Sssstoppp it; let’s have no more of this nonsense. And no more love letters extolling the beauty of working only with hand tools.
You made something using only hand tools? Yea, and so? What do you want, a medal?
Many of us use hand tools and machine tools, and call machine tools power tools. Just get over it.
Replies
I generally do not chastise someone for their choice of hobby. What's next, defaming philatelists?
Machine tools are for metal working, I don't see how that applies here... unless you are making medals for people.
Someone woke up on the wrong side of his high horse today.
George,
This type of post is not adding to the conversation. In all honestly, it looks like it's meant to be a reply to something, what that is I have no idea. But let's not turn this forum into a place where we just start yelling at people about their opinions.
Just out of curiosity (and only somewhat related to this post), I wonder what % of people work (a) with both power and hand tools, (b) almost exclusively (say, >90 % of the time) with hand tools, or (c) almost exclusively (say, >90% of the time) with power tools. I would have to guess that for both amateurs and professionals, (a) is most likely, but perhaps I am wrong. Ben, you are in contact with a lot of woodworkers; what are your thoughts?
I'm guessing maybe (a) 85%; (b) 3%; (c) 12%.
From log to finished project, I've only known of one woodworker whose projects never see a power tool. Peter Follansbee.
I ha e worked with several friends who LOVE hand tools. We made the Maloof rocking chair. They have made a lot of Windsor chairs, carved the seats with hand tools. Walnut is a little different, harder to work than basswood. They quit before the seats were nicely shaped, look very shallow., poor end result
I use power and hand tools, whatever gets the job done correctly. I don't have a lot of time left in the earthly wood shop to ponder smoothing plane or random orbit sander. I use what ever gives a good result. Honestly, has anyone - outside of a woodworker - ever asked it you built something using hand or used power tools? Is the end result good or not, that is the only thing that matters to me.
Stationary Equipment gets you rough; hand power tools gets you close; hand tools finish the project.
Use the tools and techniques you can afford and feel comfortable with; anything and everything else is just crap.
Could you please explain? After using a stationary jointer, planer or table saw, what hand power tool gets you closer?
Is a wood lathe a power tool or both hand and power?
BenStrano: You're right, my outburst was uncalled for; no excuse for it.
My intended topic: When authors write articles for the magazine, why make it a point to mention the tools not used. Why not just delve into the details of how they used their choice of tools to build their project.
Notice how Sam Maloof describes how he uses his choice of tools to build his rocking chairs. Also notice how he uses "Stationary Equipment gets you rough; hand power tools gets you close; hand tools finish the project."
https://www.finewoodworking.com/1983/10/01/how-i-make-a-rocker-2
At any particular time, a mass media organ such as FWW magazine will reflect certain dominant fashions in the subject-matter it focuses on. Some of these fashions are perennial, "hand tool purity" being one of them.
Mind, it's not often that a corresponding fashion of power tool purity appears - perhaps it does so in the form of those fan clubs that reject any power tool other than their own usually high-end choice? Festoollers, Sawstoppers and the like ....?
There have been a number of prominent WW magazine, book and website authors who have waved the hand tool purity flag, sometime very vigorously. Some of them wave their purity-flag as they also give a First Blast of The Trumpet Against The Monstrous Regiment of Motors. (Do you recall the diatribes of John Brown the Welsh chairmaker against the power tool)? Others allow the use of motors but sneer a bit at anyone actually using one.
Much of the English Arts & Crafts movement centering on Ruskin and Morris was anti-machine in general, as an armature of The Dark Satanic Mill and all it's social ills. There's still quite a bit of that about in woodworking circles.
As with all such adamantine ideological stances, there's often a few germs of truth lurking beneath the tomes and rants of dogma and cant. For example, hand tool working tends to provide a more intimate understanding of various timbers because the feedback from the tool is more direct to the human muscles, sinews and nerves operating it than feedback mediated via a powerful motor. Handle tools are more simply jigged than many power tools, which means the user must exert more and finer control, also providing more detailed information about the wood being tooled; and perhaps higher wood-forming skills or abilities.
But power tool use requires its own set of skills and knowledge of the tool-wood interface. Some understanding of wood and how it works can only be got via a power tool because of changes to the working-events that can only happen with the application of a lot of power.
*****
In all events, it would be disingenuous of a mass media organ like FWW to pretend that it has no opinion about these matters. It is a broad church but various high-priest authors inevitably impart some of their ideological stance about tool use along with their how-to information. And not just around the power-hand tool schism. Some get very adamant about "the only right way" to use various tools; or even "the only right tool for this task".
Others start fads that The Faithful take up in droves. Blue tape; kumiko in everything. :-)
It's human nature, see? We all love to get tribal, ideological and even religious about, oh, any and everything.
Lataxe
What Lataxe Said.
And...
I think there is a bit of a journey we all take, becoming over time more confident in the use, maintenance and set-up of tools.
As new techniques are learned, more or less use is made of others.
I for one, have always been a power-tool only user, but am happy to admit that this is due to a lack of knowledge about hand tools, having lacked education and growing up before the internet, never mind youtube was a thing.
Now I have got to the point where I will reach for a plane or chisel simply because they do the job quickly. I will hand-saw small numbers of joints because with a good saw (thanks Veritas) it is quicker to do that than set up the table saw.
I have moved from jointing on the jointer to using the table saw (Thanks Felder!) again because it is quicker and easier.
Essentially, I pick the route that is quickest at the time, and as my skills have developed over time, I find myself using hand tools more and more.
It will, however, be a cold day in hell when you catch me re-sawing by hand unless it is something too big to fit on a band saw! Similarly, planing to dimension by hand is something that I have done once to say I could, then relegated to the dustbin. When my planer-thicknesser broke, I did other things instead of manually planing!
I do like to see 'hand-tool only' projects though as I know they will include a lot of interesting skills, and I also know that I have the option to use power tools where I choose to, if I am going to copy the work.
Most people who do a few projects totally with hand tools benefit in my opinion by developing hand tool skills. They also learn to appreciate power tools for speed, flexibility and accuracy after hand tool laboring. I for one will start to learn more about using power tools safely.
Just lately the WW shed has seen a small procession of newbies spending a few hours enjoying the pleasures of basic woodworking. Two elder ladies of the wimmin's institute and a grandson, to be precise. (More WI ladies are queuing up). Of course, the pupil often teaches the teacher ....
One lesson I learnt from these visitors to the shed is that tool selection for a job can vary with not just experience or inclination but with physical aptitude. Those with a significant bit of arthritis in the hands and those with little muscle strength and co-ordination naturally prefer a power tool, even if they really want to use the corresponding hand tool.
Another lesson I learnt is that we modern folk seem to have acquired a global assumption that faster is better, as it "saves time". Time saved for what is never too clear. Watching more tele? Sitting around bored? I am constantly reminding them, as they saw, chisel, route or sand ... "There is no hurry. It's better to get it right than to do it fast".
Hand tool use can underline this advice as an error in usually small and spotted before the leg or apron is completely chewed up. Power tools often allow a fast charge into a horrible error-bodge; or even the loss of two fingers and a chunk of palm.
****
On another tack .... despite doing rather more hand tooling myself lately - out of a desire to play rather than for any for inherent "efficiency" or "speed" - I've also resurrected The Woodrat & its Dewalt 625 to perform some operations with them I've not done before. I'm working up to doing a single set of secret mitred dovetails, both by hand and by woodrat, just to compare the quality and the ease or difficulty involved with each. Pure play, since I'm unlikely to ever make a piece of furniture employing secret mitred dovetails.
Perhaps I will have an epiphany and come on here in a few weeks with a rant about how the Woodrat should be worshipped ... or burnt as a work of Beelzebub? :-)
Lataxe
In some cases, such as someone who can't run power tools when they would like to (i.e., they live in an apartment or duplex, or their young children are sleeping), hand tools might be the only way to get things done, as they are quiet for the most part (with a few exceptions, such as pounding on mortise chisels). Also, as someone who now has a houseful of furniture and isn't in a hurry to get something done in order to get onto the next needed project, using hand tools is a pleasant diversion and a new challenge.
Also, I can envision a day in the future when I won't have the ability to use large power tools safely anymore (although if that's my future, I might rather die in my sleep before then), and for a few final years using a small collection of hand tools and a bench might be the only alternative. It's the same reason that I am learning to carve - a new challenge (much harder than furniture building, IMO) and something that doesn't require a lot of space and is pretty safe (although don't ask my wife, she cut herself badly years ago and required stitches, and hasn't gone near a carving tool since).
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