A Judges Thoughts

• Wow. Completely impressed with the level of craftsmanship. There were so many entries so close in quality that it was often terribly difficult to separate them. Being a "State" and not a divisional or local competition, the high and even level of quality should be expected, though.  All of the wood division judges were very very impressed with all of the entries.  It was often very difficult to believe that these wonderful pieces of woodworking were created by high school students 15 to 18 years of age!
• Wood Finish  ... Yes, it's that important. It can't really make a poorly designed or made piece better but it sure can destroy an otherwise beautiful one.
• Bumps, knicks and scratches happen when unloading and setting up. The judges know that. For the most part, we can recognize those and they don't enter into our scores. However, realize that a customer or gallery will not care how it happened, just that it did and you have to fix it if you deliver a piece in that condition to them. Take time and care of your pieces so that they don't get damaged. That's a part of craftsmanship too.
• Yes, we do look underneath. Not so much to see the finish, but to see the construction methods and quality. This becomes especially important when determining a "Best of" and when the leading contenders are so close in all other aspects.
• Enough with the Pledge Wax (tradename) and other furniture polishes, already! Yes, it makes your piece shiny but it's oily and sometimes gives the look of an uneven finish absorption into the wood in some light angles. Buff your piece up, if you like, but don't leave it an oily mess.  And the smells give us a headache.
• Missouri is blessed with an abundance of wood species. Try exploring something other than red / white oaks and walnut.
• Try using handcrafted hardware such as drawer slides and glass or mirror clips instead of the store-bought metal slides (especially on period pieces) and plastic clips that production cabinet and woodworking shops use to save time / money. Let's see what unique solution you can come up with here.
• Using pre-made woodturned pieces such as finials, feet or reeding saves you time (and skill?) from having to turn those yourself but it's sad to see the exact same things bought from Lowes / Home Depot / etc. used in multiple entries.  Set yourself apart from everybody else and make it yourself.  Frankly, anything pre-made that you buy instead of make yourself just leaves a bad impression on your entire piece.  You're not fooling the judges ... we know where you got those and it makes a bad impression.
• Place accents where they make sense. Not just to fill in space, but where they contribute (not distract) from the design. In reverse, if you have a large "open" space, consider adding some kind of accent. It can be something such as a simple round-over or edge treatment but it can also be something else like a finial, scroll, or carved piece keeping your overall design in mind. Open spaces have their places and design is a very subjective aspect of the competition, of course.
• More woodturned entries, please! Segmented pieces are great but they are not the only type of turning we'd like to see represented.  A firewood pile is a fantastic place to find those interesting large chunks of wood and are very cheap to obtain.
• Refrain from using "buttons" to cover recessed screws. Grain-matched plugs are better. Much better still is a unique joinery solution. You can make it part of your design and earn extra points.
• Think of what your piece requires in the real world. A gun cabinet should have a solid lock in the design. A bed should be sturdy and solid without sharp edges/points where you can hurt yourself. A salad bowl should sit solidly on the table and feel comfortable in the hand (where an artistic piece might not need to be so inclined). A table or chair must be a useful height and made of a material to suit the intended purpose. Tiny feet for large, heavy pieces or huge, bulky feet for dainty pieces don't work. Judges look at the usefulness and suitability of the entry and its' parts to its' purpose too.
• All of the technical documentation such as diagrams, construction pictures and so on (which, by the way, is often a requirement in these competitions so you better do it) are given a brief look-over to make sure you've done them but the judges aren't overly concerned with them.  If your entry has some sort of interesting joinery or construction technique to it, then we'll look at the documentation to see how you did it, but, otherwise, we just mark it off the list of requirements.
• Bigger isn't better.  That's right, just because you made and hauled in a huge full-wall, Victorian-era-laden and inspired entertainment center that takes 2 trailers to haul and 14 men to put together, doesn't mean you're going to get a great score much less a best-of-show award.  It may have taken a year of planning and every spare weekend to make during the school year, but the judges just aren't going to be impressed by size or complexity alone.  In fact, what we are looking for is a balance of many things.  If you're going to make something massive and impressive in size ... you're just setting a bigger target and more for us to find fault with.
• By all means, please ask the judges about your entry and score.  Especially, in the wood divisions, there are normally multiple judges that determine your score and often your score comes down to a "feeling" especially when entries are so closely matched together in score.  Each judge gives weight to different things in a design or construction so we collaborate and come up with a score that satisfies the competitions requirements and our own thoughts.  So, an individual judge can't always fully explain your score but they certainly can explain what they thought about your entry and the score they gave it.  You will learn far more by asking us than simply dismissing your pieces' score.
• This is wood, right?  I mean, it's suppose to be the wood division so give us wood to judge.  It's a pet-peeve of many judges that so many woodworkers go to such lengths to hide the fact that they are using wood (imagine, that!).  Whether it is painting, frequently with some sort of metal paint or guilding, or just simply covering the wood so much with a finish that you can't actually touch it and tell that it is wood. The biggest offenders of this are the "professional" woodturners out there.  Heavily lacquering a nice piece of wood ... even when the finish is well done ... is just criminal.  Frankly, it's the easy way out.  Try putting a great finish on there but yet not putting it so heavily that it looks like a piece of plastic.  The same goes for the recent focus on extensive use of "texturing" on woodturnings.  Think of the use of texturing as a compliment to the wood used and form created ... not the entire point of the piece.  In some competitions, when the judges actually have a little control over things, we will move a heavily carved or artificially textured woodworking / woodturning over to the carving division.  If the "point" or "essence" of a piece is that it's carved / textured then it is no more a woodturning, for example, than it is a "bandsawing".  Just because you used a bandsaw or a lathe to create the base form, doesn't mean that that is what it is.
• The "Sacred Cow" syndrome.   Conventional wisdom says that you shouldn't submit a piece for competition that is similar to well-known pieces of the same type.  Examples:  Rocking chair similar to a Maloof chair.   Any David Ellsworth woodturning.  Doug Stowe boxes.     Most judges don't mind when you've made something that has the look or design of well-known pieces.  In fact, we usually welcome them because we know those pieces so well and can compare yours with theirs.  Of course, we want to see some originality to yours.  Some exploration in design or better technique perhaps.  Please note, this can come back to bite you if you don't do well.  Just a warning.
• Lastly, have a thick skin, keep an open mind, learn from the experience, take the criticism and critiques as intended (normally in a good spirit).  The judges at any competition aren't the complete and final authority on the subject of woodworking.  It doesn't matter who they are (or who they think they are).  A score really is just a number.  It can mean all sorts of things. If you really REALLY want to know how you did with your entry, ask the judges.  If a judge won't talk about it ... or magically isn't available after the competition so that you can .... then don't be too impressed with the value of their score.  They should be able to discuss, at length, the merits or problems with your entry as they see it.  On the other hand, if you don't REALLY want to know what they thought about your entry,  don't ask.  Nothing is more frustrating for a judge to be asked for their opinion and then be yelled at or argued to death about it.

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