I am very interested in some opinions about the future of woodworking. CNC machines have been around for a while, many shops use them would you? The price of some CNC machines
( http://www.shopbottools.com/ ) is comparable in some cases or more affordable than a shop full of different machinery. Anyway this automation certainly opens up woodworking and customizing to a wider variety of people.
They definitely are cool machines.
Example of CNC furniture: ( http://www.becausewecan.org/ )
Salvaged
Edited 9/12/2007 11:54 pm ET by salvaged
Replies
I’d love to have a CNC machine as long as no one knew I had it, and I had the only one in existence. In other words I’d love to impress people by putting intricate carvings into my work and have them think I had Michael Angelo type talent, and perhaps get rich with such “talent”. The long term effect of such machines is not difficult to figure out. As the machines get cheaper and better, anyone will be able to create master works of art. It will cheapen the work of people who have real God given talent.
My thoughts exactly!Salvaged
To a certain degree I would agree with you but woodworking is like photography or any other art/craft the tools only take you so far and no matter how good the camera/tool you have it won't make you Ansel Adams or Sam Maloof that vision comes from within along with years of practice. I do think the CNC machines can speed up the process of making something and more important copying something.Take careTroy
I don't think that CNC machines speed up the process of making at all - at least not for one-offs. It can take several days of CAD-CAM work, tool setting and jig making before you actually cut anything. And then it still only cuts shapes and drills holes in essence, so making even simple one-offs can still be faster and cheaper by hand. There is also a danger that being constrained to what can be envisaged in a CAD environment can stifle creativity. Where CNC routers really can score is where you have repetitive or semi-repetitive tasks, such as cutting-out and drilling the cabinet components for a 12 cabinet kitchen. At least that's been my experience of running them commercially and is probably why the small to medium semi-bespoke shops see a place for them
Scrit
Edited 9/15/2007 12:22 pm by Scrit
Woodman,
I have a theory that says, "The craftsman with a passion for his work is more likely to be an artist".
No machine has passion!
I realize this thinking is what some might call a rejection of machines. Not quite true, at least in my case. I mostly use machines to do the grunt work, kind of like apprentices.
All surfaces are then refined with hand tools.
I used to think that I could make all my pieces with machines because I lacked the skills to use hand tools. All my pieces ended up looking like, well, like machine made furniture.
When I looked at a craftsman/artisans pieces I was amazed. I thought, "I want mine to look more like his". So I spent 2 years apprenticing for him on a part time basis. I eventually worked my way up to using saws, planes, chisels, scrapers, rasps, etc.
It was and still is nirvana! Different strokes for different folks. Makes for a great world.
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
A friend of mine transitioned from part time amateur wwer to a full time pro about 3 years ago. His bread and butter is his CNC router. He used to build custom furniture but found it very labor intensive, competitive, and expensive. The router allows him to venture into unusual custom parts out of various materials. It has amazing potential...the skill set requirements involve knowing how to run the computer as opposed to his wwing tools. He's doing less and less traditional wwing, but stays very busy with his CNC router work.
He still uses his traditional machines to mill stock down when needed, but parts from the CNC dominate his day. It's a far cry from fine craftsmanship in the traditional sense, but it allows him to make a living using his shop and working for himself, which is an aspect that he really enjoys.
Salvaged,
I have been programming CNC machines for 32 years and it pays for my woodworking habit very nicely. Virtually all I have done is in metal, not wood, but there are two sides to CNC. On the one had it will do things that are virtually impossible to do by hand and it will do it over and over again with precision. On the other hand, you will definately see the difference between a CNC machine run by a machinist/craftsman and a button pusher. And a CNC machine will never duplicate the surface produced by a well tuned hand plane or sharp chisel.
To me the fun is in creating a cutter path (CNC program) that is efficient, smooth, cost effective, etc, basically putting the craftsmanship into the numbers.
Jim
PS: I would love to have a CNC machine in my shop.
You're dead on. It's just a tool in the end. And like any tool, it's only good for certain things, and only as good as the person using it.Sure, there are things it can do that you can't really do quickly (or at all) by hand. But then there is tons of stuff you can't do with the CNC that you can do much quicker by hand.For example, there isn't a single dovetail on anything on that website. ;-)I'm one of the folks at the company posted above. We're not even wood workers, actually, we're a design-build firm that does furniture and interiors. The CNC has let us make some stuff within our shop, and to lower the prices of some stuff so that our clients can afford more than they would have before. But there is still so much we can't do that we still hire stuff out to a 'real' woodshop when the demand is there. If anything we're actually creating *more* work for some local shops here, for the clients can afford more fancy things due to the CNC lowering the costs of certain steps, so they wind up getting more done then they would have before.Make me wonder if when tablesaws came out if folks thought it was going to make hand-sawing a thing of the past. It sure doesn't look like it has to me... if it has then I've missed the boat, for still with the CNC I wind up hand-sawing a lot.
Jeff,
Funny you should mention dovetails. I could easily create a program to cut any size/shape/angle dovetail in minutes and have the fit be 0.001" or any other value. But it just wouldn't be the same.
Also note that a widely used method of clamping a part in a metal cutting CNC machine is a dovetail vise. The tail is in the part and the jaws grab the tail. Simple, strong, and accurate.
I agree, it is a tool , how you use that tool determines the "craftsmanship". I teach CNC/CAM skills in a high school, and craftsman ship is a very importan part of what I instill in my students - hand tools, machines, CAD, what ever. When a new technology/tool comes along the "purist" always wants to disavow the new...mostly out of fear of the unknown. To give the idea that there is not any craftsman ship with a CNC machine is, in my opinion, off the mark.
Dovetails...hand cut or jig? Tablesaw or EZSmart? What ever works...blood (less is better), sweat and tears is what makes it real.
Donkey
blood (less is better), sweat and tears is what makes it real.
You da man!
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Funny (not Ha Ha funny though) you should mention blood in this thread. A guy in my shop just last week walked behind one of our CNC machines while it was running. Didn't see the carriage coming toward him and it cost him two toes. made quite a mess on the floor.
Donkey,
As a drooler over Fine Woodworking I thought a while back that here at work we needed more craftsmanship in our CNC programmers. So I put together a presentation on craftsmanship in tool paths (CNC programs) using Krenov and big box store cabinets as examples. Both work, do their functions as advertised, BUT which would you rather have your name on, which would you rather own, which will be in a land-fill in 20 years, and which will still be in use 200 years from now.
Sent a copy to the boss for review..... Silence.
I guess the more craftsmanship I put into the numbers, the better I look at work.
I remember a story about a shop needing a large fiberglass mold in a hurry so they bought a pile of mahogany/luan and glued it up. They CNC machined this beautiful mold and varnished it all up ready to use. Then they moved it outside (So. Cal, no rain) overnight. Fog rolled in, wood swelled, crack, pop, firewood.
Until the machine can create something original (by itself), I'd say they're no big thing.
Edited 9/13/2007 5:57 pm ET by Samson
Right, there still isn't an idea machine.But I'd love a plywood-loading machine and a finishing machine! ;-)
Excellent thread, I hope my reflection adds rather than detracts from the the matter.
Salvaged,
You mention a concern for the future of woodworking in relation to the advent of CNC. I feel comfortable with the thought that if we were to jump forward a hundred years, the intrinsic passion we all feel in woodworking will still be there as true and blue then as it always has been. I feel, that as long as there is beautiful wood, humans will craft it.
That said, i offer this perspective.
I am a Pattern Maker. I have watched the revolution and realignment of a trade that was thousands of years in the making. The computer age dictated that evolution. Plain and simple....Learn to program, or learn something else.
Being of an age willing to accept change rapidly i did, and i can tell you that there were times when i was saying good riddance to wood and it's inherently unstable properties. I packed up my walnut Gerstner tool boxes,and swapped them for brown Kennedy metal ones. oiled up the Buck Bros. gouges for storage and bought Parallels and 1,2,3 blocks, filed away the shrink rules and slid the old stuff into the dark recesses of my basement.
15 years passed
Coming out the opposite end, what a different world. I find myself holding tolerances previously unimaginable, i can model on a computer in 3-D most any shape (and lay a tool path on it). I can make a shape on a computer screen , set up my router to run all night and come in the morning to a (lightning gods willing) finished piece.
What is perhaps more important, is that the living i am making now affords me a lifestyle that is at the very least, par with my trade ancestors and if i were to wager...... in most cases, better (not to mention the Masonic vibration never left for a second).
Here's the rub.
Now that Iv'e been to the mountain so to speak trade wise. I find i can not get enough of classical woodworking. I have no desire to digitize a Queen Anne table leg and make a tool path so as to deceive someone to think it's not machine made (although with some creative cutter comp.....parish the thought).
I have found woodworking again and I want nothing more than to use a hand plane to finish stock instead of sanding...hence a L.V. BUS. I want to see birds eye maple appearing from the out feed roller with no tear out, hence the helical head. It is interesting how all those wonderful tools that are now fairly affordable and at our fingertips are the bye product of the very thing we debate.
I may never have a CNC machine in my retirement shop to wail out whatever it is that I'm working on. But twenty bucks and a beer says i'll have an old version of Mater Cam (licensed of course) to bop out a tool path to give to some local small shop with a router so they can cut my raised panels the way i like them.
Funny how that reminds me of how some of the old timers used to stop in and use my planer.
Thanks for the inspiring notion.
Jeff
Metod,
YES!
Regards,
Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Edited 9/13/2007 9:48 pm ET by KiddervilleAcres
Well I think the message is that there are lots of advantages due for those who can change and adapt and still keep their head.Patternmaker got it.
But who can tell me what "Steam punk construction and Victorian sensibilities " means?
Hi Philip, thanks for your input on this subject. Steampunk is as follows
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk I had to give you the link, it's quite lengthy.Salvaged
Holy Smoke, Salv, just let me get my doctorate in Philosophy first, then I will have another go at all that....(;)All that blue writing.....Philip Marcou
Philip,For all time, Generals have fought the latest wars with the techniques developed in the previous war. When wood began to replace stone in architecture, the techniques used were those developed for stone. When we think of the CNC machines of the future, the pitfall is that we do the same thing -- we think that in the future, the techniques will be the same as used today.The debate of Man Vs Machine in design and construction has been around for a long time. What humans bring to the table is the ability to think new thoughts. I believe that the CNC machines of the future will not have the limitations of current CNC machines, which have a limited set of "end effectors" or "cutters". There is absolutely no reason why the CNC machines of the future cannot be developed so as to use a Marcou plane or a scraper as an end-effector. I am proud to say that my oldest son is a roboticist at Stanford University. He uses automation techniques such as "Force Feedback" to "feel" and control the effect of a machine on an object, and he uses computer techniques to control the end-effectors of robots in order to enable the robot to notice an unexpected change in the object, and to compensate for that. This is what a human does when he feels a change in the grain of a difficult board. If a human can do it now, a robot will be able to do it in 20 years. So there is no reason that future CNC machines could not "plane a board" using your hand planes, and there is no reason why they could not be programmed to recognized a change in the grain which requires a different pitch angle, and to recognize when the iron needs honing, etc. In the future, CNC machines will be specifically programmed to emulate the behaviour of the best craftsman. They will be able to paint, using the brush stroke techniques of any known painter. It will be a long time before they will be able to generate a new design, but I am 100% positive that they will be replacing humans in planing large table tops, for example.All Ray Pine will have to do is feed a hand-made drawing of a Chippendale highboy into the computer, and it will develop the shop drawings, select the necessary saws, planes, chisels, gauges, etc, and construct the piece using the techniques that Ray now does. Ray will be able to turn out thousands of "robot hand made" pieces each year which have the same characteristics that his pieces now have. If you look at the robots that paint cars in the large manufacturing companies, and see how they are programmed, you might be surprised. One technique is to have a human hold a "well sensored" spray gun, and paint a car. The machine then learns exactly what the human just did and does it over and over, in a perfect replication. If the human produces a drip at a certain place, the machine will do that in the future. The future is clear - the future of CNC machines will be the ability to use hand tools in the same manner that the top notch craftsman now does. Two years ago, in Prim, Nevada, five cars drove 130 miles over roads, off of roads, through tunnels, across bridges, etc. WITHOUT ANY HUMAN CONTROL. These were normal cars that come from the showroom, that were modified for computer and sensor-based control. After a human turned the car on, and fed it the route it needed to take, no human was allowed to have any contact with the car until it completed its 130 mile course. The 130 mile course had obstacles placed in the road, such as cars, which the robot cars had to avoid. 30 cars attempted the course. Five finished. It took the fastest car about 7 hours. Who would have believed this possible just a few years ago. We have robots which shear sheep!!!!!! Are we less worried about sheep than curly maple boards. The future of woodwork will be fascinating. It will require better and better hand tools such as the ones that you make. Lee Valley and Lie Nielsen and Larry Williams and Mike Wenzloff, and what's that other guy's name, oh yeah, Holtey, will have to work overtime to turn out the "end effectors" for the next generation of CNC machines. Are you ready for the future? It is coming at us fast! When you see Festool buy a CNC machine company, STAND BACK! They will develop a machine that only needs to be put near a stack of wood in order to turn out final products! :-) People like Adam Cherubini will be doing research on the woodworkers of 2007, and will be describing how humans actually used to hold the chisels and planes. Of course the children of future generations will only know of such things via the CDs and DVDs of today. They will look at David Charlesworth sharpening a iron, and say "YEEECHHH,that looks dirty. Why didn't they just let the robots do it?" People like Richard Jones will employ numbers of robots to turn out masterpieces which are indistinguishable from the old "hand made" stuff. Researchers will analyze machines to see which craftsman programmed them. Someone will stand up an shout, "The machine that made this sideboard was programmed by Rob Millard. I can tell by the tool marks that it left."While I have included humor in this response to you, I am very serious about the future, and about how close it is. What would your grandparents have said if they were told that humans would land on the moon and return to Earth soon? It is far easier to program a robotic machine to use a hand plane than to get a human to and from the moon.I foresee these highly capable CNC machines of the future to be able to reflect on their accomplishments, and to be able to write up their conclusions and send them to a website such as this, whereby they keep in touch with each other, and learn from each other. In the future, no humans will be involved in the Knots forum.So enjoy it while you can.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Mel,
In the future, no humans will be involved in the Knots forum.
Not true!
Lest we forget that computers are really stupid. They only understand two things: 1's and 0's!
Someone has to write the software that makes 'em tick.
And being part mechanical devises they are subject to failure at any given moment. Yes I suppose via artificial intelligence they could learn to fix themselves. But again a human will need to make that happen.
Even armed with the most sophisticated intelligence, they could never duplicate you. God, think of it, a whole forum of Mels! HUGE GRIN! I'm laughing so hard I can't hit the Return key!
Regards,
Regards (Oooo0000ps),Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Bob,
You indicated that you think computers are stupid.I correspond by email with relatives in Argentina, Spain, France, and Italy. I speak Italian passably but not Spanish or French. On my computer, I have a program that translates English to and from: German, French, Portugese, Italian and Spanish. When I get a message in Spanish or French, I put it in the translator and it gives it to me in English, along with some errors. I write a response in English and have the computer program translate it into Spanish and send it off. I have been doing this for nearly a decade. While all of my messages have a number of errors, it lets us communicate very well, and the translation program was written a long time ago. The robot car contest that I wrote about was real. Can you imagine 5 cars going 130 miles over a path that was strewn with obstacles, and finishing in 7 hours? As I said, robots shear sheep. I have seen a robot look at a sheet of music and play the music on a piano!!!!! Robots play a good game of ping pong. They have been chess grand masters. Woodworking is not all that hard. That is why I do it. :-)We already have a machine that makes mortises for ready-made tenons. How much longer before Festool has and advanced Domino that does draw bore pinned mortise and tennon? Routers have taken the fun out of hand-done panelled doors! Dovetails may be hard for humans, but they are a piece of cake for machines. Machines are evolving faster than humans! Don't you think?MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Mel,
I was just poking some fun and at the same time stating a fact. All too often I hear, "The computer messed up". It's not necessarily the computer but more likely the operator or the software that failed.
I've worked in the computer industry since 1967 and have seen some incredible changes over the years. Watching Star Wars gave me an appreciation of what could be. Not the animation so much as the characters. It had an influence on me; after all my dogs name is Chewie!
There is absolutely no reason why your prognostications will not come true. If indeed they don't it will take a human being to prevent it.
I remember an old poster that hung on a programmers wall back in '72 while at Wang Labs. It had a picture of a Rolls and it read, "Aschew Obfiscation: If the auto industry had advanced at the same rate as the computer industry, we would all be driving a Rolls Royce for $2.75.
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Greetings Mel!You have been very prolific of late.Your post makes a very serious point, albeit spiced with a dash of your impish sense of humor.Woodworking, per se, is an activity that has no Moore's law, but in the computer world, it has driven the pace of technology. We know with some certainty the processing power that will be available in 2010. And it is not linear! CNC/robotics technology brings Moore's law to woodworkingI see nothing far-fetched or unreasonable in your prognosis, if anything, you are being conservative. At the end of the day, most customers are interested in three things, design, finish and price. They could care less about how a manufacturer achieves that.Regards,HastingsPS I look forward to some more stories from the front line; I am, of course, referring to your part-time activities at Woodcraft.
Hastings,
It is always a pleasure to talk with you. We are of the same mind on the future of computers. You mentioned my "impish sense of humor". Can you imagine what my post would have sounded like if I didn't use humor. It would have sounded brutal. It would go something like:"You are all fools. Your minds are mired in the mud. You must have molasses for brains. I don't see any forward-thinking out there. Soon you small-minded imbeciles will be ruled by those who harness the power of machines" (Here I am talking about Festool, of course. :-)) Of course, I don't think like this, so I don't write like that. You and I and many others will enjoy this advance of intelligent woodworking machines in the coming years. BRING IT ON!!!!!You mentioned my part time job on the front lines (at Woodcraft). I haven't had this much fun in ages. Someday I will write some posts about:
1) how much fun it is to try every new tool that comes out, and what you learn. (of course, I would be fired for doing that.)
2) how much difficulty people get themselves into on woodworking projects before they come in and ask for help.
3) the fantastic craftsman that I meet (three guitar builders in two days, people who do restoration on multi million dollar projects, etc)
4) things to avoid in woodworking.
5) meeting very creative woodcarvers and seeing their work.
6) seeing what people do with exotic woods.
I could keep you laughing for hours with "stupid woodworking tricks" that people have tried.
Luckily, working at Woodcraft, I get to help a lot of people out. This juxtaposition of learning and teaching provides a veritable microcosm of life itself.Good talking with you, Hastings.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Hi Mel,
Thanks for that, but why did you address it to me? I think, especially on reading your message, that I have a fair idea of the present ever advancing levels of cnc sophistication and their potential uses-there is a fascinating example right next door to me where they make electronic components for motor vehicles-the company actually works for a well known German manufacturer of auto lights.Their tool room is manned by an elderly gent from the old school of machine tool makers, but this hasn't stopped him from operating those machines via cnc whenever necessary-which is alot of the time. However, there are still time when his "own hand" has no substitute.
As far as I am concerned, churning out furniture via robots does not appeal to me and I am too late for it. This does not mean that I think a robot produced item of furniture is any better or worse than one produced with the heart. There are many "furniture" items such as kitchen cabinets etc which are best churned out and preferably assembled too by robots- maybe those same chaps can employ their relatives to grow the timber too (dang, that is nepotism, I almost forgot)(;)
Incidentally, many cnc machine tools are capable of sensing when the cutter has reached a stage of unacceptable bluntness, and will even change the cutter themselves. The sensing is done via monitoring of the power consumption.
Philip Marcou
Philip,
I was just having a little fun, thinking about what the future would look like if the robots took over. I have worked with robots, and I am not terribly worried about them taking over. Besides, making a robot that could use one of your planes would be a little like making a robot that could sail a boat. Why?
Have fun.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Bunch of folks thinking about these kind of topics for a living. Kurzweil is has gotten a lot of buzz for his "Age of Spiritual Machines". Looks like the visionary TLA (three letter acronym) of the day is GNR (genetics, nanotechnology and robotics); or is 'nano' is out already and today's buzz word is "Singularity"? In that sense the discussion about CNC in woodworking is rather refreshing.Chris Scholz
Galoot-Tools
Chris,
Nano is comin along. Genetics is leaving its mark. Robotics is everywhere. My wife and I really enjoy this new world, that we didn't envision when we married in 1969. Cooking is much less of a burden than ever before. We even have a book called "Cooking with Costo." Three cheers for the automation that has allowed those of us who choose to do so, to go about our woodwork slowly and with good hand tools, in a way which pleases our souls. When it comes to cleaning and drudgery, we choose automation. When it comes to quilting, my wife does it by hand. I am moving more and more towards hand tools.Interesting, isn't it -- automation and handwork -- feeding one another.Thanks for writing.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Hi Chris,
Robin Williams is a big fan of nano as are the folks at Intel (nano-second, but I always thought it should have been first). :-)
Regards,
Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Edited 9/16/2007 7:12 am ET by KiddervilleAcres
Metod,
I was responding to the sweat and tears part and your suggestion about the primitive ways as a part of the process.
In my hobby pursuits of fine furniture making I use machines to get me close, but I use hand tools to get me there. I could be wrong but I haven't found a machine that can reproduce the hand tools behind the user.
I don't have a disdain for these machine tools but they have yet to replace me. I am grateful for that.
Regards,
Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Dear Salvaged,
CNC's are nice, but what I am really looking for is a machine that will allow me to throw old, stone imbedded, stumps in one end and will spit out fully completed Queen Anne chairs out of the other. Until we make that much progress, I see CNC's as a stepping stone. :-)
BEST,
JOHN
If you're not relying on it for income, I thought woodworking was like life: its about the journey, not the end result.
I got into this not too long ago, with justification not only of building my own quality furniture for less (ha ha), but also to provide a relaxing hobby (that hopefully has nothing to do with my day job using computers).
Andy
CNC machines are not the future, but the current technology for small to medium sized cabinet shops. If you read trade puplications 90% of all the shops profiled are relying on a CNC. I have changed my shop to be CNC centric as well.
Suprisingly they are not all that great for producing the complex carvings you are likely imagining. These types of patterns are very difficult to program from scratch (days and days); so we usually use comercially availible programs that can be resized and stretched to fit the application. Also it can take 3 to 5 hours to cut a reasonably complex carving for a table apron. It is definately better than doing it by hand, but you can outsourse the carvings to another pro for a lot less than the cost of ownership for a machine. Carving simple patterns is a lot easier, but then simple patterns are already availible in finished parts from Outwater and other suppliers for very low cost.
CNC machines (I am talking about big machine like Weeke, Thermwood or Beisse) excell at processing panels. A few weeks ago I processed 35 sheets of plywood for 45 linear feet of cabinetry, including dovetailed drawers, in 8 or 10 hours of machine time, one long day. This included all the dados, holes and grooves. Because of the blind dado joinery the cases were assembled by two of us in one day.
A big hurdle for most shops is learning the software. CNC machines are not really plug and play yet, and the design and post processing software can really hang up some shops. The good news is most CNC owners are happy to cut out parts for you. If you can produce the files in a format they can use, it usually only costs $100 to $200 bucks an hour for the machine time.
Pardon my spelling,
Mike
Make sure that your next project is beyond your skill and requires tools you don't have. You won't regret it.
http://www.demakersvan.com/
Check out the Cinderella table...
This is exactly what we will see more of. My sketch books are full of designs that should only be created by CNC machines. I say this because to attempt other wise might make one go mad! My immediate reaction is that for a born and bread wood worker this is a tool that "has it's place" but as Mel put it the future of technology is changing so fast, if you can dream it, it can be built.Great linkSalvaged
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