Sandpaper Wars

Perhaps it’s an age thing, perhaps it’s a “working alone” thing, but I have had a lot of time reminiscing lately while up in the barn.

50+ years ago when as a teen and newly arrived into a real-live cabinet shop I was introduced to the deep-seated passions of European craftsmen.  Prior to that I was a “scratch and dent” man at a couple of furniture stores, which, though a legitimate service, is not the same as working alongside men with years of apprentice training and decades of life on the job.

This shop was operated by a New Yawker of Greek heritage and produced amazing interiors with frame-and-panel rooms, carved detailing, and exquisite finishing.  (I was an underling in the finishing room; they did not consider my week(?) at a Mohawk workshop to be really valid for what they did and trained me in their way of doing things enough that I could next catch on to the Schindler’s shop where I spent the following few years)  Since the talent pool in south Florida was not up to his standards the owner hired guys from Long Island to come and work there, they were amazing craftsmen/artists.

Hans was a German-trained cabinetmaker in charge of that side of things.  Joe was an Italian who was my boss in the finishing room.  Both men were incredibly generous in teaching me what they knew at a level I was able to learn, and sometimes that created conflict between them when Hans said one thing and Joe said another.  I mean, real conflict to the point where the big boss had to step in and send them back to their corners.

Perhaps the most intense quarrel I recall was about how to fold sandpaper.  Really.  Hans was insistent on the “quartering” method of preparing and using sandpaper.  In this technique the sandpaper was twice folded in half along the perpendicular center lines, then cut to the cross-fold along one line then folded into a stacked quarter.  According to him, this was the only way a REAL craftsman used sandpaper.

Joe bristled at both this method and the insinuation that he was not a REAL craftsman (they were both just shy of magicians in their work).  According to Joe the only true method for preparing and using sandpaper was to cut the sheet in half along the short axis, then fold the paper twice to yield three identical sections when folded over.  To be honest a version of this method is the one I have used more often in the subsequent five decades.

But the experience of watching two late-middle-aged men almost coming to blows over how to cut, fold, and use sandpaper was indelibly burned into my memory and provided a lot of insight into the human condition.  If we want to, we can gin up conflict over the most inconsequential things while letting the existential stuff slide by with barely a notice.

Design?  Pshaw.  Construction details?  Shrug.  Finishing schedule?  Whatever.

But sandpaper?  Put ’em up, buddy.