A Shop Without Power Tools
Basket Grades
I make Heirloom and Collector grade baskets. With both grades I finish the wood carefully, nail the rims with brass escutcheon pins on alternating staves, and finish the rim with a cap strip over the gap between the rim pieces and a second strip on the bottom of the rim to hide any gaps. Heirloom and Collector grade baskets are equally sturdy treasures to pass from generation to generation.
Collector grade baskets emphasize artistic details. The staves are narrower and beveled on both edges to let the cane lie smoother. I weave with the finest cane appropriate to the size of the basket. Instead of a simple cast-over lashing, I use double and double-cross lashing. (Baskets with lids such as the lightship purse, have cast-over lashing for a tighter fit.). While I occasionally use reed rims on Heirloom baskets, I always use oak rims on Collector grade baskets. I use the most exceptional portions of my exotic woods in the Collector grade baskets. Finally, hand-carved wood, sculpted ceramic figures, bronze castings, and inlayed cores are on Collector grade baskets.
The single power tool I use in making baskets is a Dremil drill. I do buy some dimensioned lumber and have some wood cut into slabs with a bandsaw. I’m not a fanatic about power tools; I just don’t have much use for them in my basket making. As I’ve calculated the time, tool, and shop costs, my sense is that the care and feeding of a power shop would add as much cost to each basket as any savings the increased speed might produce. Some craftspeople have said I could turn out more “product,” which would mean more money. That phrase, “more product,” is what dissuades me. I do not want to turn out “product.”
I often get my exotic woods as turning blocks and slice them by hand. From the moment I select a piece of wood I have an image of the basket I want to create. I make my circular cuts with a compass and coping saw to preserve and display the most beautiful sections of the wood. I bevel the sides with a hand rasp, watching what the bevel is revealing. With some woods, particularly spalted maple, there can be soft spots that tear out on a lathe. With spalted maple burl, there are gaps that defy turning, and non-commercial lathes cannot turn the ovals needed for lightship purses. The only way to keep the skills needed to shape those ovals is constant practice. So using hand tools frees me to use woods I otherwise could not. If to avoid a crack I have to reduce the diameter of a core slightly, I change the taper of the staves or the number of them. It is the image in my mind of the specific basket that a piece of wood can become that guides every step.
