Modern day woodworkers – Hand tools a desire not a lifestyle
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24 July 2015 at 4:21 am #128773
Woodworkers are a funny lot. I received a newsletter from Lee Valley of a man building a saw till, this is a cabinet like style used to store your handsaws. What get’s me is that he used a tablesaw, jigsaw and router to complete his project and not once used a handsaw in the process to built the till he’s going to store the saws he’s obviously never going to use. The argument here in his favour is that he used plywood for construction and since plywood is man made it would have a severe blunting effect on his saws and I don’t even want to go into the poor structural integrity of any furniture made out of plywood. I’m asking why he chose to use plywood over solid timber and not build his saw till using his handsaws and other hand tools. I have noticed this time and time again that many woodworkers desire to work with hand tools but are not skill based to do so which leads to many frustrations and therefore they give up and those wonderful hand tools that has been used to develop furniture for hundreds and even thousands of years which I might add stands today in our museums in tact and as pristine as the day they were made, are nothing more than timeless artifacts that were once used to create elaborate works of art are hung on walls as decorations and collections and made obsolete. As if they only serve us as a reminder of what once was and could never be again. In fact what they truly represent and remind us of the skill we once possessed and have replaced by the use of computerised machinery
In this so called technologically advanced society we have replaced human skill by trained machinists who carry out mundane tasks that strips the very essence of working wood. Since the industrial age in the 1920’s up to today the use of machinery to mass produce low quality items to yield higher profits has been a disservice to mankind as a whole. This has led to mass unemployment and eroded what skill we once possessed. By loading a piece of software in a cnc machine we are able to produce carvings that are as lifeless as the machine itself and we call this progress, the correct wording should be regress. If you examine Mary May’s hand carved floral’s and finial flames in fct all her work there is character in that piece that just springs to life and en-captures your very soul as you marvel at this beautifully hand carved work of art. When you hand plane a board the aroma that fills the air, the whooshing sound it makes as each shavings curls by a thousandth of an inch from the mouth of your plane brings a calming effect on ones, mind, body and soul. This we have replaced by a drum sander to tackle untamed grain that fills the air and your lungs with dust particles that have detrimental effects on your lungs and eyes; smoking is not the only thing that kills.
Working with hand tools you never have to wear eye protection, ear protection, dust masks or tight fitting clothing so it doesn’t get caught up in a rotary blade. No machine in the world can replace the mark of a true craftsman working with his hands. He has conditioned his mind and body to work harmoniously in uni some with his piece. He has trained his eyes for square or 45° angle, he know when he’s out of square and quickly corrects his mistakes. He is as every bit as functional as any man made machine with one major advantage over his soulless rival he never needs to be plugged in. Every piece of furniture, clock or box he makes he has a unique signature that can never be reproduced by anyone r any machine. Every piece that comes out of his shop is totally unique and one of a kind, hence why I called my business Unique Clocks because every clock is unique and hand made.
I think I have said more than I would have like to but these are my thoughts for the day, a lifestyle that I have built for myself in everyday woodworking and will continue down this path till the day I meet my Maker. One day I shall God willing achieve the mark a true craftsman be that 10 years from today or 50 but till that day I shall continue to endeavor upon this noble task and honest living by way of developing my skills through the studies of the art of traditional woodworking of the 19th & 18th century style and most importantly of all to put this into practice and use in my everyday woodworking.25 July 2015 at 6:59 pm #128796This is a little off your topic, but related, and I apologize if this rant is a little too far from what you intended. And it may seem a bit random – I’m not a great writer nor do I organize these thoughts well.
In America, and I’m sure many other countries, our capitalist society has bred all these things you speak of. Money is the siren whose call cannot be ignored by most people. Companies don’t care anymore about the customer, they only care about what will bring in more dollars, no matter who it hurts. I hate it. I wish there was no such thing as publicly traded companies. I’d love it if there were limits on how large a company could get. The greed that I see everywhere is astounding. Our society has completely sold out its future generations for profits now. Pollution, chemicals in everything we eat and drink, killing off species at unprecedented rates, raping the land, governments that don’t care about anything but money and corporate greed, …
Having said that about our system, I have also benefited from it. I definitely would not enjoy the lifestyle I do without it. So I guess I’m part of the problem.
I have no solution for this. I don’t know a better system. It’s human nature to progress. As a species, we have always striven to find better, faster, and less back-breaking ways to do the tasks that need to be done to survive. This leads to machines and electricity and eventually CNC, losing many skills along the way. I’m very happy to go back to the ways of our forebears.
I think way too much about this stuff and probably I am far too pessimistic. I give our species about 100 years before annihilating itself. I feel badly for the next generations and what they’ll be left with. Sigh …
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