I love FWW, and I eagerly every fresh issue. But I’ve been growing increasingly tired, and now very frustrated, with one problem: the way the articles ignore hand-tool wood workers. Don’t get me wrong, there have been tool tests over the years and the occasional how to cut dovetails article.
Let me give an example. Beautiful articles in the last issue about cutting muntons for glass panes (on a table saw) with gobs of jigging/fixturing to make it small part safe, and another on a bevel/curved table end. Again, on the TS. Why ALSO show how to do these with hand tools? These features are on furniture going back 400 years!
The omission of small parts work is especially egregious. There are almost never articles that deal substantively with boxes, small parts and pieces, and other furniture “jewelry”. This is almost exculsively addressed on the table saw or router table with gobs of ‘safety measures’. I’m betting I’m not the only table-saw-deprived woodworker that wants to be shown how to do these small parts with saw, chisel, and plane. It’s not obvious, especially as in many cases workholding is a challenge!
There are a fair number of hobbyists that want to do this hobby with their kids. And we buy millions of dollars of tools every year. How many trestle tables for 12 is a weekend warrior going to chisel out of a solid block of tree with his 8 year old? It was a great article for handtools but….it was treated like the novelty it is. Give us kid friendly size work (like boxes, like small shelves and cases) using exclusively hand tools! Fathers and sons/daughters can do tons of those…but you can use a Tablesaw to do the substantive work with 12 year old.
Come on FWW, help us out!
Replies
I must wonder what drives content...
I remember switching off from the New Yankee workshop when I did the "get started" math. Beginning with handtools (and projects of a more manageable scale) was feasible - buying all the machines was not. I'm also with you - smaller is better.
Get a copy of Anthony Guidice's "The Seven Essentials of woodworking" to see why there are limitations on what can be shown with a handtool approach. It would be hard to fill an issue with "surface the two reference faces and rip to width..."
I like to adapt Michael Dunbar's approach to my projects, as power tools play a lesser role in my projects. He has articles featured prominently in FWW.
CH Beeksvort is a regular contributor who seems to incorporate lots of handwork in his articles.
I suppose the difficulty comes from the necessary speed that the Big Dogs must employ to make a profit. That requirement leads to lots of machine tools as labor savers that allow a solo maker to remain in business.
Oddly enough, I build small things most often but eagerly read about the more ambitious projects.
Half the time, FWW is pure entertainment - half of my read throughs are instructional - a fine editorial line, that.
I was struck by the same thought, on both the table end bevel. How much faster to just clamp the thing down, hog off the waste with a drawknife and clean up with a plane, instead of making a jig to hold the top upright on the sawtable, then reset-and-resaw all those facets, only to have to fair them together after all?
And, using a router to recess just over 1/8" deep, the background on the panels of that Pilgrim chest? Not just rout away to a precise depth what in the original would have been a purely "by eye" setting in, but the article recommended changing from a 1/4" bit to a 1/8" and finally a 1/16" bit to get into the tight places! By that time, you could have done the setting in with hand tools, and had a more authentic-looking job to boot.
Ray
"How much faster to just
"How much faster to just clamp the thing down, hog off the waste with a drawknife and clean up with a plane"
Ray, I haven't read the articles, although I believe those issues of Fine Woodworking mentioned sit, as yet, unopened in my pile of literature that I'd like to read but just haven't got time for! But I do similar to you except I substitute a hand held power plane for the drawknife.
It's a lot less aggravation than poncing around with shoogly jigs to hold the panel upright on a table saw and frig about like a deformed and demented turtle with the sawblade set at a bit of an angle, which is an illegal operation in this country anyway because it means removing the riving knife and crown guard. However, if I do go down the machine route for that kind of work I simply fire up the spindle moulder (shaper in the US), fit a block with the appropriate bevel cutters and limiters and do the job properly and safely. Slainte.
Ray,
You and Richard are still back in the dark ages. All one needs these days to make furniture efficiently is a set of "models" and a nice CNC machine. Making the models is a pain, but once you have 'em, you can churn out the product fast and easily.
Years ago, I did Ham Radio. I used a key to send Morse code and a 100 watt Heathkit. The world passed me by. All the kids in Ham Radio started using computers to soup up their radios. I was like the last dodo bird -- almost extinct.
My wife is a quilter. You cant find many quilting sewing machines that don't have embedded computers. It is interesting to see big quilting machines working away with a computer in control.
Now all youngsters are growing up with computers. Hooking up a computer to a lathe should be fairly easy. Routers on X-Y boards have been around for a while. Auto carving machines have been around for a while. CNC machines continue to evolve.
I see a lot of folks getting into turning pens. I can just see a new pen turning machine that will do 2000 an hour.
The world belongs to woodworkers with CNC machines and the creativity to make some good models. Just think what would happen if the folks at the Wadsworth Athaneum decided to use the furniture in their collection as the models for next generation CNC machines? Of course, CNC machines will evolve to be much more flexible than current models.
I really would like to see FWW do some articles on the future of the business of woodworking. Where is technology taking us?
Just think what Mozart could have done if he had a hundred synthesizers. He could have programmed an orchestra. Just think how far Tommy Chippendale could have gone if he had a shop filled with CNC machines.
We need to speed up your computer if you are going to lead the charge into the FUTURE OF WOODWORKING. I want the great state of Virginia to take the lead in moving into the future.
Have fun.
Mel
I think I may have..
done that kind of work a few times. On the last two tables I've built, they needed a nice, WIDE champfer along the top edges. I simply used a handplane for the work. On the end grain, I worked in from the corners, and met in the middle. Out on the edges, just a few strokes of the plane, at the "finished" angle, made a nive bevel. Done the 'cordless way", at that. a picture, you say?
They must have heard you.
Perhaps they saw your post coming. The last issue had an article on how to inlay dragon flies made from exotic materials and abalone dots which I would classify as furniture jewelry. Then there was love song to the Lie Neilsen bevel up plane which I own, but am not as enamored. So I think the magazine does a reasonable job with hand tools. It is a balance.
Take cutting bevels (more than a small chamfer) on the underside of table tops. When it came to cutting 3/4" deep by 8" long tapers on the ends underside of some tops, it was more than I wanted to tackle with hand tools. I ended up roughing them out by re sawing 4" pieces on a table saw and glueing them to the top. Even the long tapers were cut first on the table saw and then glued to the bottom of the top. The machines were used to vastly reduce the work.
The hand tools were used to finish the roughed out pieces. I don't know how I would have done it otherwise. The tops drop over the cabinet box and hide the joint between the cabinet box and top. So we each work out how to solve a problem that confronts us. It is fun, if a bit scary to see how someone roughed out a bevel on the curved ends of a top. And I think it might be just as scary to help a 12 year old make a large table.
Peter
Too much time required to make it and waste of materials
By the time I made the jig and scribed the lines I could have done the bevel with a hand plane, I know cause I made a bevel for a demilune table with a carriage plane this way.
What do you do with the jig after you use it? Seems to me the jig mentality as opposed to acquiring a hand skill is a waste of time for the ww doing one of pieces. Sure if you are making 100 pieces of the same then the jig is the way to go, for one piece I am sticking to hand tools as much as I can.
dance of the jigs
I think the jig mentality is: "You need wood to make a jig; you buy "jig wood". You may need this or that special tool or router bit to make a jig; you buy it". Hence, you spend more money. Advertisers will come to the magazine that has articles that promote more spending. ☹
I believe the real difference between the power-tool and the hand-tool mindsets is one of process. Power tool folks want the finished product now. Hand tool folks also want the finished product, but the process of creating via tactile response with the wood and tools is as equally important as the finished good.
My personal feeling is, power tool folk spend a lot of time getting ready to make something (building jigs, etc.) while hand tool people spend their time just making a thing. ☺
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