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How wood works

November 25, 2019 By Editor Leave a Comment

I think that I shall never see, a poem as lovely as a tree…
— Joyce Kilmer

Actually, a tree is simply an apparatus that facilitates photosynthesis. It puts the little factories, the leaves or the needles, up there out of the way of other things where they can do their job.

The tree itself is the plumbing that supplies those factories with water and its dissolved nutrients, drawing it up out of the ground, and the minimal structure that provides the maximum amount of operation with the minimum amount of material.

Paul Epp

Wood is simply a by-product of this obsession of the tree with turning sunlight into oxygen and carbohydrates. This image of plumbing is, I think, quite useful in understanding the nature of the material that we know as wood.

It is a material composed of little tubular cells, attached end-to-end and parallel to each other and oriented along the (mostly vertical) length of the tree and its branches. These little hollow cells are made of cellulose and are bound together with a material known as lignum.

A second type of cell, which is much fewer in number, is oriented at right angles to the primary ones and allow for lateral fluid movement. These are known as rays and are more-or less pronounced, depending on the species, but are often invisible.

Trees grow from their outer perimeter and their tips, adding new layers of material. The active and lively layer is known as the cambium and is just under the protective bark of the tree.

The health of this tissue determines the health of the tree. As the tree grows, the woody tissue converts from active plumbing to the role of more dormant scaffolding structure. It goes from being sapwood (sap being the liquid that moves up and down) to heartwood.

The wood that we value is usually the heart (wood) of the matter. If we intend to use this material for the construction of things, there are a number of important considerations.

One is that wood is, in its natural state, quite wet. It is essentially plumbing, after all.

Once the tree is no longer alive, this moisture will seek equilibrium with its surrounding environment. It dries out. As it dries, the cellulose cells shrink in diameter. Not in length, only in diameter.

To complicate things, the shrinkage is uneven; with approximately twice the shrinkage occurring along the diameter of the tree as occurs along a path radial to the centre of the trunk, although this varies with the species of tree.

This change in the size (and weight) of the material usually needs to be predicted and accommodated by the wood worker. Once the wood’s moisture is in a state of equilibrium with its environment, the change in size stops and the material is stable.

If the drying out occurs too rapidly, the material will likely split. It is usually worth remembering that as the relative humidity of the environment changes with the seasons, the dimensions of the wood will also change. In Canada, this usually means that wood shrinks in the winter and swells in the summer, making doors and drawers stick or loosen and unsecured panels warp.

If solid wood isn’t allowed to change its dimensions, it may split (or burst things) instead. The splitting that occurs during drying is a vulnerability that wood retains.

In addition to the stresses of drying, this splitting can occur through other means. When we split wood for the fireplace we soon learn that wood only splits along its (original) length. The little plumbing tubes are driven apart.

To deform the cells across their circumference requires a completely different magnitude of effort. We use this characteristic as an essential component of our strategy when we work wood.

A different type of consideration is that trees grow the most in the spring, when they are fresh from their winter repose. Later, in the summer, the growth slows down and changes in character.

The early (spring) wood is usually lighter in colour and thicker in volume. The later (summer) wood is darker and occupies less space.

This contrast between the early and late wood provides a record of the age of the tree and the wood with a visual differentiation that gives it what we call figure. This varies hugely between wood species, with pine, for instance, having little visible figure, with ash having a great deal.

Color variation and the range of less usual structures of the cells contribute to this visual distinctiveness. It is also worth noting that the dimensions of the wood that is available will correspond to their source, the trunks of trees.

Natural, un-jointed, solid wood in sheets four-feet by eight feet, for instance, is not feasible. This is information that is very important to those of use who design for the use of wood.

What I’ve written here is a highly simplified description of a much more complex topic. Even so, I’m often surprised by how it is often not taken into consideration.

Paul Epp is professor emeritus at OCAD University in Toronto, Ont., and former chair if its Industrial Design department.

Taking shortcuts

October 21, 2019 By Editor Leave a Comment

When we set out for a destination, and we know our terrain well enough, we may be lucky enough to be able to avail ourselves of a shortcut. There is something very charming and satisfying about this prospect: it’s a bit like a secret and we may even want to keep it that way. In my neighbourhood, I know the back lanes and it gives me a certain pleasure to be able to both leave and return by the back routes, unlike the uninitiated. It is also efficient. We attain our objective with less effort, and more quickly when we use our shortcuts.

Paul Epp

When we designers talk about design, we are likely to describe a design process. Sometimes we will even put that into capital letter: DESIGN PROCESS, to underscore its importance. There are almost as many different descriptions of this procedure as there are designers, but we have a common ground. We all move through a series of phases, usually beginning with an exploration, which leads to an understanding and a definition of intent. Ideas are sought, evaluated, developed, prototyped and so on. Decisions get made. And this all will result in some kind of resolution in a communicable form.

The mind expands, then contracts

If we think about this process long enough, we will recognize that there is a pattern of cyclical expansions and contractions. We open our minds, expanding them to embrace as wide a range of possibilities as possible. And then we make decisions, contracting our options as we select the best results. Each set of decisions can set off another round of searching for opportunities, within the newly defined constraints. One tidy description of this is the double-diamond, with the diamond shapes suggesting both the expansion and contraction that we experience as we move through our exercise.

Another level of understanding about what we are doing is that we are shifting, sequentially, from left-brain to right-brain activities. We do one (defining/left) and then we do the opposite (exploring/right). And so we proceed.

An even deeper level of understanding will show us that we may also deviate from this pre-determined formula and use shortcuts. I will use the definition of intuition to describe what I mean by this: the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning. Sometimes when we design, we seem to jump ahead and arrive at a tidy conclusion, without all of the intermediate steps.  It’s easiest to describe this as occurring through intuition.

It just feels right

It can feel a bit like magic. It’s as if we received some help from an unseen source. We may even choose not to talk about it, as though we cheated, or were caught out as lazy. But it can also feel very satisfying, just as it does in knowing where the shortcut is.

Culturally, we may have some misgivings about what occurs subconsciously. We tend to privilege that which occurs consciously and rationally. But we also know that what is unseen can also be powerful. Politicians are prone to describe their de-cisions, when the chips are down, as going with their gut feelings. However unattractive the description, we know what they mean. They are trusting their feelings.

I think that it might not be quite as mysterious as it sounds. We prepare our subconscious to both look for and to recognize useful things. We might call this spontaneous activity a form of pattern recognition. When what we are looking for matches up with what we have found, when the shapes correspond, we have a sense of immediate arrival.

I doubt that we are born with much intuition. Rather, I think that it is more likely to be the result of a significant amount of self training. We may not know we are doing it, but if we are interested enough in something, and pay enough attention to it and built up a large enough lexicon (getting to know the terrain), we are more likely to have what is called intuition.

There is danger here, though. All departures from the rational ought to make us a bit nervous. When we leave the well-known path for the scramble through the bushes, we may end up being unpleasantly surprised.

But in design, I think we all tend to take shortcuts when we can. We may not admit it, but we do. And so we should. If we’ve done our work, by paying attention, we’ve earned this option, and it can be very efficient and very satisfying.

Paul Epp is an emeritus professor at OCAD University in Toronto, Ont., and former chair of its Industrial Design department.

Defamation works

October 21, 2019 By Editor Leave a Comment

I assume you agree, since by now the majority of businesses we have surveyed report that, if you are like them, a disgruntled employee, a competitor or an unhappy customer has taken to the internet to damage your reputation.

Most reports agree, things are about to get much worse. We are at the dawn of a new “technology” called deep-faking. In a nutshell, deep-faking is taking a series of images or a video of a person, digitizing that person’s facial characteristics and expressions, and then putting that “person” on another body and in circumstances that are unlimited. You can research this phenomenon on the internet by searching for Deep Fake Video Production, or you can view this seven-minute, very tame discussion on Ted Talks.

Kerry Knudsen

In essence, all an ill-wisher needs to do is hire a production company to create the video, and he or she can have you dancing naked in the moonlight in downtown Hamburg in winter. Or worse.

The reason we can be certain that this infection will spread is because defamation works. It always has. Throughout history, it has been classified as gossip, chinwag, tattletale, slander, libel, character assassination and a multitude of other unsavory names. In the end, the idea is to damage the object of the lie, and it works.

Defamation is inherently a lie. If I can go back to my grad classes in media law, there are four criteria that must be met before a defamation action can be taken: identification, publication, defamation and damages. Those four seem simple on their faces, but they are not. We can talk about what each means another day, but they are important to know. For example, somebody may seek to defame you, give you a different-but-similar name and change the name of your town by one letter, but if the intent (another great word) is to identify you, identification may be accomplished, even though disguised.

Modern politics is a good place to get an understanding of what is coming down the pike. You may have heard former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid defend his admittedly false and defamatory accusation that then-candidate Mitt Romney had not filed his tax returns for 10 years. He can do that because he did it on the open Senate floor, and it’s protected. So are House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff’s accusations against Trump.

This idea of protection against defamation actions extends well into the business world, as well. Don’t get bored, this will be quick. In the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision New York Times v. Sullivan, the Court said people that are “public figures” should expect to be targets and must meet a higher standard of evidence than do “normal” people. (In my opinion, just another assertion of two sets of laws.)

The new standard was called Actual Malice, which, according to my old media law professor, Ted Frederiksen, “is not malice, actually. It is knowing falsity or reckless disregard for the truth.”

This is not a distinction without a difference, since such words as malice, public, private, knowing, truth, etc., are each debatable in their own right. What has happened is that public figures, including current and past political, media, commercial and entertainment figures, have been driven to the conclusion that “actual malice” and “public figure” are not new standards; they are new exclusions. As Romney and others discovered, you can bitch all you want, but you can’t get a hearing. As Reid famously responded when confronted with his lie: “Well, he lost, didn’t he?”

This has had the effect of now being “open season” on anybody that can be labeled as a public figure, and, as we saw in the case of Nicholas Sandmann, the kid that got skewered in the press for standing up to a native activist in Washington while Sandman was on a school trip, even a minor from rural Kentucky can suddenly be cast as a public figure and worthy target, if only the media decides to cast him that way.

That means the media can do what it will with anybody’s reputation, thus neutering the very laws against defamation that the media inspired in the first place. As Mark Twain famously noted: “Do not fear the enemy,” Twain said, “for your enemy can only take your life. It is far better that you fear the media, for they will steal your honor. That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse.”

Twain knew what he was talking about. He was a journalist.

Enough of the mainstream of journalism. Now we are faced with a compounded threat on the internet. For example, now we have a much greater task than simply worrying about the identity of the person defamed. We can’t identify the defamer. It used to be that a publisher (the typical defendant in a defamation suit) had an address, a phone, a business license, etc. You could tell who and where he was.

Not so, today. Today the publishers have been able to exempt themselves from liability – another story for another day – and they declare the writer as the publisher. This means the old-style publishers, being protective of their businesses, would review material before putting their names on it. Today, any over-edible-cannabis-eater with a twit account can attack and damage anybody that won’t provide a job, anybody that did provide a job or anybody looking to provide jobs. All they require is a piss-off and 10 minutes. Five if they don’t need spellchecker.

I would be very impressed if our current national politicians could put aside their pie fight for a week or so and take care of some serious business. In my opinion, internet turpitude, fake smiley guys and sociopathic character assassins qualify.

Hand-me-down

September 23, 2019 By Editor Leave a Comment

“She’s long, she’s tall, she’s six feet from the ground,
She’s tailor made, lord she ain’t no hand-me-down”
… from Jimmie Rodgers Blue Yodel No. 4

We usually now use the term hand-me-down when we are referring to something that has been used and is now being recycled, like children’s clothing. What we mean is that it’s being handed-down, from one size of child to another, smaller one. It’s a good system, although it’s got a bit of an edge to it, an implication that rich people wouldn’t need to do this, and if you are, you obviously aren’t part of the 1 percent.

But hand-me-down had, at another time, quite a different meaning.

Paul Epp

It was referring to the difference between something custom and something machine-made, to the products of industrialization as opposed to the triumphs of skill and patience. Before shopping centres, and maybe even before department stores, or even the dominance of urban culture, goods were purchased from stores with high ceilings and lots of shelves. If you wanted to buy a pair of new overalls, for instance, you might say to the store’s proprietor: “Say Bill, hand me down a pair of those overalls, size medium, the ones up on that shelf behind you”. Hand-me-downs, indeed. There was also an implication of economic status attached to the term then as well. The rich wore tailor-made.

Our relationship with the goods produced by industrialization has always been a bit conflicted. As the Industrial Revolution was gaining traction in the mid to late nineteenth century, a wider and wider variety of goods were becoming available at better and better prices. That’s the good news. There’s always a down-side and there were a number in this case: the hollowing out of rural communities as labour moved to the urban factories, the redundancy of traditional skills and its resultant unemployment, the standardization of sizes, to enable larger volumes, and environmental degradation, to name just some of them. There was an aesthetic objection, well documented through the history of the Arts and Crafts movement, and also a social or status implication. The rich didn’t need the benefits of low price. They could have their goods tailor made, whether they were clothes or automobiles. They would be made to fit the individual, to reflect their status, their preferences and to differentiate them from the common man (or woman).

Design is a skill that is predicated on a certain amount of talent and a lot of dedicated time and effort. Like almost all other skills, you get better if you practice. The resultant skill is then quite broadly applicable. Although the design businesses are highly specialized, many designers jump fences. Graphic designers might design themselves a house, for instance, and textile designers might design some jewelry. Sometimes this polymorphism is the result of confidence and sometimes it’s a response to a challenge, or to deflect boredom. Often, designers respond to the opportunities that present themselves.

Designing is a lot like tailor-making, even when the intended user audience is very large and the intention is to produce goods that are hand-me-downs. The designer is challenged to provide the best fit, so to speak, for the problem being solved. The versatility and adaptability of the skill can apply to very small numbers as well as to large ones, which, as an example, Industrial Design is about. The resulting product may not be tailor made, but the process might be.

A lot of my career has been associated with furniture, in one way or another. Early on, I built a lot of custom furniture. Later on, I designed furniture for other companies to make. In either case, there were similarities to the process. The right steps must be taken to yield an acceptable outcome. In the latter case, a lot more time was spent on each step, as the consequences were much larger. And either way, it always felt a lot like tailor-making.

When I listen to Jimmie singing about his gal, I know which business I’ve been in. And it ain’t no hand-me-down.

Paul Epp is an emeritus professor at OCAD University in Toronto, Ont., and former chair of its Industrial Design department.

Monkeys in a circle

September 23, 2019 By Editor Leave a Comment

Once in a while we pull back the curtain and take a peek at the sausage-making in the world of journalism. We think this is important, since the founders believed that the only thing that can save a democracy is a free press. That is true, assuming that the press is free, which it is not. In an interesting twist of fate, I have a master’s degree in journalism from one of the best schools in the States. This is relevant, since the media as it stands doesn’t think I am smart enough to be a critic, and it thinks the same of you. Have you abandoned your print newspaper for cause? “No problem,” the media says. “You are an idiot and we are going to digital, where nobody can count our responses.” 

Kerry Knudsen

So let’s take a peek at one current controversy the press has decided to rule as “decided.” Here is a quote from last week’s release from the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR)– one of the most-influential publications for the media by the media. In  this case, climate change. 

What we’ve learned from our week of climate coverage 
by Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope 
 
Today marks the beginning of a global climate strike and Monday will bring the UN Climate Action Summit, so we’re dedicating this installment of our newsletter to media coverage of climate, and whether it’s getting any better. 
 
This spring, CJR and The Nation co-founded Covering Climate Now, an unprecedented journalistic collaboration aimed at strengthening news coverage of the defining story of our time. The project was embraced immediately by The Guardian, which became our lead media partner, and has since grown enormously: more than 300 news outlets from around the world—with a combined audience of more than 1 billion people—are now part of Covering Climate Now. More are joining by the day.  Each of these outlets—big and small, TV and radio, print and digital—committed to running a week of strong coverage in the lead-up to the UN climate summit, and they have delivered. 
 
A highlight was an exclusive on-camera interview with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres—conducted by Mark Hertsgaard of The Nation, Mark Phillips of CBS News, and Amanda Mars of El Pais and shared with all 300+ Covering Climate Now outlets—that reported for the first time the pre-conditions that countries had to meet for their leaders to address the summit on Monday. In the spirit of collaboration central to the Covering Climate Now project, Hertsgaard wrote a news story in English, Mars wrote one in Spanish, and CBS shared video and audio of the interview with all participating outlets. 

If that does not make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end, it should. Irrespective of your personal stand on climate change, this is proof-positive that there is a massive, collective effort to skew the news. To create propaganda and overwhelm any remaining vestiges of independence in the media. 

In this brief quote, you are looking at the heartbeat of a movement that has similar programs and similarly well-defined positions on virtually every so-called controversy you see in the media. Are you interested in what you MUST believe in terms of gun control, gay marriage, marijuana legalization, abortion or euthanasia? I can tell you without looking. It’s all in the media, to include movies, television, newspapers and magazines, and is coming under control on Fakebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Google. In this new age, you are actually not welcome to your own opinion, or, if you are, you are welcome to keep it to yourself or get shamed, criticized, outed, shadow-banned or fired from your job.  

You may have seen the kerfuffle last week when Canada’s Prime Minister got discovered in an old photo wearing blackface and brownface at multiple parties in his past. I have no use for Justin Trudeau. He is an arrogant, selfie-enamored, petulant child of privilege, and he is the necessary result of letting people under 35 vote.  

So much for Justin. However, he is not a “racist.” Let’s establish that I have never personally participated in any event where I or any other person made up in blackface or brownface. When I have heard of it, I regarded it as tacky. Low-class. The product of an unimaginative mind.  

I still believe all those things, but if Trudeau is a racist, it will take more than an anachronistic pogrom of the ignorant self-righteous to convince me. By “an anachronistic pogrom of the ignorant self-righteous,” I mean the organized, partisan and hostile media. 

So back to climate change. They say human-influenced climate change is settled science. The thing is, if it’s settled science, why is the funding, reporters, ink and collaboration to force a point of view on the media’s audiences? I am not about to say there is no climate change or that whatever there is has not been caused by humans. However, wouldn’t the science be supported better if a bunch of ninnies were not promoting it? I mean, nobody is up in arms about whether water boils at 212F. Or why did the “scientists” at the University of East Anglia – the repository of climate data for the world – get caught falsifying their data? You can read about it on Wikidiot, here, and they have an explanation. But it doesn’t answer the question of why?  

“Why?” is a very important question, which my colleagues in the media should have discovered in JN101. People subscribe to newspapers because they want reliable information, not because they want to be a target for every new shoe salesman on the internet. 

Why, for example, is an essay like this important for the wood industry in the United States? There are a hundred reasons, but for starters, look at what’s happened since 2007. We lost Modern Woodworking, Wood Digest, Wood and Wood Products and spin-off publications associated with those titles, as well as other primary print publications. If that trend continues, all that will be left will be commercially directed digital efforts from the wealthiest or most aggressive suppliers. And they will say, as do the current mainstream media, “trust me.” 

There is an army marching against you, both in your consumer hat and in your industry. Worse, you have very few troops left of your own. We keep tweaking the self-proclaimed “voices of the people,” hoping that we can draw them into a debate. 

So far, that has not gone particularly well. For example, I scolded a few on a media site about using made-up, foolish pronouns to try and show their self-emasculation. They got mad and said that the fake pronouns are the new reality. I remarked that in j-school they should have learned that the media should be the preserver of Standard Edited English (SEE), and that we can let the popular culture ebb and flow as it will, yet provide a sensible, understandable communications medium. Journalists are supposed to be the conservators of culture, not the destroyers of it.  

Crickets. 

I would love to learn who says I need to use their pronouns or not wear blackface if I choose. So far, all I see is monkeys in a circle, all fingers pointing left. 

Would you like to do something? For one thing, contact your industry suppliers and tell them you read this column and would like them to support independent voices that stand up for the industry. For another, send a copy to your local newspaper and your favorite remaining magazines, along with your federal and state representatives. We are relatively certain it will have no effect, but if you rattle their cages enough, they eventually have to listen. 

If you don’t, then we have to be content to hear from CJR next month that marijuana edibles make you intellectual. 

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