I’d much rather work wood using nothing but hand tools. Be like Don Weber and make chairs from a spring pole lathe you make in the forest. Live off the land and carry around all your tools in a wooden tote box. Power tools are for the birds.. chasing the next great invention that will change your woodworking forever ….aka Domino Joinery System… give me an axe, froe, adze and some planes and chisels and I’ll be happy for the rest of my life…
Replies
mvflaim ,
Wouldn't the world be a wonderful place ,,,
Only if it were only you and the Forest and no sales quotas or mortgage payments , woodn't it be nice ,,,
Take your tools on holiday with you in the Forest
dusty
Take your tools on holiday with you in the Forest
We did. It was a nearly 9 year vacation <g>...
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But there was an inexpensive chain saw involved as well...
Take care, Mike
Mike
I'm truly envious of your "vacation". Someday, I'm going to take one just like that. My youngest will graduate college in 5 years (senior now), and then it'll be high on the priority list.
Where's the location of the cabin, and do you still have it?
Jeff
Hi Jeff,
The cabin is in the panhandle of Idaho. As to the spirit of the thread, that is living such a life, it's a romantic notion with an aweful lot of hard work involved. In all likelihood, harder than you have experienced. Certainly a different kind of hard.
While our 60 acres carried a mortgage, it wasn't hard to cover $200 a month. Medical services we had at the time we often bartered with our GP. Good ol' fashioned country doc, even though he was a relatively young man. Two of our sons were born in the cabin, the doc and his wife coming to the house and spending the day while we "waited."
Most services one couldn't do were bartered. Building materials often as well. Need a hand? Put out the word and more people than needed showed up. Fishing, trapping and hunting provided much that wasn't grown. Once again, barter provided foodstuff which in the mountains didn't grow, but did in the valley.
Our first 2 years there took 13-14 cord of heating wood, 4 for cooking. With a more efficient stove (bartered for), we cut the heating wood needed down to 5.
It was hard work. Oh, there were the bear and moose to contend with. With the moose in the winter being worse than the bear in the spring and summer. But then again, there weren't undesirable people to deal with, either. Give me the animals anyday over troublesome people.
It was a great experience. To get a flavor, consider renting or buying the DVD Alone in the Wilderness by Dick Proneke (I think that's how his name is spelled). While it takes place in Alaska, much of the life even we lived is in that film. Our winters had -20/F temps, 4-5 feet of snow. It was full of times like this...this being our oldest son a couple years after the previous picture was taken.
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Take care, Mike
Edited 8/18/2007 2:18 pm by mwenz
Hey Mike
When did all this take place? the photos look like vintage 60's or 70's
Yes it is hard work but 150-200 years ago it was just the way of life, And from the looks of it a few of us wouldn't mind the hard work to live like that.
I would give anything to take my family and my tools to get away from all this craziness that called civilized life.
Take care.
Hi NE,
We built the cabin in 1977, which is when the first picture I posted in this thread was taken. The other two are a couple years later. We were married in 1974, so the boy in the first picture, our oldest son, was a wee lad when we moved. Two more sons were born in the house.
If one can arrange their life to make the move and is mentally prepared--because it isn't 150 years ago--it is a wonderful life. The work is "honest" work. Sometimes a mixture of blood, sweat and tears.
We weren't really prepared. I had spent a couple summers going up on the weekends to help a friend build her cabin. Another good mutual friend began going up with me the second year. At the end of that summer, he handed me the keys to his car (which we used to travel from Oregon to Idaho in) and told me he was staying. The next year we moved onto our 60 acres.
I logged for most of the 12 years we lived up there (we moved down into the valley for the last few) and if I hadn't rolled one of my sidders 240 feet down a steep hill we would probably still be living up there.
Take care, Mike
Mike
I've seen the show you speak of regarding the fella who lived alone in Alaska, built his cabin, and made a life alone in the wilderness. It was some show, and he must have been one heckuva tenacious guy to endure it all alone.
My personal dream once the kids are all set is to live a quiet, peaceful life on a lake in a home I build myself with lumber I mill myself. I don't see a pitsaw in my future, though. I definately think the Lucas Mill will be coming along with me.
I'm only a bit aware of the hardships involved, as the only exposure I have had was extended fishing and hunting trips, mainly to the remote areas of northern Manitoba, but the peace of it all appeals greatly to me. With all the luxuries that life has to offer, I'm happiest when on the water with rod and reel or in the field with shotgun in hand and Trooper at my side.
I'll let you know how it all turns out!! <g>
Jeff
Mike ,
That was more of a way of life or life transformation !
" That's what I'm talking about "
dusty
Hey Dusty--it was all the above. Home schooling--too far to get kids to school. Our "drive way" was 1 1/2 miles ling, the first mile up hill. At the foot of the road was our nearest neighbor. Another 18 miles got one into town (Sandpoint).
We fished nearly everday once the ice was off the rivers and creeks. One thing I miss most was coming in from the woods and seeing my wife had baked some of the 8 loaves per week she baked. Ripped a half-loaf off, grabbed a pint of canned Blackberry jam and sat on the porch. Life was good.
Take care, Mike
mike,
Get yourself a ghost writer, you've got a goldmine of stories to tell..
"no sales quotas or mortgage payments"
Now you're talking... selling in this housing market I soon may not have a mortgage payment anymore....
Ahhh what a wonderful world it would be living off the land with no bills to pay... that is, until you get sick or needed medical attention....then it would suck.
You would no longer get to be here on Knots though, no power, no internet.
uh oh... you're right... i enjoy Knots too much for that... maybe I'll have to get an iPhone and pay the phone company in the wooden crafts I make....
Napie,
That would indeed be missed.
Sounds like another victim of Urban Sprawl to me. I live just outside a small town (approx. 2,500) and it's almost like living as Mike would like. We can walk down to the barn, saddle up the horses and ride. Take to the snowmobile trails and presto, you're in the woods.
Guess I have the best of both worlds, or it seems to me. We moved away from the sprawl about 12 years ago and have never looked back.
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
I couldn't agree with you more. When I'm working for myself, on a piece for my own home, I work in hand tools, and thoroughly enjoy the peace and quiet. However, when I've got job to complete like the one I'm working on now (15' long X12' high library wall in a new construction home), I really appreciate the tools with tails.
Jeff
MV,
Just a few miles north of Galgate, where I live in the UK, is the county of Cumbria (formerly Cumberland and Westmorland). Here there is a long tradition of coppicing and other woodcraft based on those old hand tools you mention, as well as the lifestyle of living in the wood where you work.
Although coppicing declined markedly after WWII there has been a revival of late, with a North West England Coppicing Association set up and running apprenticeships, to encourage the old crafts. Many of the younger folk who have taken the apprenticeship also seek the associated lifestyle and are content to live on low earnings whilst having the low expenses of abiding in basic cottages, caravans or similar, within the woodland they improve, manage and exploit.
Many local landowners who have extensive stretches of wood within their domains have an arrangement with these folk where, for a nominal rent, the coppicer gets the produce of the wood and the right to live in it in exchange for improving and managing the place. Many such woods were once coppiced or otherwise used commercially but have fallen into a parlous state because of the lull in woodcraft since the 1940s.
Some of the more mature people who earn their living from the coppicing trades live in proper houses but they too tend to be the older abodes next-the-wood, with wood burning stoves, wells, septic tanks and even oil lamps. The people I am acquainted with are happy folk, properly set into their world and undistracted by the nonsense that the rest of us receive through the television or newspaper; or by the terrible condition of having to work and live in a modern city. They have actively chosen their life and are well content with it.
Perhaps you would like to be a coppicer in the old country? Or perhaps it is possible to be one in the USA? (There must be similar traditions of coppicing and other green woodworking trades there, I would have thought). It will never be a way of life that will result in a fortune being made; but perhaps that is part of the attraction. The rich seem terribly driven, do they not? All those decisions about where to invest, what to spend it on and then the bother of worrying about it going AWOL in one ay or another :-)
***
There are other locations in Blighty where the wood folk are once more making their living; and living in a quieter way. One epitome of such a lifestyle is Ben Law, who became famous nationally via a television programme describing how he built a house of wood within his wood using only the materials found there and his own hands (as well as those of all his mates). He brought the coppicing trades to the attention of the wider world (well, Britain).
Do a search on "Ben Law" within Google and it will list a number of websites describing the man, his lifestyle and all to do with it. Here is one URL:
http://www.ben-law.co.uk/
Another such bloke I know is Mike Abbott, a chairmaker living in Hereforshire. The ladywife and I did a week with him learning the skill. He too lives a simple and satisfying life with wife Tamsin and their children. Here is another URL:
http://www.living-wood.co.uk/books.html
Although I don't personally have an ambition to live and work in the woods (I am old and soft now) my interest in green woodworking and the associated tools, products and lifestyles mean I have collected a number of books about them all. Should you be interested, I'll email you a list.....?
Lastly: I'm in the process of writing an article about green woodworking, including the tools, products and so forth, based on the various courses I did with the coppicers,chairmaker, swillmaker et al. This article may end up on WKFINETOOLS - if and when Wiktor and Philip have settled their dispute to their mutual satisfaction. Otherwise I will have to find another home for it.
Lataxe, dreaming of being elven
Edited 8/16/2007 3:08 pm ET by Lataxe
Good evening Lataxe,
I believe there are villages like the one you speak of here in the US. There are also Arts and Crafts communities throughout the US where one can practice their craft on a full time basis. I'm not sure exactly how they work. Whether or not each person shares his or her resources with all of the community I do not know.
Don Weber, the bloke I mentioned in my original post is apart of an Arts and Crafts community. http://www.handcraftwoodworks.com/ I am going to try to attend one or two of his blacksmithing seminars next year time permitting. I've met him this summer in Cincy at an Appalachian Festival and he was quite entertaining and informative.
There is one well known organization in the US called the Early American Industries Association that is dedicated to the understanding of early American industry and tools in the home and shop. http://www.eaiainfo.org/ They have workshops during the summer. Maybe I should take a break from the daily grind of city life and attend one. Clear my head and get me focused again..
Cheers
Mike
Edited 8/16/2007 4:18 pm ET by mvflaim
My old log cabin in the north woods was build by Fins for my great uncle, who intended to live there in retirement. It is well that he had several years of enjoyment of it as a lake house, because he died a year after finally moving up permanently. He originally had no power and drew water from the lake (big clear glacial lake a few yards in front of the house).Power came with the REMC, and a well and hot water heater followed. Nowadays, people complain because of the lack of a shower -- although we have have a perfectly good galvanized wash tub on the wall, and WE use it.Despite modernization, and more houses on the lake -- now about 100 houses on a little over 4,000 acres of water -- many miles of shoreline -- it is still wonderfully quite and peaceful.Scattered through that part of the north woods are craftsmen, and also of course hunters and even a very few trappers (fur market is not what it was). Among my friends there are a birch bark canoe maker of note, a bird carver, and a chair maker who has no electricity but uses a springpole lathe, scorps and shaves. Other friends and acquaintances combine jobs, some owning or working in small stores or doing trade work in the summer, and a bit of logging in the winter. Some are sawyers fixed or mobile. Some guide fishermen or hunters in season. One is a taxidermist. Those guys and gals really love their lives in the woods and do what it takes to stay there.Joe
Hello Lataxe, As I was reading the posts it came to my mind about seeing a film on REAL LIFE, I think it was. I cant rember if the producers name was Kevin McCord. I'm sure it was the same person Ben Law that the film was about.
He made the walls of bales of straw and shaped the windows and doors with the old tools that are mentioned in this thred.I know that cameras can make things look good or bad,but his house made the old hairs on the neck stand up.It took him 18mths to build and the tv prog. ran for two hours over 3wks of half hour episodes.
Hope it was the one you were talking about ,if not we both have something to look forward to. Regds. Boysie Slan Leat.I'm never always right but i'm always never wrong. Boysie
Boysie,
The Ben Law film I've seen (still got on a DVD,recorded from the tele) is a 1 hour (45 minutes, sans adverts) programme in the "Grand Designs" series hosted by one Kevin McCloud. There have been several of these Grand Design progs on British terestial TV, all about designing/building houses.
The Ben Law house was particularly interesting because of all the green woodwork involved, not to mention his lifestyle.
I am off to seek other films on the bloke, now you have prompted me. Looking at others living that way is, in reality, the limit of my own ambition in those directions. In Galgate there are home comforts of many and sundry kinds!
Lataxe
Lataxe, thats the one, Kevin McCloud is the right fellow. I've watched a lot of his progs. on GRAND DESIGN and there were a few of renovating old barns and such,which were great to watch as they had to incorparate a lot of the old building materials because of planning.
A lot of what he shows are people who are building their dream homes using wayout design. Very interesting at times but not the same as when they are using timber I dont think. Regds. Boysie Slan Leat.I'm never always right but i'm always never wrong. Boysie
I second that thought!!!!
Beautiful spot for a home. But where do you plug in your cell phone charger? Just kidding. Does look like a lot of work, though. Best of luck.
Paul
MV:
"I'd much rather work wood using nothing but hand tools."
For most of my life my interest in woodworking has been largely vicarious; through the various TV shows. Last year, I decided to take the plunge and build and equip a woodworking shop. My first project is to build a complete kitchen.
As a newbie, I thought Norm Abrams represented the apogee of the woodworker's craft and that woodworking was conducted by a series of well-choreographed transitions from one specialized power tool to the next - all with integrated dust collection. In other words, TNYW was the epitome, the perfect model, if you will, of 21st Century woodworking.
I am still a newbie but I now have some practical experience to go along with the reading, the classes and of let's not forget the input from Knots. Recently, I have been making beaded face frames which require a tricky joint (for me) between the stile and rail. After building a jig for the router, the results weren't quite right so I resorted to using chisels!
In that precise instant, I suddenly caught a glimpse of the inherent satisfaction in using handtools. It was an enjoyable "moment of zen".
Whereas a few weeks ago I would have thought you were OOYFM for preferring handtools, I now have a greater appreciation for your point of view, and, moreover, I feel all the better for it.
Regards,
Hastings
Hi Hastings,
Is the tricky joint between the beaded stiles/rails a mitered one? If so, there are several old books which show using a shop made miter template for guiding the chisel. Using one leaves the accuracy up to marking alone.
You can also find and purchase vintage miter templates for the bevel cut. Which is what I did. They are usually brass (at least English ones) so they do not harm a chisel's edge. Here are mine...
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I usually miter profiled stiles/rails and so these have gotten a lot of use over time. I saw the main waste with a fine toothed saw and use the chisel to pare them to the lines.
Take care, Mike
Mike:"Is the tricky joint between the beaded stiles/rails a mitered one?"Yes, that's the one.Thank you for suggesting the mitre gauges. I found a second-hand one at "The Best Things" for $28 so hopefully it will be winging it's way to me next week.Regards,Hastings
Hastings,
Please file a report (as I'm sure you will) so we all can benefit.
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Hastings,
The more one understands woodworking and all the properties of wood, the more one realizes that Roy Underhill of The Woodwrights Shop is a true master. Sadly, most PBS station program managers have never figured that out.
Using hand tools and the Blues are much the same. Both are completely misunderstood by the general population. But once you feel the beat of the music in your soul and once you feel how a hand plane sings through a piece of figured maple with the achievement a perfect shaving, true happiness begins. It's up to the individual user to open Pandor's Box to behold the beauty inside.
Enjoy the Journey
mike
Edited 8/18/2007 10:45 pm ET by mvflaim
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