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Thread: How many professional woodworkers using no power tools? ....

  1. #1
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    How many professional woodworkers using no power tools? ....

    How many professional woodworkers use no or generally no power tools? And by that, I don't mean guys who teach classes and give demos or have blogs. I mean not subsidized by that mickey mouse stuff or any other income.

    This is triggered by warren's comment in another thread about a professional woodworker only needing 4 or 5 (bench) planes with one iron per. I've seen warren state before that he doesn't use power tools (even his lathe is unpowered). Warren is the only person I have seen who says this.

    There are other bloggers who make stuff on blogs and run around to WIA, etc, but they are generally not selling their work, they're selling some kind of personality and books and classes, etc. When I see those guys work (at a slow pace), I wonder if they could build a piece in a full week in a shop - they are not comparable to the times warren provide for simple joints, turnings, etc.

    The balance of most of the rest of the folks who even use hand tools as professionals seem to use them where power tools aren't convenient or to get a look.

    Is there anyone other than warren? Maybe some chair makers? (most of those guys give classes if we've heard of them, too).

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    It's sort of an arbitrary line to draw - electric motors. Does Warren pit saw his planks? Use only an ax to fell trees? I'm not saying he should, mind you. But this a slippery slope on a rather arbitrary distinction.

    Do you think you could tell the difference between a table leg I turned on an electric lathe or foot powered or wind powered etc?
    ~ Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought.

  3. #3
    I would not be able to make a living if I gave up the machines or the hand tools. 25 years ago I did a lot of craft fairs and got to know 2 guys who qualified - Spoon maker Tom Metz from West Virginia and broom maker Carlson Tuttle from Kentucky.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Sean Hughto View Post
    It's sort of an arbitrary line to draw - electric motors. Does Warren pit saw his planks? Use only an ax to fell trees? I'm not saying he should, mind you. But this a slippery slope on a rather arbitrary distinction.

    Do you think you could tell the difference between a table leg I turned on an electric lathe or foot powered or wind powered etc?
    It's not so much of an idealistic thing to me, it has more to do with thoughts of using the cap iron, light planes, methods of work, etc. If you're going to do what warren does, then you have to make the times on joints that warren describes, and I've seen very few people actually doing that, short of maybe ge hong from china. Most of the people who write books and talk about their hand tool use work painfully slow.

    Sometimes when I bring up the cap iron stuff, since I play the role of pro wrestling heel with it to make a point sometimes, if I think about just smoothing wood, which is probably what most people do with planes, I guess it really doesn't matter what anyone does. everything works. I can't argue with the fact that the LN and LV planes are super nice pieces of gear, and most people who do nothing but smooth are probably going to like them better than they'll like something like a stanley.

    I guess what I'm getting at is two unrelated things:
    * how fast someone has to be able to work to make a living with hand tools (which usually equates to preferring lighter tools)
    * whether or not I'm in the weeds regarding my tool preferences, and if the only reason they've changed is because I do less with power tools than I have in the past

    I think if you showed me your table leg and warren turned the same thing, i could tell the difference pretty easily. Warren uses carbon steel tools and doesn't sand any of his work.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bradley Gray View Post
    I would not be able to make a living if I gave up the machines or the hand tools. 25 years ago I did a lot of craft fairs and got to know 2 guys who qualified - Spoon maker Tom Metz from West Virginia and broom maker Carlson Tuttle from Kentucky.
    Good point about the spoon and broom guys. I haven't seen a spoon guy here, but my parents (who do craft shows) are friends with a guy who does brooms and he does them unplugged and with a bunch of vintage tools. They sell like crazy, probably because people are transfixed at watching him make brooms while he's at the show. If he just sat behind a booth and said he made them by hand, I don't think he'd sell nearly as much. I sat across from his booth as a kid and he must've sold a couple hundred a day at one of the better shows (at the time, his price was about the same as a broom would've been at a department store).

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    Quote Originally Posted by David Weaver View Post
    I think if you showed me your table leg and warren turned the same thing, i could tell the difference pretty easily. Warren uses carbon steel tools and doesn't sand any of his work.
    I think you missed my point, I didn't ask you to compare mine and Warren's lathe skills. I will concede that Warren no doubt far surpasses me. So assume away different turners, tools, etc - in other words, if Warren turned one leg on his treadle and another on my Jet 1642, could you tell which was which?
    ~ Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought.

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    For 16 years we used hand tools in the Musical Instrument Maker's Shop in the museum. They still did after I left the shop to become the toolmaker in 1986. Now that I am old and short of breath,that has changed.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Sean Hughto View Post
    I think you missed my point, I didn't ask you to compare mine and Warren's lathe skills. I will concede that Warren no doubt far surpasses me. So assume away different turners, tools, etc - in other words, if Warren turned one leg on his treadle and another on my Jet 1642, could you tell which was which?
    I don't know without seeing them, but probably. Would I care about the differences that appear from a much slower stroke on a spring pole lathe vs. a higher speed modern lathe? Probably not.

    it wasn't so much skill that I was differentiating between you and warren, it was the actual results from the process. But even that was not the point, necessarily, I'm not trying to get into something where you say that X is better than Y because Y was made with old tools and more of a cut vs. a scrape or sand.

    It's the fundamental difference between working with hand tools vs. working with hand tools for everything and needing to have a depth of understanding with them and their aspects that doesn't exist if, for example, you're just writing a blog and books and making the pieces is sort of secondary.

    It's interesting to me, because the aspects of tools that I appreciate now, having done probably 80% of the dimensioning I've done in the last three years with hand tools, are far different than the aspects that I appreciated when I used hand tools only to smooth and even out something like a dovetail joint, etc. It sort of makes me wonder if I give bad advice (really)!

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    Quote Originally Posted by george wilson View Post
    For 16 years we used hand tools in the Musical Instrument Maker's Shop in the museum. They still did after I left the shop to become the toolmaker in 1986. Now that I am old and short of breath,that has changed.
    Right, but the shop didn't have to be economically self-supporting. Presume it could've been if you were willing to work long hours, really focus on speed and get rid of the tourists. The guys who stick out in my mind that you described are the barrel makers (were they scottish?) who were literally living in a cold shed hand to mouth before they came to CW. Even then, I don't know that you specified whether or not they had significantly used power tools.

  10. #10
    A guy in Holland Caspar Labarre tried hard to establish a business without powertools. I don't think he really managed in the end, and has a powerplaner now. he is a furniture maker. Last time I heard from him he was splitting some elm tree truncks and worked from there. He set me on the capiron path, even before the Kato video. I really needed the hard data from Kato to make it a real succes, but he sure is a source of inspiration.

    http://www.casparlabarre.com/

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    See, I agree wholeheartedly that hand work and power tool work can yield meaningfully different results. To take a simple example - shaping a small round table top - on one I use an electric router with a circle attachment to get eh shape and then a round over bit to ease the edges - on another I saw out the circle with a bow saw and shape it with a spokeshave. I have no doubt that I could tell the difference and likely would strongly prefer the latter. And there are lots of operations wher this sort of thing matters - a ROS sanded dresser top versus a planed one etc. etc.

    But there are also operations where it makes no difference other than muscle and time. My 1642 has a rheostat speed controller, like most modern lathes, and can go at any speed you want. I've never used a pole lathe or treadle lathe, so maybe there is some hitch in their gitty up or some such that makes for a different result. Interested to hear about it if there is.

    Dimensioning by hand might make some difference in the final result in some circumstances. You choose to finish things differently for non-show sides - perfect uniformity of things like thickness are not always required or worth the sweat as you are hand fitting etc.
    ~ Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought.

  12. #12
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    I think John Brown used very little power and seemed to make a living from his chairs. Welsh Stick Chairs is GREAT book.

    For those interested:
    http://www.amazon.com/Welsh-Stick-Ch.../dp/0854420835
    ~ Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought.

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sean Hughto View Post
    See, I agree wholeheartedly that hand work and power tool work can yield meaningfully different results. To take a simple example - shaping a small round table top - on one I use an electric router with a circle attachment to get eh shape and then a round over bit to ease the edges - on another I saw out the circle with a bow saw and shape it with a spokeshave. I have no doubt that I could tell the difference and likely would strongly prefer the latter. And there are lots of operations wher this sort of thing matters - a ROS sanded dresser top versus a planed one etc. etc.

    But there are also operations where it makes no difference other than muscle and time. My 1642 has a rheostat speed controller, like most modern lathes, and can go at any speed you want. I've never used a pole lathe or treadle lathe, so maybe there is some hitch in their gitty up or some such that makes for a different result. Interested to hear about it if there is.

    Dimensioning by hand might make some difference in the final result in some circumstances. You choose to finish things differently for non-show sides - perfect uniformity of things like thickness are not always required or worth the sweat as you are hand fitting etc.
    right, still, I'm not trying to get to any differentiation of the final result. I don't believe dimensioning by hand makes any difference in my final results, they may just be a bit less accurate. The issue is more about the rate that one has to work and whether or not it's even a feasible idea (one that I wouldn't undertake to begin with), and whether or not it dictates tool preferences.

    I personally care about shapes and crisp lines more than I care so much about how one gets to them.

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by David Weaver View Post
    How many professional woodworkers use no or generally no power tools? And by that, I don't mean guys who teach classes and give demos or have blogs. I mean not subsidized by that mickey mouse stuff or any other income.

    This is triggered by warren's comment in another thread about a professional woodworker only needing 4 or 5 (bench) planes with one iron per. I've seen warren state before that he doesn't use power tools (even his lathe is unpowered). Warren is the only person I have seen who says this.

    There are other bloggers who make stuff on blogs and run around to WIA, etc, but they are generally not selling their work, they're selling some kind of personality and books and classes, etc. When I see those guys work (at a slow pace), I wonder if they could build a piece in a full week in a shop - they are not comparable to the times warren provide for simple joints, turnings, etc.

    The balance of most of the rest of the folks who even use hand tools as professionals seem to use them where power tools aren't convenient or to get a look.

    Is there anyone other than warren? Maybe some chair makers? (most of those guys give classes if we've heard of them, too).
    Tom Fidgen

    Peter Follansbee

    Stephen Shepherd


    .... but what is the point of this question?

    Regards from Perth

    Derek

  15. #15
    I suspect that unless one started young with hand tools only and had years of experience it would be difficult to make any kind or reasonable living working only with hand tools except maybe in a museum setting where there is a subsidy. Years of experience day in and day out performing the same operations over and over again is necessary to learn to work efficiently and quickly. I think we wax nostalgically about the "good olde days" which in reality weren't very good at all. Craftsmen of the 18th century and up until the mid 19th century worked 6 days a week and incredibly long hours. Some of that time was locked up doing what we now do by machine. Stock prep comes to mind as a great example. Whether it can be done is less a question at the professional level than should you do it. I would venture that a lot depends on your personal definition of what is a good life. In other words, where do you want to be along the line stretching from bare subsistence at one end to filthy rich at the other end.
    Dave Anderson

    Chester, NH

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