see a car or bike or picture. But it seems trite to hear the word used like that. I don't think I've ever experienced seeing something beautiful. I’ve never seen something so incredible you can’t help but stare at it for a long time and be transfixed.

While I can appreciate a pretty landscape, I’ve never been awed by one. I’ve never been transfixed by a painting or a woodworking piece, though I can admire either. When I was in school I used to think I was coming up short by not appreciating a work of art fully. But now I think I may just have a different sense of beauty.

I suspect my understanding of beauty may always have been flawed. I don't think beauty is something so amazing that it reaches out and punches you in the face and leaves you reeling for a whole minute.

But there have been some things that I’ve looked at and picked up and said, “That’s good.” Like this guitar pick:

Its color doesn’t shout at you, but it is distinctive. It has a chalky feel to it, to give grip. It feels secure like it won’t slip out of your hand while playing. It has a good thickness. Enough to tell you you’re playing hard, but it’s not flimsy. Its corners are rounded to a comfortable radius. Every quality about it is appropriate for its use. It feels simple and dependable. To me, this is as close as I can get to understanding an object as “beautiful.” Its shape, color, texture, thickness, weight, everything - conforms to the aspects of its function.

“Beauty is simplicity.”

“Beauty is conformity.”

Honing Guide Qualities

Does there exist a honing guide that:

1. Doesn’t use a roller. Rollers wear over time and will eventually present the edge of a chisel or iron unevenly to the stone.
2. Allows you to use the whole length of a stone.
3. Can fit a chisel or plane iron.
4. Isn’t awkward to hold (Kell guide).
5. Doesn’t have too many screws or attachments (Veritas Mk.II).

I don’t like rollers. Rollers wear a track on stones. Rollers wear themselves an uneven camber over time. The roller must rest on the stone and prevents you from using its entire surface. It’s easy to unintentionally put more pressure on one side of an iron and put it out of square. Rollers can become clogged with grit. Rollers only allow you to hone in a back-and-forth motion. You cannot go side-to-side or in circular motions.

Despite all this I quite like my Veritas Mk.II, and I still use my Kell guide for chisels. But I’m still hoping for something better in the future.

Can't Shake the Feeling of Wrongness

The other day as I was working on a base for my sharpening stones I couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. I had made one prototype and begun on the second version.

Have you ever had the feeling that something wasn’t quite right, but you couldn’t put your finger on exactly what?

Hardly anything I make ever seems “right” to me.

When I make something I'm not aiming for a particular look. It’s more like I’m trying to elicit a certain feeling out of myself.

The feeling goes, all in one sweep, is that the item is complete, there are no improvements that can be made, it's simple as possible. AFAIK there’s no word that encompasses this feeling of completeness. Everything that detracts from this singular characteristic gives me a sense of anxiety and unease and eventually I can no longer stand to look at the item.

My sense is that good design is deterministic. There may be a million ways to make a table, but at the end of the day most of our tables have four legs and a top. In some ways woodworking is like writing a essay. You begin with an idea and through inquiry and deliberation you arrive at the proper conclusion. You “assay” the idea and in the ideal scenario the result is nothing more than the inevitable consequence of facts and principles. You take the idea in hand and it arrives by itself at its foregone conclusion.

Moving On

Have patience. Going by hand means the process can take a while. You will make mistakes. You will want to quit. When you've finished you’ll look at your piece and instead of pride, be filled with disgust. This is normal. A piece is not the end. A finished piece is one step in the long process. You are not the same person as when you started. Take some time to make small corrections. Rest a little. Drink coffee. Write a retrospective of what went wrong and how you can fix it next time. Do this while the memory is fresh. Do not dwell on a piece. You cannot fix something by being repulsed. Time to move on.

About

ITARO TOOLS is an American company. The word "ITARO" is a made-up one resembling the word "iterate," to suggest a process of continuous improvement.

The company and everything it produces is the work of one person, David Yeung, a former computer programmer.

In 2016 I left the tech world to find fulfillment in work where individuals determine standards, not managers and executives. I've always been handy and have had a inclindation towards perfectionism.

I currently produce leather strops as my livelihood in addition to reconditioning the occassional hand plane or chisel. My eventual goal is to make precision hand and power tools that are both accessible and inexpensive.

Most of work is done by hand with hand tools. I plan to incorporate more machinery in the future, though there will always be at least some hand work involved in the process of making.

I work from my home shop built out of a spare room. I reside in the mountains of rural southern New Mexico with my dog and companion, Mesa.