{"id":686346,"date":"2026-03-27T21:00:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T21:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/686346\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T21:00:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T21:00:23","slug":"an-arizona-artisans-journey-from-aerospace-engineer-to-woodworker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/686346\/","title":{"rendered":"An Arizona artisan’s journey from aerospace engineer to woodworker"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAM DINGMAN:<\/b> In a woodshop in downtown Phoenix, just off Seventh Avenue, there are three rules posted on the wall, under the heading \u201cRaul\u2019s Rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

RAUL RAMIREZ:<\/b> Number one is hold your work \u2014 so when you\u2019re workin\u2019, you don\u2019t want the piece movin\u2019 around on you, it\u2019s dangerous for that to happen. And then sharp tools \u2014 sharp tools are safer than dull tools. And then: patience.<\/p>\n

DINGMAN:<\/b> That\u2019s the eponymous Raul.<\/p>\n

RAMIREZ<\/b>: My name is Raul Ramirez. My former career was as an aerospace engineer, my degree is in physics. And my love is in woodworking.<\/p>\n

DINGMAN<\/b>: Raul got his start as a woodworker back in the 1960s \u2014 he\u2019d just bought a house, and it didn\u2019t have any furniture in it. So he taught himself how to make his own tables, chairs, cabinets, beds and desks. <\/p>\n

Sixty years later, he\u2019s still woodworking, and in 2013, he helped launch the Southwest Woodworking School, where I visited him recently. On the wall when you walk in, not far from Raul\u2019s Rules, there\u2019s a mounted display of vintage tools: saws, clamps and hand-cranked drills. <\/p>\n

Raul calls it \u201cAntique Alley.\u201d He showed me one of his favorites \u2014 a molding plane with an elaborate handle.<\/p>\n

RAMIREZ<\/b>: This here was made in like 1820. But you see the decorative touches and all that? It really doesn\u2019t need that to be an effective tool. But the old masters, they just took the time to make it look really good.<\/p>\n

DINGMAN<\/b>: My theory about doing things by hand is that it forces you to care, because if you didn\u2019t care you wouldn\u2019t do it the way that takes longer and where it\u2019s easier to make a mistake, or there\u2019s gonna be imperfections or something. Does that resonate with you?<\/p>\n

RAMIREZ<\/b>: Oh, God, yes.<\/p>\n

DINGMAN<\/b>: Raul insists that his students start by doing everything by hand.<\/p>\n

RAMIREZ<\/b>: Our first fundamental course is strictly hand tools, teaches students how to make different pieces using strictly hand tools. There are certain things you cannot do with machines. I like to do it the old ways \u2014 so that\u2019s what we teach.<\/p>\n

\"Raul<\/p>\n

Raul Ramirez helped launch the Southwest School of Woodworking in Phoenix.<\/p>\n

DINGMAN<\/b>: One room of the school is a gallery dedicated to showcasing work by Raul\u2019s students. He showed me one of his favorites: a wooden podium with a sloped top.<\/p>\n

RAMIREZ<\/b>: That\u2019s called a standing desk \u2014 and this was made in the really old style, several hundred-year-old techniques. No measurement tools were used to make this<\/p>\n

DINGMAN<\/b>: No measurement tools?<\/p>\n

RAMIREZ<\/b>: No rulers, no tape measures and so on. It was fun for them to learn how to do that.<\/p>\n

DINGMAN<\/b>: Yeah, that\u2019s fascinating \u2014 and I have to ask you what I\u2019m sure is going to sound like a very stupid question, but: if you don\u2019t have measuring tools, how do you make it so that \u2014 like, you know, all the legs on this desk are the same length?<\/p>\n

RAMIREZ<\/b>: Yes \u2014 and that\u2019s a consequence of using the module.<\/p>\n

DINGMAN: <\/b>The module, Raul explained, is one of the oldest units of measure in woodworking. It\u2019s defined as the distance between the thumb and the pinky of the woodworker’s open hand. To measure wood for a piece of furniture, the woodworker cuts a stick that matches that length, and then uses the stick as the basic measurement for the piece they\u2019re building.<\/p>\n

RAMIREZ<\/b>: And that will translate to proportions in your body.<\/p>\n

DINGMAN<\/b>: So for that standing desk, the woodworker starts with their elbow, which is where the top of the desk should be. To figure out the length of the legs, the woodworker figures out how many modules it is to the floor, and so on. The result is furniture that isn\u2019t just handmade \u2014 it\u2019s customized to the size and shape of the person who\u2019s going to use it.<\/p>\n

DINGMAN<\/b>: What\u2019s important to you \u2014 what do you like about doing it, as you put it, the old way?<\/p>\n

RAMIREZ<\/b>: It\u2019s a skill \u2014 a skill that you build. For me, it\u2019s a feeling of accomplishment, of doing something really fine with your hands. It\u2019s just kind of a satisfaction of being able to do that, and do it well.<\/p>\n

DINGMAN: <\/b>As much as Raul loves hand tools, over the years, he allows a limited amount of machinery into the woodworking program.<\/p>\n

RAMIREZ<\/b>: We have three saw-stop table saws. These won\u2019t cut your fingers off, so that lets me sleep at night. [LAUGHS]<\/p>\n

\"Raul<\/p>\n

Raul Ramirez helped launch the Southwest School of Woodworking in Phoenix.<\/p>\n

DINGMAN<\/b>: Oh \u2014 those are the ones where if it hits the finger, it turns off?<\/p>\n

RAMIREZ<\/b>: Yeah, it falls down below the table and stops spinning.<\/p>\n

DINGMAN: <\/b>Safety was a running theme throughout my conversation with Raul \u2014 it\u2019s something he takes very seriously.<\/p>\n

RAMIREZ<\/b>: We\u2019ve been running since 2013, we haven\u2019t had one serious injury.<\/p>\n

DINGMAN<\/b>: Wow.<\/p>\n

RAMIREZ<\/b>: I pretty well keep an eye on the students.<\/p>\n

DINGMAN: <\/b>After a tour of the workshop, Raul started telling me about his life. For decades, woodworking was just a passion project, something he found time to do when he wasn\u2019t doing his actual job.<\/p>\n

RAMIREZ<\/b>: My career was in, uh \u2014 it\u2019s hard to say. My career was in missiles and so on.<\/p>\n

DINGMAN<\/b>: Hard to say?<\/p>\n

RAMIREZ<\/b>: Well you know, it sounds kinda funny. My training is in atomic physics, and I worked as an engineer working in missiles and things of that nature.<\/p>\n

In this series about analogs, KJZZ’s The Show explores things people make by hand, and what those things tell us about those people.<\/p>\n

DINGMAN<\/b>: Did you have conflicting feelings about that work?<\/p>\n

RAMIREZ<\/b>: Oh no, it\u2019s not conflicting feelings \u2014 I loved my job. I could not wait to get up in the morning and go to work. When I said it\u2019s hard to say, it\u2019s: people look at me as a woodworker and say, \u201cYou did missiles?!\u201d But no, it was very satisfying work. <\/p>\n

But the woodworking just was just \u2026 such a contrast. It was just \u2026 peaceful. You can get some tranquility out of doing that.<\/p>\n

DINGMAN: <\/b>Raul told me that the average age of students at the school is around 35. He doesn\u2019t often get to work with kids – but when he does, those classes are his favorite. A while back, he had a group of 7-year-olds come in, and he helped them make a chess board for their school.<\/p>\n

RAMIREZ<\/b>: You can see them, in their heads, saying, \u201cI made that.\u201d God, just to see their faces, you know? It\u2019s worth its weight in gold.<\/p>\n

DINGMAN<\/b>: That seems like it has a profound effect on you, that sense of \u2014<\/p>\n

RAMIREZ<\/b>: Oh, God, yeah. When you see the lightbulb come on, you say, \u201cGod, it is so cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

DINGMAN<\/b>: After we talked for a while, Raul asked if we could go back to the gallery \u2014 he wanted to show me something. When we got there, he pointed out a painting on the wall. It\u2019s an ocean scene. In the distance, there\u2019s a warship. And in the foreground, there\u2019s a missile, with a plume of smoke trailing behind it.<\/p>\n

RAMIREZ<\/b>: Most of my career was working on this missile \u2014 it\u2019s called the standard missile. This shows the missile being launched off a ship and going toward a target.<\/p>\n

DINGMAN<\/b>: So as you were just saying, we see it being launched, we see the arc of it flying through the air, we see it locking on to the target. Which of those parts were you focused on?<\/p>\n

RAMIREZ<\/b>: Mainly I was focused on what\u2019s called the warhead and target detector. … That\u2019s kind of a big contrast, you know, between that kind of technology and the woodworking. A very big contrast.<\/p>\n

\"Raul<\/p>\n

Raul Ramirez helped launch the Southwest School of Woodworking in Phoenix.<\/p>\n

DINGMAN<\/b>: Do students ever notice it or ask you about it?<\/p>\n

RAMIREZ<\/b>: Yeah \u2014 yeah, someone will ask. They\u2019ll be pretty surprised at the way we focus on woodworking and that I did this before, you know?<\/p>\n

DINGMAN<\/b>: Yeah. What do you make of that surprise?<\/p>\n

RAMIREZ<\/b>: Um, contrast. People have notions, you know? They see you around here and they think, \u201cWell, maybe that\u2019s all I did.\u201d<\/p>\n

DINGMAN<\/b>: On the other side of the gallery, one of Raul\u2019s pieces hangs on the wall. It\u2019s a circular sculpture he calls \u201cTransformation.\u201d He says it\u2019s a depiction of the wheels of time. Raul pointed to the left half of the circle, which is copper colored, with flecks of deep red.<\/p>\n

RAMIREZ<\/b>: This is when the Earth was forming, and things were kind of in chaos \u2026<\/p>\n

DINGMAN<\/b>: The other half of the circle is bright and metallic.<\/p>\n

RAMIREZ<\/b>: And then you transition through time to the silver part, where it depicts the age of enlightenment.<\/p>\n

DINGMAN<\/b>: As he talked me through the piece, Raul had this unmistakable twinkle in his eye. He asked me to look closer, and when I did, I noticed that there were some silver patches in the red chaos section \u2014 and some red spots in the silver.<\/p>\n

RAMIREZ<\/b>: You\u2019ll see that you got some enlightenment comin\u2019 through chaos. And then here you\u2019ve got some dark spots even during the enlightening period.<\/p>\n

DINGMAN<\/b>: And was that intentional?<\/p>\n

RAMIREZ<\/b>: Yes. Yes.<\/p>\n

KJZZ’s The Show transcripts are created on deadline. This text is edited for length and clarity, and may not be in its final form. The authoritative record of KJZZ’s programming is the audio record.<\/p>\n