Boy is that ever true. Tool lust can be pretty overwhelming, whether it is power by hand or electricity, and that is partly why I find Paul’s approach so refreshing —  freeing really.

I find myself reluctant to dive in, fearing my lack of skill will butcher the wood.  Then, I see a hand-tool and think…..ahh, this would keep me from making a mistake, or that would guarantee a nice result.  Turns out it never does, and neither do the power-tools.   They all seem to require skill and practice.

I’ve read and saved articles by Paul over the years,  from Woodwork magazine primarily, and am now thrilled he is offering these classes online.  Watching Paul work so simply, without all the fancy-schmancy stuff I desire has helped immensely to reduce the urge to buy more tools.  I’m getting out to the garage more often, saving money, and increasing productivity.

Saw a YouTube video not long ago.  A Moroccan man turning a chess piece,  and doing really good work, while sitting on a short stool, using his feet, a skew, a rope and a dowel as his “lathe”.  This was a humbling experience.  I will post it below.  See what you think.  It blew me away.

Here is the video:

yes, that is pretty amazing!  I have just posted it on My facebook page, thanks 🙂

So glad you all enjoyed it.  Any time I lust after a new shiny tool, I think of this guy.

More often than not, when I desire a new tool, it is because I am trying to avoid the necessary time and practice it takes to develop a particular skill.  I want perfection and I want it now.   If I could buy that new thingy, I could then perform a task perfectly and immediately, without waiting for the skills to develop.

Lo and behold, that is exactly the opposite of what I truly desire — to make something beautiful or useful with my own effort and skill.  Paul’s classes remind me I don’t need all that many tools to make delightful and useful objects.

I gotta agree with all of you here, if that makes any sense.. The really cool thing here is that you don’t NEED a billion tools. But the other cool thing is buying a used tool that has history, and wondering what furniture or whatever it’s been used to build and who owned it. I like collecting if the price is right. And I recently got an old rip saw that belonged to my grandfather that I didn’t even know existed. Really cool knowing he used it.

I saw a video tutorial the other day from a very popular magazine where the instructor was building a beautiful cabinet for all of his hand tools. Really nice set too. I stopped watching when he was explaining how he cut dovetails on a table saw using a saw blade that had been specially ground flat at 7.5 degrees so when he tilted the blade at that angle, the tail bottoms were sawn flat. It actually offended me on some level.

Oh well, to each his own. Paul’s way is just so much more rewarding to me.

Good thread.

Jeff-

Anonymous wrote:

I saw a video tutorial the other day from a very popular magazine where the instructor was building a beautiful cabinet for all of his hand tools. Really nice set too. I stopped watching when he was explaining how he cut dovetails on a table saw using a saw blade that had been specially ground flat at 7.5 degrees so when he tilted the blade at that angle, the tail bottoms were sawn flat. It actually offended me on some level.

I watched several of the videos in that series. I was not offended, but was quite deflated to witness the irony of someone making such a handsome hand-tool cabinet (for his many fine hand-tools) almost entirely with machine tools. I wish they would remake that cabinet using a hand-tool approach so the rest of us can also benefit.

Scott- I think what got me about that video in particular was that the guy had ground a saw blade at a 7.5 degree angle to make his dovetails. Does he really expect somebody to have a blade ground to 7.5 degrees? The average woodworker probably cannot afford half of the equipment in the shop he was using, much less have a blade specially ground. When I watch a video, I want to learn something without having to buy something I don’t already have or can’t afford. It’s seems that most of the times I watch one of those videos, the are not teaching me anything, but showing off or trying to sell me their new power tools. It’s an endless cycle of buying new tools or creating endless jigs for those power tools, while I’m staring at his $400 set of bench chisels in the background that have probably been picked up once a month. They are limiting their target audience by doing so, and that’s why I can only find one woodworking show a week out of 600 cable TV channels. I CAN find 20 channels of bow hunting whitetail deer. I have a feeling if Paul had a cable show, the target audience would explode as we are seeing on this site.