Tools vs skill

[Keith Mathewson]

Years ago I owned a furniture making school with an emphases on hand tool use for a few years, in that time I've met a lot of people. People from all walks of life and income levels, my advice on tools has evolved over time. I've met young fathers who were trying to build furniture to save money to someone who pulled up in a car which most likely cost more than my first house. From people who would spend weeks deciding on a $100 purchase to one fellow who's wife nearly bought him the entire Lie Nielsen line because he decided to take a week long beginners class. One fellow told me that this hobby is cheap to get into, that is compared to what he spent tricking out his Harley. The point is if you have more money than time buy any tool which makes you happy. If you have more time than money make do with what you have, you can build quite a bit which very few tools and you will get better over time. BUT if using fine tools brings pleasure to something you are ONLY doing for pleasure buy whatever and as many tools as makes you happy. If you find that you don't use certain ones later you can get rid of them, most won't. The people who I would see coming back for more classes were the ones who had a positive experience early on, the skills could come later.

[Frederick Skelly]

The point is if you have more money than time buy any tool which makes you happy. If you have more time than money make do with what you have, you can build quite a bit which very few tools and you will get better over time. BUT if using fine tools brings pleasure to something you are ONLY doing for pleasure buy whatever and as many tools as makes you happy.

+1. Well said.

[Mansell Bettez]

The people who I would see coming back for more classes were the ones who had a positive experience early on, the skills could come later.

+1 on this. Sawing to a line is important, but if you are making rails for Frame and Panel, you need to make 4 near perfect cuts for the tenons, and you usually have to do at least some cleanup with a shoulder plane or chisel to get that perfect fit. Using a router plane simplifies the whole process - it gets you to the line AND it gets you square. Eventually, your sawing "close" to the line becomes sawing on the line, but when starting out, you can practice on "real" wood, then complete with the router-plane, rather than trying to saw right to the line, and having to re-glue the cheek when inexperience happens.

[Jim Koepke]

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.

Great words to live by, the whole post was good Graham.

There are too many ways to get a project done to insist there is only one way to get to the finish.

May your milage vary.

jtk

[Jim Koepke]

you can practice on "real" wood, then complete with the router-plane, rather than trying to saw right to the line, and having to re-glue the cheek when inexperience happens.

To me making mistakes like this is what made me learn to saw better.

jtk

[Rick Markham]

I'm going to chime in on this. First point Professional does not equal expert, in any field!

I also think it is very important that there is a difference between "skill building" and which tool is better for what discussion. In my opinion there is no substitute for classical training, whether that is a realistic concept in this day and age or not, is an entirely different discussion.

If you want to get good at something, anything technical, anything regarding your hands, any art, there is no substitute for shear repetition. The guy who wants "it" the most will be the one who works the hardest for it. "Talent" is a word that while society means well using, it really only hides the amount of effort, and work required by the artisan. It's easy to say someone is talented, it's hard to truly appreciate the lifetime of study and work required to achieve that.

Fundamentally we are only limited by our hand and dexterity, the tool matters less than the results! That being said in any art studying the fundamentals NEVER hinders your growth.

This is a big community of people of many walks of life, we each get our enjoyment from many different aspects. We all ended up here for the same reason, we want to know more!

[Derek Cohen]

There have been so far so many wonderful responses, and I hope many more are coming. I hope that the many insights help everyone equally - experienced and not.

It is difficult to be prescriptive because to do so requires that we catch someone at a time when they in a position to act on it physically, materially, emotionally and timewise.

I am fortunate to be at a time of life when I have less demands on my time from family than, say, 20 years ago. I have more time free on a weekend than some here may have in a year. However, some weekends I have no time free at all, and I never get into the workshop during the week. This no doubt palls into insignificance with others who get into their shops whenever they like. Time is a precious thing.

I enjoy the tool use as much as I enjoy what the tools help create. Over the years I have gained much satisfaction in seeing the furniture I build becoming more complex and recognising that my skills have improved to achieve this. What has helped a great deal is an acceptance that none of us will go through life without the occasional screw up - and I make more than my share - and that there is always going to be a fix. Anything done can be redone. Sometimes I think we should measure ourselves by the level of our fixes (Of course I am saying this in advance just in case I screw up the fingers of my chair build!). We advance by extending ourselves a little each time, by taking a little more of a risk .... by sawing to the line!

An aside: The recent FWW mag has a dovetail article that suggests that one saw away from the line and them pare to it - what is your reaction to this?

Tools - love them or leave them? I must admit that I have a multiple personality when it comes to tools. I enjoy fiddling with them, enjoy mastering a new tool, enjoy designing and building them, and of course enjoy using them when building projects. Sometimes it is just fun having a special tool for that certain task. But equally it is as pleasurable just making do with what is at hand, finding a workaround, and developing a new or extending an old skill. Sometimes I think that it is the amateurs who get all the fun in woodworking. While there is a part of me that loves the fantasy of doing this professionally, I know that really means having more time to play in the woodshop rather than making a living at it. I imagine being a pro is a different experience. And that a pro will have a different relationship with tools and a different attitude towards time available for builds. I'd like more of the pros here to comment on their experiences.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Jim Koepke]

I imagine being a pro is a different experience.

professional |prəˈfe sh ənl|adjective2 (of a person) engaged in a specified activity as one's main paid occupation rather than as a pastime

I do not think it would be as enjoyable being a professional.

There would be an incentive to not waste a single minute during the day.

No more making fun things by hand that take two hours to make but can only sell for a few bucks.

I also enjoy working with the tools and on the tools. I do avoid fixing things that aren't broken.

There are also a lot of tools that one can find inexpensively with a bit of luck and perseverance.

jtk

[Sean Hughto]

An aside: The recent FWW mag has a dovetail article that suggests that one saw away from the line and them pare to it - what is your reaction to this?

I haven't seen the article, but I think the general idea is fine. I have no patience with the idea of tsk tsk-ing at methods that work. Why is anyone else entitled to be "offended" (or whatever word one might want to use for it) by another's means to achieve a woodworking end. Are the dovetails not as strong or beautiful? Tell me, how did I make these:

or these:

or these:

[Jim Koepke]

An aside: The recent FWW mag has a dovetail article that suggests that one saw away from the line and them pare to it - what is your reaction to this?

I know it takes much more time to do it this way. I know because that is how I first learned to make dovetails. It also led me to become better at sawing so that the paring is now minimal.

jtk

[Judson Green]

Sean -

This is neat! Could you explain how it attaches to your bench? I'm guessing the the little black knob has something to do with it?

Screenshot_2014-02-24_11-59-39.jpg

[Sean Hughto]

I didn't make it up. Rob Porcaro wrote about it in a PWW article a long time back. I routed a groove and put a T-track in the front edge of my bench. I've got a couple of these little sleds for different thicknesses and stuff. I don't use them that often these days, but from time to time they come in handy. Rob's blog is quite good btw: http://www.rpwoodwork.com/blog/

[Mike Holbrook]

Great thread. It seems that many threads end up in this or a similar discussion so I think it is great Derek has us taking this on as the main topic of a thread.

I have a very good friend who got me interested in wood working 30+ years ago. Over the last few years my friend has claimed that he would use more hand tools but he believes hand tools require more physical skill and dexterity to use. I think he makes a valid point. It seems to me that power tools are more of a planing and set up exercise whereas hand tools are more of a physical challenge. I personally enjoy the feel and physical involvement with wood as much as making things.

Certainly one can buy a great many hand tools for the same investment as one stationary tool. I think it follows then that it is easier financially to acquire a good set of hand tools than it is to acquire and set up a shop for power tools. In my case I can buy just about any hand tool I think may help or be fun to use and still save money vs what I originally was thinking I would spend on a power tools shop. Like Derek mentions above I also find hand tools fascinating and don't mind spending money on occasion just to try a tool out to see if I can learn to use it and enjoy spending time working with it.

Still, I don't find that throwing money into hand tools is any kind of guarantee of success or greater enjoyment. I like some of the tools I have made, some of the ones I have restored and some that I bought new or used. For me the whole "Neander" experience is not about producing more items faster it is about enjoying the journey.

Lately I find that I enjoy working green wood even more, partly I think because of the more basic set of physically challenging tools vs working dry wood. The other thing I like about green wood is I have a larger supply than I can use that falls in our creek or gets blown down. I am motivated to use the supply of wood I have vs spending time and money acquiring wood.... Someone above mentioned that one could probably make just about anything with an axe, one of the most basic green wood tools. I am amazed at what Drew Langsner, Jogge Sundquist and many others can do with a carving axe. I'm blown away by what a drawknife can do, even in my rank amateur hands. Don't even get me started on what guys can make with just a carving knife or knives. Spokeshaves are also a fascinating tool to learn to use.

I have read many threads in which posters talk about how much more pleasant it is to work softer woods. I'm here to tell you that green maple and white oak are even easier than soft woods when they are green/wet. If we are talking about the financial cost and time investment involved in woodworking maybe we should look at materials cost as well as tool cost. Maybe we could all save a good deal of money, not to mention many trees, if we simply started using the trees that simply fall down via natural causes. If I was starting off in woodworking I would start with green wood projects. Working green wood has many financial and wood education advantages and tool dexterity lessons that I think are very valuable for anyone starting out.

[Curt Putnam]

In terms of tool use I think that skill simply allows one to do something more efficiently than less skill allows. For example, precision hand sawing to a line is something that requires skill. When first starting out, one has to think about how to line up the saw, how to stand, how to hold the saw, how to push, etc. Then one takes a stroke and rethinks all these things. Warren, on the other hand, just grabs the proper saw without consciously making a choice and saws precisely to his line, again without thinking about it. Warren has been doing this day in day out for 30 or 40 years. The beginner will still produce a saw kerf. it will just take him longer.

The foundation skills must be learned to do hand tool woodworking. With the exception of Zach Dillinger I don't know of anyone deliberately starting a career as a hand tool craftsman. I assume there are others and that I just don't know of them. The point, however, is that I suspect that we can conclude that hand tool woodworking is largely a hobby activity. I also think that we would all agree that, with the exception of the few "naturals" out there, that skill development is a result of practice. The trade off for skill is time. Without the skill, I can still saw and chisel a tenon it is just going to take a lot longer.

"whether it is actually possible for most, if not all, amateur (i.e. part time) woodworkers to develop the hand skills to forgo tools such as the router plane at the outset?"

I think it reasonable to think that, for the large majority of folks, the answer is no. The admonition to learn how to chisel is correct, at least in my mind. It is just not particularly feasible, especially if there is an alternative. Most of want to get things done. Although we each have a different tolerance for time, ultimately we want to produce a product.

There are basic, foundation skills without which one will never progress. The list is fairly short. Swinging a hammer/mallet, sawing to a line, using a chisel, sharpening. After sharpening comes using a plane, chisel, edges in general. There really isn't much choice. One must learn these things well enough to proceed at the desired pace. How much is enough, how good is good, are questions to which we each have different answers, but they are iterative and evolving as the skill develops. Last year's answer to the question of how close is good enough is not the same as this year's answer.

Your question gets even harder to answer since, for hobbyists, the term need is no different than the term want. A hobby, by definition is an optional activity therefore there can be no "need." We use the term because once we are in the reality bubble of the hobby, some things just cannot be done without the tool. I absolutely need the saw. There is a sliding scale of usefulness which is different for each of us as we weigh the myriads of factors that into a tool decision. The saw(s) are at one end of the scale. The Anarchist's Tool Chest has, as its focal point, the attempt to define the minimum tool set that allows one to build furniture. I think that Chris did an admirable job with it and a whole lot of chests have built because of that book. Is his advice useful to beginners? I have no idea.

I can only speak to me and my situation. I'm working hard to develop those foundation skills. On the other hand I'm pretty far away from a minimal tool set and have no desire to get there. For me, there is an intrinsic pleasure in the tool itself. Do I need that exquisite Chris Vesper marking gauge made from 9000 year old wood? It does not increase my ability to do anything, but walking into the shop and looking at it gives me enormous pleasure. Need = Want. I have finally acquired a dovetail saw (from Isaac Smith, scored a ready to ship) that fits my hand, not perfectly, but useably well. Can I saw better with it? I think so - certainly I am more comfortable. It's a bit closer the absolute end of the scale.

I will end this ramble with the admonition that it's all good.

[Judson Green]

Clever. And I've got a T-track I'm not using too. Used to check out his blog, don't know why I haven't kept up with it.

Thanks