Book Review: Every Tool’s a Hammer
- Get started in making
- Creation is iteration
- Increase your loose tolerance
- Me and making
- Would I recommend this book?
- Is this book a keeper?
| Title: | Every Tool’s a Hammer |
|---|---|
| Author: | Adam Savage |
| Published: | 2019 |
| My rating: |   |
Adam Savage, mostly famous as a co-host of popular TV show MythBusters and now his own YouTube channel, Adam Savage’s Tested, is bringing us his first solo book about making, crafting and creativity, the Every Tool’s a Hammer.
In the book Adam is telling his story as a maker, crafter and tinkerer, from his early years in elementary school through his career as props and replicas maker for movies and TV shows like Star Wars, Hellboy, Matrix and Mythbusters.
It is a mixture of life story, principles and mindsets of the maker, and his experience and personal tips about creativity, making, passion, tools and even the lonely part of this hobby.
I was listening to the audiobook version read by Adam Savage himself, which I can highly recommend (over the paper version), especially to the fans of his shows.
I can recommend the audiobook version read by Adam Savage himself, especially to the fans of his show. Listening to Adam’s voice gives it a level of familiarity and informality, which I like in biographical books like this.
Some people commented that Adam is a bit monotone and “boring”, but I didn’t feel it was the case. Maybe because I am used to listening to him talking even about bit more formal topics than just him being excited about a specific build.
And I do appreciate Adam for taking up on the task of narrating the book himself, giving the audiobook version something extra. Even if you have to download a PDF with support material like photos etc.
Get started in making
Newton’s First Law of Motion states that a body at rest will remain at rest unless an outside force acts on it. You must be the outside force. To get started in making, you need to … get started.
There is no hidden secret. Follow your interests. Your obsessions. Obsession moves things. Something interests you, grab it and go after it. Dig through the rabbit hole of your interest to find inspiration. To find that great idea that is waiting there.
These interests, especially the one that comes to you randomly in the spur of the moment, can be considered distracting, but they usually lead to new spaces you never knew existed. Through them you are learning and expanding your knowledge and understanding.
And it is helping you to crystalize your interests. You research it and found it not interesting in the end? Good, now you know. Let’s move on to the next interest.
Today everybody talks about finding your passion. Passion is just the good side of obsession. So, what are you obsessing about?
Creation is iteration
You are going to mess up. From your impatience, arrogance, inexperience, lack of knowledge or lack of interest. But it is all part of the process, part of your path to be a better maker. It is how you gain skills. That’s the hard truth. Welcome to making.
True failure is hard, but failure in making is different. It’s testing. It’s an iteration. It’s trying, messing and learning, and then trying again. Rinse and repeat. Creation is iteration.
Take as many wrong roads until you find the one that takes you to the destination. You always have a choice - you can give up, or you can try again. Take your second chances whenever you can get them, you don’t get this opportunity every day.
Consider the first one a prototype. It will be hard, it will be ugly, it will suck, but if you approach it as a prototype, an opportunity to test your ideas and improve on your plans. And if need be, make five prototypes. Or more. Who cares.
Remember the story of the invention of the lightbulb. It is said that it took Thomas Edison over a 1000 attempts to figure out the lightbulb.
Give yourself permission to experiment, especially when you are not exactly sure how the final product should look like or work. It’s not just how you get what you want, but how you get good at it.
Increase your loose tolerance
Tolerance is a permissible limit of variation, in making mainly in a physical dimension. How much off the specific dimension can be off from the specification.
It’s also a metaphor for making. Nothing will be perfect from the first try, and it would be foolish to expect anything different. If you expect to get it done the first time, or even if you punish yourself when you come up short, you will never be happy with what you make and making will never make you happy.
Helmuth von Moltke, a Prussian Field Marshall and 19th century war strategist said: “No plan survives contact with the enemy”. And no project plan survives first contact with implementation.
You must learn to “tolerate” that your journey and learning path might take some detours and dead ends. Building one thing? Do four. Make enough parts for four items, because you are going to mess up.
You will mess up making parts, assembly, finishes, but if you plan for these mishaps and increase your reserve, your tolerance, you have higher chances ending up with at least one satisfactory result.
Me and making
As a kid I was into making, into model making and random crafts, from drawing and painting, to building a boat from plastic bottles, to photography, and even poetry and music making.
Unfortunately, many of my interests faded out over the years. We all know it. When you are a kid, you have all the time in the world to follow these interests. Then puberty hits, then college, and then “real” life. Work, rent, taxes. And all what was is now somehow not important.
I am trying get back into making, one outlet is this website, where I can practice programming and writing. But also, into crafting, leathercrafting specifically.
For some time, I have been thinking about starting leathercrafting, but there was always something else to do. Now, the book reignited in me the flame of the interest
I did come up with million things I need to do before, why I can’t start doing things right now, like decluttering the living room and rearranging furniture to make space for my “workbench”, things I need to learn etc., but at least now I have a plan, a list, a project I can work on and iterate.
And if there is one more thing to take away, it is to encourage your children and support them to make things. Create a positive supportive environment, give them tools to try and learn.
Otherwise, they might keep their obsessions and interests in secret, they might bottle them and then they fade out. Because what you like makes you vulnerable and we all need to feel safe to share ourselves with the world.
Would I recommend this book?
I think it is worth reading for everybody even slightly interested in making. Making anything, but especially physical crafting. If you are a beginner maker or somebody who is struggling to get started, this book can help you reignite the flame that is fading out.
And if you are a fan of Adam Savage, get the audiobook version. It can help you bust some of your personal blockers and get you behind the workbench.
Is this book a keeper?
If you are somebody who needs regular motivation to keep going, I would keep this book and re-read it every now and then. Every time you feel lost and need a push to get making again.
For everybody else, once might be enough. Or twice, especially the chapter about the glues.
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