Tedious the Wood Butcher
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The Life & Times of Tedious the Wood Butcher
This is a work "in progress". WARNING it is a long story so bear with me. I promise I will try to spare you of the goriest of details.
What's this about the NUMBER 7?
Tedious is a 16th century Finnish man, the first born to a poor family who farmed and logged for a living. Rarely did either "profession" earn enough to feed them well, as the family grew from one child to six in the first 9 years of Tedious' life. They lived in a small farm house at the head of a valley 1 mile from the nearest neighbor.
It wasn't unusual to find him and his younger brother, whom Tedious often towed behind him in a wagon, heading to the neighbors in search of something to eat. Later when his brother could walk longer distances they would venture off to the local merchant who owned the Apple and Goose tavern located next to his grocery. Being small and agile, the boys picked up empty mugs and pitchers from outside his tavern that the drunks had discarded into the bushes. The generous tavern owner would reward them with a loaf of bread or whatever he saw fit, knowing that the value of the drinking vessels never covered the cost of the groceries. Times were tough back then.
When ever the boys weren't near the house you could usually find Tedious either checking out the equipment up in the paja (smithy/forge work shop), or building make-believe villages in the creek bank. He would find scraps from the wood shed as building blocks to create the village he was developing.
Tedious was observed by the wood shop owner who was a master craftsman in his trade. He took on the boy as an apprentice and taught him all about wood working. Later, after Tedious had gained considerable skill, he decided to branch out on his own. He became known for his intricate designs gaining him renown in the noble houses of Europe. He would travel by ship to places like England, France and Italy selling his wares.
On one of his trips to England, he ran into a Scottish slave woman who was the laundress for a crew aboard another floating sea vessel at Ipswich. While she was mending clothing for the captain, he saw her and struck up a conversation. He soon discovered that she had been taken captive many years ago and desired to escape. She needed help. He was able to help her get away from the docks by hiding her among his goods bound for the castle in Fotheringhay.
This began an entirely new chapter, or should we say a new phase to the life of a wandering wood worker. That, in itself is a story well worth exploring and, in due time we will delve into it further. Needless to say on their journey to Fothreringhay, Tedious and Ailynn Catriona Moireabh took a fancy in one another. It wasn't long after that, that they fell in love and got married; in spite of a considerable difference in their ages. 20 years, you say? Then 12 months later they started a family together, and Tedious had already raised his first family and thought that was it, when it came to thinking he'd ever have kids again. Life has a few surprises now and then. Never say "never". We have no idea what God has in store for us.
More about all of that later. For now, let's see what kind of woodworking projects Tedious is mostly trying to work on......what is he up to anyway? Tedious has never been one to follow "convention", or the rules, so to speak. He's always said there's more than one way to skin the cat. He usually tries to invent new ways to do things or to put a different "spin" on it so you can tell it isn't the same as everyone else's work.
At the beginning of this story the question appeared, "What's this about the number 7?". The Bible mentions the number 7 as signifying divine perfection. wholeness, and completeness. It appears 600 times to indicate that something is fully finished or sacred. Examples are the seven-day week, the days of Creation, the seven seals of Revelation, seven trumpets, seven bowls, 70 times seven forgiveness, and there's a lot more elsewhere in this world.
So, Tedious thought it would be nice to honor the meaning of this number in his artistry. Everyone else makes 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, or 16 sided projects, even numbers and/or evenly divisible into 360 degrees, in the case of 4 sides or multiples of 4 (8,12,16) all that is needed is to bisect the angle of the end cuts (2,3, or 4 times). However, since there are 7 sides and 2 edges on each segment that involves 14 cuts, divide 14 into 360 degrees and the resulting angle becomes 25.7142857143 degrees, which, by the way, is NOT easy to come by. After a couple years of experimenting off and on with various jigs and tools, he finely came up with a simple way to set his saw up to rip the wood pieces to the proper angle so when these items were assembled, the resulting joints came out nice and tight (water tight). After all, he didn't want the mug to leak the beverage of choice on his new tunic that Ailynn had just so meticulously constructed for him. ,