Autodidact: (noun) A self-taught person.
I intend to “teach myself” some simple carpentry. (Actually, I’ve been at it for a month already.) I know some things but there’s a lot of shit I don’t know. I don’t even know what I don’t know. Being charitable to myself, such honesty would at least make Socrates smile.
The thing is, I’ve got the basic “idea” of some things but I’m not even remotely experienced. Also, I’ve found I’m barking up a different tree than any local carpenters. What we call “a carpenter” in 2025 is really more of a “house builder” or “general contractor”. The guy who puts in new windows, fixes your siding, does the roof, or builds an addition is awesome but he’s not working just with wood. He works a lot more with a zillion flavors of industrial products; sheets of plywood subflooring, Tyvek vapor barriers, fiberglass insulation, asphalt shingles, aluminum flashing, vinyl siding, etc… A modern house is only partly wood. It’s mostly a dozen layers of manufactured materials. Wood studs and rafters and joists only go where industrial processes haven’t yet replaced them.
I’m not discounting their excellent knowledge. If I had that knowledge my house wouldn’t be such a dump. But life is hard enough and I don’t need to pursue another job. I’d like to be a guy who can make wooden objects fully (mostly) out of wood, because he wants to. Dovetails and miter joints are more my style. This is the domain of fine woodcrafters and hobbyists. That’s the shit I like.
For a few glorious months many years ago I made a tiny, ugly sailboat. I saw the wonder and beauty of it all! It was fun and I learned so much stuff. My boat came out very nice and sails like a boss. (Note: the boat has lots of “artificial materials” like epoxy, plywood, and fiberglass, but it somehow retained that feeling of “craft”.) Part of the joy is probably that it’s not tied to the endless chore that I call a house. When I’m doing a project and start dicking around with Tyvek and silicone sealant, the magic is gone. It’s just work. My boat was never work.
Lately, I don’t have the health to go camping or hunting (or even sail my boat). But I have a sweet antique woodstove (Betsy) in a crude but useable “shop”. I decided to hang out near Betsy. I want to recapture the magic I felt when making the boat.
I feel like I can figure out some of it by just “practicing”.
[Warning: rant!] Nobody in 2025 acts like they can “learn” on their own. Nor do they use words like “autodidact”. That’s top level, weapons grade, bullshit!
Aversion to “self taught” is not inherent in the human soul, it’s beaten into us. Innocent children are sentenced to 12 years of mind-bendingly dull public school manipulation. Many follow it with $100 grand in college loan debt. Most would-be learners emerge credentialed and schooled but also clueless, indoctrinated, weak, incurious, and mentally damaged.
We’re so fuckin’ brainwashed about credentials we confuse “authority” with “capability”. That’s how you get stupid shit like Fauchi saying “I am the science”. That’s how you get people mocking Elon Musk when one experimental launch goes bad after several hundred perfect launches. “Appeal to authority” has been shoved so deeply up our ass that most of us think a dipshit in a labcoat is wiser than an honest man sketching details on a post-it note taped to his truck bed.
Our society is intellectually constipated because we substitute social status for ability.[/Rant]
I’m not saying traditional school/college is completely useless but it’s close. How much do you use the “knowledge” you got from school/college? The only thing a credential means is you’re “schooled” not “skilled”. My boat, built by me, floats and sails; no amount of zoom meetings, consensus building, regulations, or team discussion will ever change the verdict rendered by wind and water.
Whew… I guess I’ve got issues to unpack. Oh well. Where was I?
I started by standing in my workshop wondering what to do next to learn. I wanted a new saw, so I’d made a new miter saw stand. Then I decided to work on an old rotten ladder. To do so I needed a couple sawhorses.
It’s almost like God knows and wants to help. A search for sawhorses became “carpentry 101” and things got fun…
More will follow… because of course it will.
Much of what you aspire to do is not carpentry, but is instead “cabinet maker”.
Ohhh “cabinet maker” sounds scary. But then again “boatwright” sounded epic until I made a tiny sailboat and now it sounds normal.
Btw: I made a very simple boat, I’m not a true “boatwright”.
As Captain Pete Culler said about boat building “Experience starts when you begin”. Baby steps and all …
Phil B
I like that phrase!
A few months ago, I interviewed for a maintenance position at a brand new industrial scale laundry facility. My 6 page resume pared down to 3 pages, with the most technical stuff highlighted, and in-between jobs just date/place. The phone interview was ‘I don’t see the PLC or maintenance experience’. I followed up with photographs of what I’ve designed, built and maintained over the years. It got me the on-site interview.
The on-site interview was a box of parts poured onto a table, a computer and ‘build me this’.
Interviewer says: “Build me a relay controlled timer, one that senses conveyor movement, product on the conveyor and an alarm if there is no product moving. You have 30min”.
Sure thing. Got all the parts, wires and the timer in the box onto the rail, wired into the eyes, relays, sensors, hooked to the controller, and asked ‘so, how long do you want the timer to get set for?’ 37 seconds. “Your timer only goes to 15 seconds, but I can set the controller to ‘ask’ the timer/sensor twice before it sets the alarm. It’s as close as you’re going to get with what’s on the table right now unless 45 seconds will work.”
“You passed. Next.”
New box, poured out on the table. Interviewer says: “Build me a PLC controlled circuit, level sensor for tank water, tank temperature, pH, indicator for alarm condition and turn on drain/pump when setpoints are met. You have an hour.
Assembled, programmed and when asked ‘what pump do you want me to use’?, he puts a 3 phase pump on the bench while I only have a single single phase 2 pole contactor on the board. There is no 3 phase contactor. “You’ll need to get a 3ph contactor, but otherwise it’s ready for a single phase pump until you do”.
“You passed. How, I don’t know, since your resume doesn’t show you have any experience, but we’ll give you a call”.
Now I know the guy that did eventually get the job. He was a career college graduate of 10yrs who, after all that ‘learning’ has clue zero about PLC and circuit building. He proved that point in the same interview I had done by failing to make a single circuit. I asked him if there was any discussion about any of the other interview’eez. “Yeah, they mentioned some old guy who knew his shit, but he didn’t have a degree”.
I’ll be 60 in December and he’s already looking for another job since this one is ‘too demanding’. Yeah, brand new everything, still under warranty, and it’s too demanding.
I’ll enjoy my retirement check, along with a full time check from a local plastics manufacturing plant that I spend 10hr days doing exactly what I interviewed to do at the laundry place. Their loss, I have a job.