The other day, I was trying to show someone how to cut an avocado to produce a thin-sliced "fan" pattern. It didn’t go well.

It turned out to be something that the person simply could not do, even after repeated demonstrations which went as far as literally holding their hands and making the cuts, showing them how to hold the knife at the proper angle.

This illustrates something that we tend to forget when trying to teach people how to work in the shop. After years of working with tools, many processes become second nature. We cruise through them without thought or difficulty.

They become "easy" when there is really nothing easy about them. Something as basic as holding a chisel at the correct angle is often incomprehensible to a person who has never cut wood with a chisel.

D.D.