Traditional Woodwork is a meaningless phrase. Traditional to when? To the carpenter of Bethlehem? Or the carpenters of the great mediaeval cathedrals, Chippendale or Sheraton? It so happens, by the timing of technology, that all work of centuries gone by was done without power, there wasn’t any. As amateurs we have no need to use powered machines. The opposition will say hand work is too slow. It is only slow for those who haven’t learned to use the tools. With practice and appropriate design, the time difference is not that great. Nowadays we seem to expect “instant” everything and machines seem to allow this. It’s the difference between ground coffee and instant, it is quicker but the end product doesn’t bear any comparison.
— John Brown, Issue 85 of Good Woodworking magazine
Speed of execution does not need to be high on the list for an amateur, but avoiding mind-numbing work should be on high priority for everyone, IMHO.
I don’t mind working with rough softwood and dimensioning it by hand (been there, done that, still doing it) but doing the same work with tough hardwood like red or white oak has no real benefits, mentally or otherwise. I don’t have experience with riving green wood, so I cannot speak of it, but there is a good reason why a thicknessing planer was put high on the list of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest”. It is an important exception for any hand tools advocate / user.
For casework, I would never be without a thickness planer. It’s useless for chairs though. Brown always had a bandsaw — chairmakers love their bandsaws — look at Maloof, Boggs, et al.
I’m of two minds on this one. I started with no power tools and learned how to dimension by hand first. As an amateur, this really helped me understand many things that were up to that point just theoretical to me, such as how grain and cut really affect the way a wood behaves, and the usual sharpening practice. I also found that doing prep work with tougher woods has its own benefits in this regard.
But this got to be a drag after a while, especially on a limited schedule. It gets worse with certain tough woods, where you have to sharpen more often (or go mad). I eventually got a thickness planer and wasn’t unhappy with the decision to use a machine.
The strange thing is that, when I got the planer, I don’t feel like my mindset changed much. I still start out with a hand plane to figure out what’s going on with the grain and to get a board generally flat on a side. I’m always looking at the direction when I feed something in, and try to guess how deep of a cut I can get away with. I also finish with a few swipes of a jointer plane. Sure, I still consider it to be a crazy monster of a machine that would summon Cthulhu or something if given the chance, but at least I have some control of it… maybe?
The bandsaw (my second machine purchase, and fairly recent) is something else entirely. I don’t claim to know what I’m doing when using it, but it’s already clear to me that it is incredibly capable when well-tuned and used by a skilled operator–much more like a hand tool than I had expected.
I use all types of tools; powered and hand tools. When building I’m not interested in speed production rather improved craftsmanship. Surely the stone masons who cut the rock for our grand cathedrals had better iron than the pyramid builders. A power tool or a better hand tool?
About 70% of my bench and chair work was done with hand tools. About 8-10 years ago I needed to contract some of the prep work to a local mill works (couldn’t safely handle 10-12 ft 8/4 hardwoods in the shop by myself). Final shaping, finishing and seat weaving is still by hand.
Is the ground coffee made with a hand grinder better than one made with an electric grinder?
Dilly, Dilly.
Many beginners turn to power tools out of fear of handwork, fear that they can’t make it straight, flat, or square by hand. It looks like the machines will do that for them. And a dovetail jig will cut perfect joints just like the pictures in the add.
I don’t understand coffee. I just don’t get it. I feel certain the whole coffee fad is ready to blow over.
OK…I wasn’t getting the John Brown book. Then after reading the blog posts, I am!
When I buy my next LAP book, can you deliver it by drone? After all, 50 years from now, that’ll be the traditional thing to do.
It’s going to be a really swell book…….
There’s a shortage of fresh water in this world. Polluting it with coffee goes against my religion.