Tools vs skill

[Jim Matthews]

I would like to apply an analogy from my previous working incarnation; regarding amateurs with more money than time.

My first serious employment came teaching skiing in Vail, CO back when working stiffs could afford to live there.
Families would fly in from the East Coast and immediately go shopping for expensive new gear.
(One of the shops had an inclusive, $1850 special that was immensely popular.)

They would then proceed to the more difficult terrain where they would (in short order) spread all their new equipment and clothing
over the mountain in what was known as a "Yard Sale". I believe the rage in neon colors from that era was so you could find
everything that you left behind as you spun inexorably down the mountain.

Few, if any, of these people considered lessons as a sensible expense that would improve their experience.
Most ignored the warnings at the top of expert runs (clearly marked, with repeated warnings), confident
that the latest safety gear and boots suited to World Cup racers would make up the difference between
their training and the demands of the day.

Instruction from someone that has real experience shorten the development time to a given skill set.

There's no substitute for repetition in any practical endeavor.

Start small, before you Go BIG.

[Maurice Ungaro]

First off, thanks to Derek for starting his thread. I'm an amateur woodworker of intermediate skill. I started down the fateful path in 2002. For the record, my fist purchase was a LV Sanding block, on advice from a close friend. My brother said, "heck, just take a block of wood and wrap the sandpaper around it." Yup, that'll work. Then I gave him one for Christmas, and he extolled the virtues of that LV tool. I've bought many things over my learning curve, and recently purged a bunch of it. Like I said, it's a learning curve.

Similarly, the same happens in cycling. I've been a cyclist for forty years....before clip less pedals and index shifting, much less carbon fibre. All too frequently I see noobies deck themselves out in Tour de France grade equipment (see Jim's post above re: skiing), and not know what most of it does, much less the advantages of one grouppo over another. Heck, they don't even know the rules of the road, so in practice, they are a bit clueless on the road (read: dangerous). I used to bemoan them, claiming that they haven't paid their dues. Now, I just shrug it off. When I pass them, I exhibit proper courtesy, hoping that maybe they will learn in the process.

Bottom line: everyone's journey is different. From the perspective of an expert, options and choices are focused with precision and in effect, limited. To a novice, the choices are limitless. They have to make their own way and decide for themselves.

[john zulu]

I personally buy tools that help me to do the job. It could speed up the process that I intend to accomplish. Do I keep on buying tools for the sake of new tools? Nope. I will put it this way would a block plane suit leveling or jointing a 4 feet board? A router plane is definitely useful but does it bet a chisel for tenons? It depends. It is definitely helps to tune the tenon but it can be achieve by other tools like a block plane and chisels.

To spend on tools without using it would be sin Power to the user that can find more ways in doing the task with the tools at hand!

[Keith Mathewson]

Only an amateur, read someone who does this for enjoyment, would consider this a reasonable debate. The world of professional woodworking uses a few hand tools as possible and the bigger the company the fewer used, if any at all. If you are doing this for the pleasure it brings than the method to achieve the result isn't as important as the feelings derived from the process. The person who builds something with a Norm Abram's mindset is likely just as happy as one who uses a Roy Underhill one.

[maximillian arango]

Here's a question for the master craftsman, being that you have skill would you give up an unnecessary tool like a router plane?

I work on cars a lot with my free time I wouldn't consider working on cars being a skill I would consider more about being experienced. I often find my self in junk yards out West... in Pennsylvania(its west to me) I've had to pull 4 engines in the past year with a friend(keeps blowing engines) with nothing more then a breaker bar, a few sockets, and our arms. We are able to pull a subaru engine out in about 30 minutes to an hour and a half depending how stupid we act(dropping the hood on each other, tying shoes laces to the car, and trips to the first aid bin) but when we do it at the junk yard it takes us an hour and a half up to 4 hours and a lot of 4 letter words. I know wood working and working on cars are two different beast but drawing from that experience I would rather be at home with my air compressor and cherry picker getting it done and having fun over being at a junk yard with nothing but basic tools and brute strength aided with the lubrication of 4 letter words.

Is woodworking different from this?

[jim hedgpeth]

Definitely an amateur here, but I'm more leaning toward the skill side of things, as long as there is one understanding.

For a beginning user like me, I find it best to invest in or borrow quality, almost ready to use tools when trying a new type of tool. I say almost ready to use, because even most new tools need final sharpening and adjustment.

Sometimes cheap/budget tools are only good for setting yourself up for frustration, and can steer you away from them in the future. At least learn with a good tool, then you know how they should behave and what to do to tune/help them work correctly.

My first attemts with an old "Great Neck" smoothing plane was anything but great. Knowing I could sharpen near well enough to split hairs, I thought it was me. Then I tried a Veritas plane at a WW show........... unfortunately we all know where that leads.

My current hand plane collection includes 4 Veritas, and 5 Lie Nielsen (if you include the spoke shave), as well as a pair of Stanley block planes.





As for tenons, why a router plane?
I use my shoulder plane to square them if needed, or a chisel if I want a slight undercut.
Not trying to be smart, just wondering what I am missing there/how they would work for that application?

Jim

[Joel Thomas Runyan]

Only an amateur, read someone who does this for enjoyment, would consider this a reasonable debate. The world of professional woodworking uses a few hand tools as possible and the bigger the company the fewer used, if any at all.

I think this statement exemplifies how nebulous the words "amateur" and "professional" are. Is anyone willing to say that a veteran handtool woodworker who never sold a piece to pay the bills is less skilled than any high-volume cabinet maker whose work primarily subsists in pressing buttons on machines? And yet these two words still carry with them the brunt of our connotations of skill level, even as they're technically defined only by purpose of sales. It seems that we lack (or have lost) sufficient words to describe gradation of skill, and so this word "professional" is supposed to indicate something of quality, when it is inherently silent on the matter. I've worked in a "professional" cabinet making shop, sans hand tools, and while the goods we produced were of consistently fine fit and finish, they were all made with what I consider unremarkable (and even inferior) materials and design; they will fall out of fashion and eventually fall apart, well before my time expires. This is because a large percentage of customers purchasing from "professional" woodworkers these days don't know the difference between joints and wood grades and all the rest; the ease of mass production and machinery has inevitably degraded the quality of work and design in favor of faster and cheaper. It would be nonsense to imply that the man who makes the most the fastest and cheapest is the authority to reference on woodworking, and so this term "professional", at least as it is commonly appears, is next to useless.

As to the original question: saying that one should learn to saw straight is just inane defiance. Wood is unruly; muscles, joints, and nerves are only so consistent and compliant. In the odd or often event that one has not sawn a tenon straight, how could one be faulted for using a tool that cut a clean consistent depth in repair? Because it has a depth stop? Very well, remove the depth stop, and read the gauge line... now we're cheating because the plane has a sole? Very well, we'll use a chisel, which is essentially all the blade was to begin with. Ah, but alas. We've used other chisel like objects held tight in metal bodies with soles. We must go back and process all of our stock by hand with this chisel... but perhaps it is too wide, and we better use the 1/4" to really display our skill, and... well it goes somewhere very obvious from here. The appropriate tool is that which does the work with no sacrifice to it. Amount of time, quantity of bank account, bends of personality... all vary. The only constant is people telling you that whatever worked last time is wrong or impossible.

[jamie shard]

Tools should make the work easier, accurate, and enjoyable. (Edit)You can tell a bad tool purchase because they make it more complicated and not any more accurate. The more skill you have, the less tools you truly need for easy, accurate, and enjoyable... but no one starts off with skill and different people find different things enjoyable.

[george wilson]

I use whatever tool makes my job easier. For lowering the background on this lion's head violin neck carving,I used a little router plane that I threw together,with a bit 1/32" wide. It worked very well,and with a sharp bit,I got a good,smooth back ground.

Why would I not use something that makes my work easier or more accurate? Just so I could say I could do it with a sharp rock?

This was the only router I owned,by the way. Just purpose built for this application. Normally in my type of work I do not need a router. I still do not own a larger,commercially made router. The Master,and his cabinet makers regularly used routers of the 18th. C. style,in their work.

[Brian Holcombe]

My first job was in a machine shop in that experience I learned that a machinist will create a true surface or start from a previously trued surface. In woodworking you are creating a trued surface and progressing from there, each tool provides a range of capabilities and will either true a surface or work off a trued surface (or both).

An experienced woodworker is likely to have an in-depth understanding of this and how he can work with it, check it for flatness and so on, where an amateur who is in the beginnings of this hobby may not even be able to discern a truly flat surface from one that is not quite flat, so he is more likely to feel he needs to reach for a tool more capable of providing a trued surface than one that relies on his ability to create one. An experienced woodworker is also likely to have a very well equipped shop, even though often times he may not need to rely on anything other than marking tools and a set of chisels, the amateur however may feel disadvantaged because he has neither the breadth or knowledge nor the tool chest of someone more experienced. His first steps may be to buy the tools, since it's half of the process.

There is no need to fault someone for wanting to equip their shop with the tools they may find themselves to need, it's no more ill advised than the expert who continues to collect tools with a diminishing set of tasks that each tool can accomplish. Their reasoning is not that different, they both want to accomplish something with less struggle than previously required.

Also, there is a side benefit to the amateur's interest in all of this; I'd be willing to bet that companies like LN and LV are selling much more often to amateurs than experienced professionals, driving their ability to further provide the engineering and capital required to issue more and more redesigns of vintage tools. The rare tools bought up by experts only exist because LN and LV sell a lot of jack planes and panel saws.

[Sean Hughto]

As for tenons, why a router plane?
I use my shoulder plane to square them if needed, or a chisel if I want a slight undercut.
Not trying to be smart, just wondering what I am missing there/how they would work for that application?

Jim

The router is useful as it references the side of the apron or stretcher or whatever and makes it simple to get a uniform thickness or remove a paper thin layer from the cheek to sneak up on the perfect fit:

[Brian Holcombe]

I've made plenty by chisel but recently ordered a router plane. I see a thousand uses for it and they're relatively inexpensive ($140 IIRC).

[Tom McMahon]

Almost every development in professional woodworking since the industrial revolution was designed to remove the necessity for skill. The ideal profesional shop today produces an acceptable product with the cheapest unskilled labor possible. In today's world, skill is the hobby.

[Mel Fulks]

That violin is going to be impressing people for a long time. You can even see the lion's gums distinct from his mouth and teeth.

[Graham Haydon]

Nice thread Derek,

I think there is a lot to be said for just getting to grips with some basic skills before purchasing all the tools.

You can buy cheap very sharp disposable back saws and practice cutting to a line.

Ditto a chisel and a sharpening stone then learning to chop and pare.

A plane or two and learning to square and smooth wood.

These are foundation skills that allow progression, avoiding them or buying a work arounds could be compared to building a house on weak foundations. I don’t much mind what people buy, how much it costs or what they find works.

“There's no substitute for repetition in any practical endeavor.”

There it is in a nutshell for me. When building a foundation of skills this will be required. Nearly every piece we make is unique but what is common in nearly all of them at some point is cutting to a line, chopping & paring and using basic bench planes.

Reality, people like buying nice things, it’s a hobby to most and how anyone chooses to progress that is down to them.

The strange thing to me is how many people assume they are right. Buy this Stanley #4 or buy this special steel chisel, put your blades this wasy around etc, etc.

I had the pleasure of working with a higly skilled joiner who retired a few years back who had been in the trade from the age of 16>65. He loved his hand tools, they were not the finest, nor were they the worst nor did he use all of them exactly as intended. Years of practice refined his daily tool kit to what was essential and he knew how to use them.

My tip, avoid to much procrastination, take all advice with a pinch of salt and make things, your tools will suffer evolution, survivial of the fittest will come in to play and you will know what you need and what you don’t. That's where you really discover.