Norm Abrams vs. Roy Underhill
Friday, November 12, 2010 at 10:19AM Who is more awesome, Norm Abrams or Roy Underhill?
Both dudes have their own PBS shows about woodworking. Yet their styles are very different. Norm builds things the way most of us normally do, here in the 21st century: with power tools, glue, screws, and all of the other methods and materials that humans have been developing over the last 100 or so years, to make woodworking better, faster, and easier. Roy, on the other hand, works only with "antique" methods and tools; anything that was used 100 or more years ago, mostly human-powered, but including steam, and some early machinery from the industrial era.
If I was going to be a fair and impartial judge, I would have to reduce the discussion to three questions: Who does a better job at their work? Who is a better educator? Who's style is more accessible to the majority of viewers?
I would say that the answer to the first question is that they are equals. In addition to being craftsmen, both gentlemen are also performers (I would not say actors, because they are not trying to portray anyone but themselves). Who can say what it is that elevates one person's work over another's? Not having seen everything made by either guy, I am in no position to judge.
Let me also say that performing woodworking tasks on television has got to be really hard. I don't think I could do it. Maybe someday I'll post a youtube video of me doing something cool, but that is very different from holding down the fort season after season, project after project, not losing it on camera, keeping the ideas fresh, keeping the new techniques coming, and delivering solid advice to the masses.
As far as who is the better educator, again both are equals. Norm does a great job of explaining techniques; he tells you why he chooses one tool over another, as does Roy. They both go over the design process and features, lay out the methods and approach of every project, explain and demonstrate the techniques well, and have great film crews to show you everything clearly. Both have written a number of books, so that the viewer can get more detailed information. However, I would say that Norm's web presence is a bit more extensive, and his plans are probably more specific.
But here my impartiality ends. In my book, Roy is WAY more awesome than Norm.
First of all, the guy has Panache. He has energy. He is a character. And, he is always injuring himself, while on camera. These things make him very fun to watch.
Second, he often films his shows in one continuous take (or at least he appears to). Norm has the luxury of going off camera, having a cup of coffee, using the bathroom, checking his blackberry, or whatever, but not Roy. He's there, working up a sweat, and hoping he doesn't mess up and have to start over.
But the most important thing about The Woodwright's Shop, to me, is the material itself. Not to say that woodworking using hand tools is a lost art, but I will say that while there are many shows that show people working with chop saws and cordless drills, there is only one show that I know of that will tell you how to sharpen and use a spoon bit, or how to plane custom moldings using those old wooden molding planes that everyone likes to buy and then use as bookends.
Roy was my first woodworking instructor, back when I was a kid. I had almost no access to machinery, and even my hand tools were few. But thanks to that show, I felt that I was just as able to create wooden items as the next guy, even without a tablesaw, because after all, Roy never used one! He just split his wood out with a froe (which I did have, thanks to an early trip to Colonial Williamsburg) and then planed it by hand! A lot of kids graduate from shop class without even a basic knowledge of how to properly sharpen the most basic woodworking tool, a chisel (or a knife, for that matter). Believe me, I've worked with them!
Because of this, his woodworking is subversive. The dominant consumer culture does not promote the self-reliant attitude of early Americans, but Roy's version of off-the-grid woodworking certainly does. And I'm sure his rampant use of early and antique tools offends a great many collectors, who would much rather see them displayed, and traded as commodities.
And I'm sorry, but Roy seems to be in WAY better shape than Norm. Norm huffs and puffs just explaining what the piece is that he's going to be making on the day's show, but I can't say I've ever seen him break a sweat on camera!
So anyway, those are just a few reasons for my extremely one-sided and totally slanted opinion. I have more but I won't bore you any more.
Be safe out there, and don't cut off your fingers!
-Mike
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