Editor’s Letter: What is the future of woodworking?
One reader can see a time when computers have become the dominant and, eventually, only tool used by most people to create furniture and other wood objects.
Imagine this: You’re lying in bed, thinking about a beautiful new end table you would like to build, with maple for the casework and walnut for the framing. You mentally run through a list of furniture styles and settle on Krenov. You know this is a complex style, but you are sure you have the skill and ability to create a professional piece. You connect to your neural link, mentally call up the appropriate file, and think: EXECUTE.
You hear the machinery in your shop begin the process of wood selection as you drift off to sleep. The next morning you walk out to the finishing enclosure. It has automatically vented, and the UV finish that was applied is hard as a rock. The end table is perfect, of course. You admire the flush joinery and the flawless finish. You congratulate yourself on your woodworking skills and the amazing furniture you build.
Given the rapid pace of technological progress, this future is not far off. Woodworkers already use CNC (computer numerical control) machines to cut their wood into perfect pieces ready for assembly. Already we have cabinets cut by computers that require nothing more than simple assembly. We have other technology that could be easily adapted to woodworking. With computer programming, we could automate the process from CNC to assembly mechanisms and finishing spray rooms.
Is this really woodworking? If the use of CNC is considered woodworking, why wouldn’t this fully automated future also meet that test? Progress has always challenged us to rethink what our life and efforts mean. Power tools changed woodworking throughout the 20th century. Some craftspeople consider hand tools to be the only implements that “real” woodworkers can use, rejecting power tools as cheating.
To me, the answer is that using CNC still requires considerable handling of the wood before it can become furniture. Rather than opening a box, woodworkers must first program the machine to cut the specific parts needed for the project, then choose their wood and load it onto the bed of the CNC. The woodworker also has to take the CNC-cut wood and prepare the parts for either prefinishing or assembly.
While I suspect that there will always be some semblance of what we now consider “woodworking,” I can see a time when computers have become the dominant and, eventually, only tool used by most people to create furniture and other wood objects. I hope that one of the various woodworking conventions considers it worthwhile to present a roundtable discussion on the future of woodworking before we surrender the beauty, originality, and authenticity of the craft to artificial intelligence.
—Tom Waltman, Elk Grove, Calif.
Editor’s reply: Thanks for the note, Tom! Because woodworking always involves some sort of tool between us and the wood, the form that tool takes will always be up for debate. For me, and likely many readers, a big deciding factor is in the nature of the experience that a tool offers. Some of us are happiest at the workbench putting a hand tool to work, while others (myself included) find joy in engineering an effective machine setup. Still others like to embrace the latest technologies. I look forward to hearing from other readers regarding the work they find most rewarding in the shop.
—Mike Pekovich
Fine Woodworking Editor and Creative Director
Comments
I land with you, Tom. Though I certainly hope our corporate overlords don't relegate human interaction in wood working exclusively to setting items on a CNC table or preparing parts for prefinishing and assembly.
My partner taught online for her alma mater this last fall. Both of us are rather young, but old enough to have never faced the option to utilize a large language model (eg chatGPT) for our education. There was a pretty extensive training and course dealing with such matters, and I was fortunate to have the opportunity to listen into some of the material in the training.
Basically, my take away from it was that these digital tools (like all technology, from the humble pointy stick to the venerated particle accelerator) are really just a different way to interface with the world we live in. In the case of writing, ChatGPT offers a particular mode of thinking. Measuring AI versus talking, writing with a pencil (or even a pen), typing on a type writer, or drafting on a computer- all of these processes inherently result in a different mode of considering how you use language and form ideas. Who controls ChatGPT and how they aim to use the data is another (in my opinion, inseparable) conversation entirely.
I think the same goes for these computer driven tools in wood working and other forms of craft- especially as we see various computer aided design tools (or machines) coming into home / small shops. When I think of solving a problem with hand tools, versus when I use my stationary tools, versus my Shaper Origin, or consider something with a gantry CNC, I am decidedly not solving the same problem. I'm thinking in different modes and often solving for different problems.
I don't really want to cut a million of something small and repetitive, but likewise I don't really want to lose the joy of thinking with my hands while I solve through a problem. While I see why some may choose, for political decision, to opt away from wood working technology reliant on subscriptions or proprietary services, hopefully moving forwards we can cease seeing hand tools vs machines vs computers as a siloed problem and consider them as tools for doing what we love best.. wood working.
I come from the Norm Abrams school of woodworking. I use a mix of machines and hand tools. But to me there is craft in woodworking. AI in my opinion eliminates the craft. I am not a Luddite, I worked in computers for years and appreciate the advances they provide. But doing a craft should not be precluded by using AI. There is a real satisfaction that comes with handling the wood and shaping it to a fine piece of furniture.
regarding Tom Waltman's article on computers and CNC machines in woodworking.
While these two certainly have their place in woodworking, mainly in production settings, to incorporate them into the home woodworkers shop is another matter altogether. Yes new tools have always been a boon to we who work wood, it must be remembered that for everything gained their is something lost, whether we realize it or not.In that vein computers and CNC may make our finished products more perfect but what is lost in that translation? Will we know ? can we ever know ? The law of unintended consequences is unavoidable, there will be a price to pay somewhere down the line PS. An article on air brushing is more suited to artists weekly or some such publication not fine woodworking. Jerry Blackburn New York
Don't forget the product while you concentrate attention on the process. The hand-made piece of furniture, etc. shows in its surfaces the moments in the life of the maker in a way that no machine-made thing can. The future of our craft is not only in the hands of craftspeople, it's also in the hands of the people who use our pieces and may thereby experience a connection with someone, unknown perhaps, but still present in those marks in the surface of the wood.
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