a bad week, but it's my own fault
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28 April 2015 at 6:59 pm #126809
@gary – DNA samples – I got a great laugh from that!! I guess you don’t need to sign your work with a pen.
The journey into hand tools has been a great one and I feel much safer without machines. If I ever get a bigger shop I will get some of my machines out of storage, but for now I don’t miss them (OK, maybe I miss the drill press).
For my first year or two of hand tool work, I ended up having to wear long fingered gloves every time I used chisels because I kept cutting myself. Fortunately they were all little cuts that I didn’t even notice I’d done. I don’t wear them anymore, having gained the proper respect for sharp tools.
I’m always ultra careful, and it takes diligence. But sometimes the laziness syndrome kicks in and I do something silly. That’s when I step back and tell myself (again, for the umpteenth time) not to be lazy. I really like my fingers and want to keep them.
29 April 2015 at 6:29 am #126826@mattmcgrane It’s interesting, the less you rely on machinery and power tools, the more you realise you don’t need them. Much of the so called efficiency of machines is lost in either lack of control, or set up time.
That said, probably my two favourite machines are the bandsaw and the drill press. It’s very difficult to drill precise holes WITHOUT a drill press, and the utility of the bandsaw is unmatched in any other static machine I can think of.
I picked up a lion trimmer the other day, just after I had the blades professionally sharpened, not realizing I had grabbed one of the knives. Didn’t feel the cut, but saw what I had done. I calmly set it down and released the weight from my finger. Fortunately I did not move my hand across the blade, because that would have surely required stitches, and walked away with a deep cut that didn’t bleed much. I did this right after a salesmen had told me a story of an old man that had picked up a lion trimmer, nonchalantly grabbing both knives with both hands and not realizing he had cut both hands so badly blood was gushing everywhere, requiring a trip to the emergency room.
I use power tools from time to time, but it’s for rough dimensioning for lumber or a lot of repetitive cuts. Hand tools are nice, because I can always stop what I’m doing, set the tools on my workbench and come back the next day and pick up right where I left off. Using the table saw, is a long evolution of pulling it out, setting it up, making the cuts, then vacuuming up the mess and then putting the saw away. Not to mention filling the garage, house, my lungs and eyes with dust.
29 April 2015 at 10:06 am #126830Don’t be disheartened! I think we all make these kind of mistakes! At least with hand tools the outcome is usually not as serious/horific as with power tools (I am terrified of table saws!)
I was sharpening my chisels on a wetstone a while back and did not have a cloth to hand so I was wiping the chisel on the side of my jeans. The problem is that I got the chisels very very sharp and instead of wiping it on my jeans, I managed to stick it in my leg! It cut straight through denim no problem and I watched as a big patch of blood appeared on my jeans….
You learn from these mistakes and usually heal up just fine!
I am sure next week will be much better! 🙂
29 April 2015 at 11:15 am #126832I have been preparing a lot of rough sawn lumber for my workbench top lately, and in all honesty, I think it’s faster and easier to do it with a couple of hand planes than a planer machine.
The timbers for the aprons were dimensioned by a local on his large expensive jointers and thicknessers. I thought it would be simpler and faster, but it still took a good hour or two to run all the pieces through, and there was quite a bit of snipe which prevented me joining the boards properly. Also, the machine left marks all over the wood which I had to sand out, and that took forever and a day.
By contrast, in 15 minutes I can plane a board face flat and smooth and it’ll never require laborious sanding or planing for jointing. It sounds like a long time, but I’m not even particularly good at it, and I still say it’s a good time saving, and cheaper than the gym.
The great thing with working with hand tools is that it helps greatly to slow down the building process and to become more in tune with the process of wood working. I agree, for what we do machines really don’t add a lot of value once you consider space, dust control and the cost of the machine. But I still like the option of using a table saw from time to time, especially if I’m making multiple same sized cuts. With that said,if I wasn’t given a table saw, I wouldn’t run out and buy one tomorrow. In fact my table saw mostly takes up space in the back of the garage.
Also, imo thickness planers and table saws do not leave a finished surface and I always hand plane the surface before sanding and finishing a project. The machines I use are for bulk material removing – donkey well per se.
30 April 2015 at 4:24 am #126886I don’t necessarily agree that hand tools do slow you down. While an individual process might take longer, the amount of time people spend setting up machines and the additional processes involved in finishing the resulting surfaces more or less even it out.
Additionally, machines limit creative freedom. For example, machine only woodworkers are limited in the profiles they can create by available bits for their routers. Machine tool woodworkers seem to tend to think in a more process/engineering oriented way, making design decisions based on available machinery. As a hand tool woodworker, the tendency is to design first, and then worry about how you’re going to achieve it.
I think the movement towards machines in general reflects the furniture and cabinetmaking industry, more than any practical benefits to the individual. The fact is, machines are very good at uniformity, and require less individual skill from the operator. Unskilled labour is cheaper, and can often be replaced entirely by robots, as you see with CNC machines.
What I’m trying to say is, for me the decision to focus on hand tools isn’t a source of elitist pride or hipster individualism. It’s just the most practical approach for me. Keeping all my fingers attached is just a bonus.
30 April 2015 at 5:42 am #126891My view of machinery is . . . it depends on what I am doing. For example, you will pry my lathe from my cold dead hands. 🙂
My band saw, table saw and lunch box planer still see a fair bit of use in preparing wood, but I have an old Craftsman jointer which has not been turned on since I learned to flatten a board with a hand plane. My approach has been to learn how to do a task by hand, but if it’s mindless donkey work, I’ll let the machine do what it’s good at.
30 April 2015 at 8:03 am #126893Oh, I forgot about lathes because I haven’t got one yet. Definitely gotta get one of those.
I think I pretty much agree with Peter on everything actually. I think I might use my thickness planer to bring things to rough size, but I don’t have much need for a tablesaw. They take up far too much space for my workshop.
That’s what I was trying to say!
I have a 1940’s era Delta Milwaukee table saw made by Rockwell and jointer combo. Part of me feels I need to donate it to the Smithsonian. I don’t use the jointer because it’s a pain in the rear to set up and its so much easier to just hand plane a flat surface. The table saw is nice to use, but the 5-6 Times a year I use it doesn’t justify spending money on one. It was a family heirloom of sorts. Same goes with the thickness planer. It’s nice to have, but just don’t use it enough to justify spending money on it. All of those tools are extremely dusty and after using them dust gets everywhere.
30 April 2015 at 6:03 pm #126897About the only way I can see using a thickness planer is for material too far oversize to plane down easily, but close enough that it’s not worth resawing. That said, I’d probably just resaw it on the bandsaw anyway, because why not.
I think a treadle lathe would be cool, i seen some green wood bowl turning using a lathe foot powered with giant bow.
For me the rickety old table saw sees more use than the others from the machine heap. It’s an old ace hardware travel model with bad bearings and a strong motor. It probably wont be retired until some model of band saw comes my way. The thickness planer in my dads shop honestly makes me want to vomit. Something about that harmonic it hits at full speed, just melts my brain. Me and it tolerate each other for about 25-40 minutes a week. Typically on mondays.
in comparison to those though, i may as well be fully attached to a #5 smoother. I initially set the iron by touch like Mooncabbage mentioned. Hair line cuts i dont notice until they have some dirt in them.
1 May 2015 at 11:16 am #126904Sorry to hear about your injury and your stones!
Some interesting discussion on machines here. I think it was Paul who said that while hand tools are still dangerous (as evidenced in this thread!), unlike when using a machine you’ll generally stop the cut before you hit bone.
I’ve put a very deep cut in my thumb before by simply trying to remove a brad point from a drill index (the rubbery type). The bit stayed put but my thumb slid along the length. Quite specialist!
I think machines are only really much quicker when making batches and you’ve got a lot of tasks that need to be repeated, or a cut that would be very time consuming (but not impossible) using hand tools. Resawing hard and wide boards, or making a lot of long rips. Thickness planers are useful for getting a lot of components to the same thickness quickly. Even with the setup time, you’ll finish way ahead of a hand tool user if you’re dimensioning components for several of the same project. There’s a big cost in terms of money, space, dust (oh, the dust!), and risk of limb or digit loss though.
For one-off projects like we do, power tools don’t offer much advantage. I get far more pleasure using a sharp #4 or #4 1/2 and a sharp set of chisels than I do running the thickness planer, bandsaw or (for really big, rough stock) circular saw.
George.
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