Will Sampson talks about how woodworkers get started in the industry and shares his own story. His guest is Martin Goebel, who runs Goebel Furniture, was a past winner of the Young Wood Pro award and was recognized as a rising star in the industry in the 40 Under 40 program.
This episode of the Woodworking Network podcast was sponsored by FDMC magazine. FDMC magazine is your vital source of information to improve your woodworking business. Whether it is keeping you apprised of the latest advances in manufacturing, helping you solve your wood technology problems with Gene Wengert, or inspiring you with case histories about successful businesses and best practices, FDMC magazine is there to be the sharpest business tool in your shop. Learn more and subscribe for free at woodworkingnetwork.com/fdmc.
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Intro music courtesy of Anthony Monson.
In response to constant calls for more skilled help in woodworking, we’ve been paying more attention to training programs and the fundamental issues of encouraging more young people to check out the woodworking industry. To that end we’ve been launching surveys and asking the same key question of woodworkers of all ages: How did you get started in woodworking? What inspired you?
The answers are fascinating and frequently similar. We hear a lot about school shop programs and inspirational older mentors, maybe a father, grandfather, or a woodshop teacher who took a special interest. In some cases, it was carrying on a family tradition to a new generation. In others, the young person was discovering a new interest that had nothing to do with whatever the family background was.
My own story is kind of like that. My father was in manufacturing but really only as a financial executive. He did the usual small do-it-yourself projects around the house, but he was no great craftsman. I started woodworking because of what today seems an amazing program that was part of the Los Angeles public schools in the early 1960s.
Outside my first-grade classroom were a bunch of metal lockers filled with woodworking hand tools. Somebody had decided that introducing manual training to children as young as 6 years old through simple woodworking projects would spur learning. The program was integrated into the regular curriculum. We were studying transportation in the first semester, so we used woodworking to make simple boats, cars, trucks, and airplanes.
It was all quite primitive. Take a board, use a handsaw and cut two intersecting 45-degree cuts on one end of the board, then grab a coping saw and cut a rounded section at the other end. Voila! You had the bow and stern of a boat. Add a dowel for a mast or stack up some blocks of wood for a superstructure to make an ocean liner. Take two boards and nail them crosswise to make the wings and fuselage of an airplane. Nail some hobby wheels to a block of wood to make a car or truck.
I made a helicopter, cutting the shape of the body with a coping saw and nailing twin rotors to the top to look kind of like a Chinook chopper. I painted it blue with common school tempera paints.
There was no special teacher for the program. Regular classroom teachers supervised and taught us basic skills like how to start a cut with a handsaw. I don’t recall anybody getting hurt. Decades later I talked to a retiring woodshop teacher for the L.A. schools and asked him about the program. He remembered it and said it was in place in a number schools for some years but was eventually dropped.
I wonder how many woodworkers that program inspired. I still have a few items that my own kids banged out of scrap wood in my woodshop, and every time I see those things, I can’t help but think of that old blue helicopter that started it all.
Before we get to Martin Goebel, let’s pause for a word from our sponsor. FDMC magazine is your vital source of information to improve your woodworking business. Whether it is keeping you apprised of the latest advances in manufacturing, helping you solve your wood technology problems with Gene Wengert, or inspiring you with case histories about successful businesses and best practices, FDMC magazine is there to be the sharpest business tool in your shop. Learn more and subscribe for free at woodworkingnetwork.com/fdmc.