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

  1. #16
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    All of those guys have supplemental (or substantial) income that doesn't actually come from using the hand tools. Fidgen is one that I think of when I think of a slow work pace (and a bunch of modern tools). Peter Follansbee doesn't work slowly, but he's made a bunch of videos and is on staff at a museum. Could he survive off of just his work? I don't know. How many people really do?

    The point is more whether working quickly by hand dictates that you'll have a preference for a different type of tool, along with a bit of curiosity of how many people are actually able to find paying clients for works done by hand (which doesn't mean making the same thing someone else makes with power tools).

    To me, a LV BU is easier to use for a beginner than a stanley plane, and with a higher strike rate. There's not much to it - if you have tearout, increase the angle and it'll probably go away. If you don't want to use an increased angle all the time, keep two irons.

    Does that mean that advice coming from people who dimension by hand is bad advice for people who don't? maybe it is? The average tuner (of favorable woods) might prefer a spring pole lathe and carbon steel tools, but they won't get there in all likelihood because the learning curve is very steep (sharper tools, more economy of a cut, demand for better stock, etc).

    Sometimes when I direct people to use a cap iron, I think they'd probably be better off just buying a BU plane (LN or LV) and putting off all of the things that turn me on about the double iron because most of those things are pre-smoothing, and I doubt most people do most of those things in quantity. I certainly don't have the speed that it would take for someone to pay for anything I'd do (nor the design). I couldn't dimension as fast with BU planes but if I wasn't dimensioning, I probably wouldn't care.

    I suppose this question is now growing branches. As an aside, I wonder if people who I've suggested something to afterwards go out and do something like buy a BU plane and then set it up and say "you know, Dave's advice was really stupid. It is a lot easier to do X instead". Would they consider advice from a professional the same if it meant a delay before they observed consistent success?

  2. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dave Anderson NH View Post
    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.
    In terms of the good old days, some of my relatives grew up in the good old days, and it's only been the last four generations that had anything (and those are people who grew up after the good old days), the rest lived on dirt except for one person who became a physician in the 1800s (which was unusual in a long line of farmers). I know it's not necessarily directly related to the topic, but that exact point is why I got in the weeds saying paul sellers decrying that we don't have
    a craft economy being either misguided or just a sales pitch. A craft economy leaves most just existing with little money to spend on anything in the first place, and I didn't gather anything from my relatives to suggest that they resisted modernization and the ability to have some spending money and leisure time. Our family history (before 1900) has stories of people passing kids back and forth to families who couldn't have kids, etc, because there wasn't enough money and food to feed and cloth the kids they had. When there was some extra money, then the kids would come back. If they had been craft folks instead of farmers, I guess they would've been apprenticed to someone or lent as shop help in exchange for room and board.

  3. #18
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    Why do you fetishize speed?

    In a production environment, I suppose it's crucial, but other models exist. Suppose I make boutique/custom/studio pieces that well for $10,000 each and aim to produce and sell only10 per year. It may not matter at all if I take three hours to plane something you can plane in 20 minutes.
    ~ Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought.

  4. #19
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    I don't know!!

    But I like it. It's tremendously satisfying to work at something quickly and in rhythm by hand. I guess we all have our preferences. And how frustrating it was to dimension wood by hand without some experience. The myriad of little problems - tearout, overshooting marking lines, standing around in indecision.

    I've noticed how much satisfaction George also says it with when he mentions how quickly he could make guitars 30-40 years ago.

  5. #20
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    Isn't it really about using the right tool for the job? Not just hand tools for the sake of hand tools or power tools for the sake of power tools. Anyone trying to make a living at this sort of work needs to be efficient and productive and in order to get there, power tools are a great solution. Any professional woodworker purposely forsaking power tools either can't afford the power tools, doesn't have much work to do, maybe lives in a place without power, or is on some sort of personal journey. Otherwise, why would they not use a power tool? It really would be ludicrous

  6. #21
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    Yes,back in the 60's,when I had to plane the rosewood and spruce tops,backs and sides by hand,and hand bend the sides(spent a lot of time scraping!!) I could turn out a classical guitar in 2 weeks. The only machines that I used were a bandsaw and drill press. Bending iron was a copper pipe with a propane torch inside.

    My satisfaction was tied to the LOW prices I could charge back the. My day job was teaching shop. 2 weeks meant in the Summer. I could not have lived on what I made from guitar making back then.

    Money was too tight to buy much stuff,and thickness sanders for the home shop were non existent.
    Last edited by george wilson; 09-23-2014 at 11:05 AM.

  7. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pat Barry View Post
    Isn't it really about using the right tool for the job? Not just hand tools for the sake of hand tools or power tools for the sake of power tools. Anyone trying to make a living at this sort of work needs to be efficient and productive and in order to get there, power tools are a great solution. Any professional woodworker purposely forsaking power tools either can't afford the power tools, doesn't have much work to do, maybe lives in a place without power, or is on some sort of personal journey. Otherwise, why would they not use a power tool? It really would be ludicrous
    Well, Warren could tell us why. I suspect a lot of it has to do with the work that he gets commissioned to do having no substantial advantage with power tools. If someone brings in a piece of furniture for repair and it needs a couple of new turnings that look genuine, as well as some moulding replaced, power tools wouldn't really help much. I'm sure there are legitimate reasons that aren't described just by someone doing work that should be done on power tools (for economy) but choosing to do it with hand tools.

  8. #23
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    By "woodworkers" I'm going to assume you mean furniture makers. I've met quite a few, I've yet to meet one who could survive using hand tools only. That said, hand tool or power tools, they all had one thing in common- poverty. Most had a spouse how made it possible to do what they do. I can only think of one who made a living being a woodworker and her income wasn't much above what was needed to survive.

  9. #24
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    Keith,most small "working" artists have a spouse's income to fall back onto.

  10. #25
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    Suppose I make boutique/custom/studio pieces that well for $10,000 each and aim to produce and sell only10 per year.
    If that eleventh customer comes by, could you send them my way?

    BTW, I wish I could get for my spoons what Peter Follansbee gets for his spoons.

    If you have the name, you can make the game.

    jtk
    Last edited by Jim Koepke; 09-23-2014 at 11:43 AM.
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
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  11. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by george wilson View Post

    Money was too tight to buy much stuff,and thickness sanders for the home shop were non existent.
    Based on what I've seen from some custom makers, the drive to be low priced just ends up getting pushed lower when something like a thickness sander becomes available.

    In a shop here locally, there was a custom guitar maker from NC selling stuff (well, I should say he was sending it to the local shop to sell). Figure around 2005, they were sending 5A top guitars to the local guitar dealer with maple necks and mahogany bodies with archtops and two high $$ seymour duncan pickups as well as quality electronics and selling them in the store for $1345. They also had transtint type gloss finishes. I have no idea how they could make them in NC and whether or not they're still in business. The store is also not in business because the guy wanted to make money off of lessons and break even selling guitars. He told me after I bought a guitar from him that I had paid him $100 less than he gave another guy in trade (one of those weirdo godin guitars), but that was OK because he made both of us happy. He also sold me a heritage golden eagle $500 cheaper (direct from heritage) than anyone else would.

    Anyway, it seems like there are always a couple of guitar makers who are willing to run a business destined for failure.

  12. #27
    I know quite a number of full time professional furnituremakers in New England. It has always been a joke among them that the single most important prerequisite to living the life was having a wife who had a job with benefits, primarily health insurance. The vast majority of them make a significant amount of their income teaching classes, selling plans, writing books, and doing other things not directly related to making and selling a piece of work. Quite a number also do repairs and restorations on historic pieces which is quite lucrative for those with the skills, contacts, and reputation. I know of the case where a well known period furniture maker had a client come into his shop with a recently purchased at auction Chippendale (Rococo) chair that needed repair. He quoted and received the OK to do the $900 job. After the client left he fixed the chair in half an hour. All it took was the small amount of time and 30 years of experience and skill development leading up to it.

    Generally speaking almost no one making furniture for a living is getting rich. Even the best who are also good at marketing themselves only make a comfortable income after spending years learning their skills and developing their reputation and following. Myself, I would starve to death because of my work pace. That's OK though since to me the journey is half the fun.
    Dave Anderson

    Chester, NH

  13. #28
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    If I were to do this for a living, rather than a hobby where I take on private commissions, the first tools I would buy are a very large Italian bandsaw, and a handheld power planer.

    Certain procedures yield a much better result by hand, and for that reason I think it is very important to be well versed in using handtools.

    If I were turning out 'handmade' slab tables around here, like a handful of people do, I would need to be able to compete in terms of pricing, which all but requires the use of power tools.
    Bumbling forward into the unknown.

  14. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dave Anderson NH View Post
    Myself, I would starve to death because of my work pace. That's OK though since to me the journey is half the fun.
    Well, I wouldn't even be able to get to the starting line if it had to do with pay. The journey to me is all of the fun, and I guess like a lot of people do (and if they don't, they should), I try to figure out what feels the best to me in the shop combined with satisfaction of doing it.

    As far as restoration goes, when I grew up in the 1980s, there were a few restoration guys near me who made a living doing restoration, and also picking up furniture at auctions and sprucing it up and then selling it out of their garages (I lived in an area that was zoned commercial, but most of the houses were residential, so if you wanted to hang out a shingle and run a business out of your garage, no problem). I grew up in an old area of PA, and there was plenty of good quality old furniture back then, and it was before the current wave of HGTV and throwaway/RTA chinese-origin furniture. I don't know any of those guys, but most of them are not around any longer.

    I don't remember any furniture makers, except for a few people who tried to run shops where they made unfinished furniture, but that was all power tool work. I still have some bits and pieces from a couple of those shops, because my parents were keen to save a dollar or two and finish the furniture themselves.

    Anyway, there's a ton of antique shops around me who were probably doing the same thing, buying furniture at auction and public sale and then fixing it and selling it in antique shops (New Oxford, PA), and they probably kept the garage finishers busy, too. There are still antique shops around there selling furniture that's very old with very tastefully and neatly done dovetails and good proportioned drawers with thin sides, etc. And cheap (compared to what we'd think we'd need to have to make the same thing). My parents replaced all of their earlier junk furniture with stuff made generally by hand, probably at the suggestion of some of their antique collecting friends.

    I just said a lot without saying much - but I think restoration for the guy with a minimal tool kit was the way some folks were still making a few bucks when I was a kid - back in those days middle class people still hadn't gotten to throwing everything away yet, and people kept things from their childhood - when we travel to my parents, I'm still feeding my kids in the same high chair my grandfather was fed in, though it almost got used to start the coal furnace one year - my dad paid a restorer to put it back together from a pile of sticks in the coal storage room.

  15. #30
    I think it's an interesting topic, even if it leads nowhere. A few miscellaneous observations:

    - The very best example I can think of is W. Patrick Edwards. He uses no power tools, but he's in a sub-field, like chairmaking or luthiery, that is well-suited to handwork. Spend a little time looking at his marquetry and you will want to sell your tools on ebay and start drinking the proceeds.

    - I'm surprised no one brought up Tony Konovaloff. He's about the only cabinetmaker I can think of who uses no power tools. He self-published a book a couple years ago, but he's been doing it forever.

    - Edit: I forgot Geremy Coy, who was doing some very nice stuff in D.C. Not sure if he still is; his blog seems to have gone dead (but it has some beautiful pics and is worth a look).

    - John Brown, who I admire (Sean is right about that book) wrote a somewhat self-righteous essay in FWW years ago about not using power tools, but it was "except I have a bandsaw." Which to me is a little like saying meat is murder, but I eat Turkey at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

    - I'd call Tom Fidgen a professional blogger, not a professional woodworker.

    - Follansbee left Plimoth very recently and went out on his own, so it remains to be seen if he can make rent over the long haul. I expect he will; he's the real deal. But working in a museum is not quite the same thing as "professional" in my opinion. That's not to knock it at all, but just to observe that someone is paying you to re-enact history, not necessarily to make product.
    Last edited by Steve Voigt; 09-23-2014 at 1:11 PM.

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