How did YOU get started using hand tools?

[Frederick Skelly]

Seems like the Creek's been kinda quiet lately, so I thought it would be interesting to swap stories. Here's mine.

As a kid, sure - used Dad's hacksaw and hammer and made stuff from scraps. But after growing up, I was always a power tool guy. Always. The closest I ever got to hand tools was the rusty MF #9 that sat on a shelf over my bench, unused, as a decoration. Or the set of blue handled Marples I bought on sale because "a shop's gotta have a set of chisels". Man, I didn't even know how to sharpen them. Sigh.

One day 3-4 years ago, I was repurposing a small shop table into a simple (electric) router table. I was retrofitting some drawers and discovered that the opening wasn't quite square. I went to the bench to reach for a sander and spied a cheap 2" long Stanley plane. It came out of a box of magazines I bought a while back and had just been stashed in a corner of my cabinet. So on a whim, I tried that before the sander - and danged if it didn't work! "Hmmm. That crappy little hand tool just solved my problem quicker and easier than I knew was possible. What the heck?"

Thought about that all week. The next weekend I bought copy of FWW to get the article on "how to restore an old plane" and got to work on that MF #9. And started frequenting the Neander forum. It's been all downhill from there......

What's YOUR story?

Fred

[James Pallas]

In the late 50's early 60's learned hand tool use from my uncle. Strictly home owner things with tools that every family had. I think I brought the first power tool into the house, a Skil 1/4" drill. I graduated to power tools to make a living but still used hand tools often for my own work. I am mostly a hand tool user now and have some very nice tools new ones that are distant cousins to what was available in the past. Just trying to stay up with all of the sharpening written today can give one a huge headache. It is all fun and I enjoy reading about all of it and have learned some new skills along the way.
Jim

[Mike Cherry]

My Dad is a power tool guy. He never let me in his shop as a kid. As a teenager, he was still very careful when I was in the shop. About five years ago, he had a table saw accident and lost two fingers. Luckily, they were reattached and he has full use of them. This all happened before I ever had any real interest in the craft.
Shortly after his accident I started looking for ways to keep my Dad safer in the shop. Aside from the Sawstop, hand tools kept coming up repeatedly when googling safety in the shop. I was so intrigued by the reported merits of handtool woodworking that I wanted to know more. The more I read, the more I wanted to learn. The two biggest selling points for me was the low cost for start up and the fact my kids could come in any time with me as long as they remember which end of the tools are sharp.

I have developed what my wife calls a "romantic connection" with woodworking. I look at every project as if it is to last a lifetime. I write hidden messages on my projects for whomever I am making that project for. My son designed a bedside table for his final in architectural design last year, and then we made it together. I believe that I am connected to these projects because handtool woodworking allows you to get so close to the project. I remember my Dad just zinging through projects one after another after another. Maybe he felt strongly about his projects too, I don't know. I think that running the lumber through a thicknesser and joiner and sanding, while effective, would detract from my enjoyment while I'm in the shop.

[Robert Engel]

For me it was after I decided I wanted to take my ww'ing up a notch, so I started watching a lot of videos guys like Klausz, Garrett Hack, Phil Lowe.
Paul Sellers has had a huge influence on me.

It really has made my ww'ing better and more enjoyable, and ..... safer (no dust).

I still use power tools, but I have stopped all the fiddling and microadjusting to get it perfect right off the saw.

There are some things I will not do by machine anymore, like dovetails.
But the time consuming, grunt work like jointing, planing and mortising I still do by machine.

[Reinis Kanders]

Had no space for a jointer. I like tools and realised that I can have world class hand tools, while with power tools I would be stuck with medium class stuff mostly because of the space constraints.
Kids can be around when I build things, etc and I did not like fussing around and setting up machines for one of the kind operations.

I just like the whole aesthetic of hand tools.

[paul cottingham]

My hands have serious neuropathy that emanates from my neck. I noticed, after using a router, that my hands were completely numb, and the feeling didnt return for a couple days. So...i was already headed down the slope, using chisels, planes, and handsaws for some of my joinery; i decided that the vibration from most tools wasnt worth the pain or numbness afterwards.

so, i sold my router and router bits to a buddy i can borrow them from if i need to, sold my router table to another friend, same arrangement, one i have not needed to take advantage of in 2 years or so.

Of course, hand sanders are no better, so both my random orbits went to a new home, as well as my belt sander, which went out on permanent loan to a buddy.

I admit, i still do long rips with a bandsaw, and clean them up afterwards with a plane. I still use my ancient (and awesome) Delta 220 drill press, and i still hog large amounts of wood with a planer. I still own a jointer, rarely used, and my tablesaw is too wrecked to sell, so i keep it, sometime i rip on it, or cut strips on it (mostly use it as an assembly table.) Oh, and like Schwarz, i still have a mortiser; i can do em by hand, but it really hurts me.

i admit, not using power tools makes me feel more like a woodworker, and less like a mechanic, a ridiculous assertion, but real for me. The fact that its safer, and often quicker is a nice side benefit.

[Jim Koepke]

Started out with not enough room to have any serious power tools. Really didn't have much room for anything.

Started out by getting wood from discarded pallets. To the best of my knowledge there aren't too many power tools made for lumber salvaging.

After that it was working a late shift and not wanting to wake people in the house or next door.

jtk

[Mike Henderson]

Took a hand tools class at the community college. But I mostly use power tools - the hand tools are for situations where I can't use a power tool, or the power tool just won't do the job.

Before I got a power jointer, I use to flatten stock by hand. I was glad to finally get the jointer.

Mike

[Curt Putnam]

Just as one must master conventional reels to call oneself a real fisherman, I've always thought I should master hand tools to call myself a real woodworker. Found out I like hand tools - a lot. One day I will master them.

[Stew Denton]

Fred,

Used my dads hand tools when too young to use power tools, and he didn't have too many power tools anyway. Then worked for a carpenter when in college, again mostly hand tools, except for a circular saw, drill, and router. Even with those, I mostly used a hand saw and hand powered miter box, but then again hardly anyone had a power miter saw back then. Consequently, I never learned to be leery of hand tools, and knew that they could do nice work.

Later after college, I got married, and had to remodel our first house, as it was all we could afford, and it needed a lot of work. I still had my carpenter hand tools, and had no money for much, so used them, and even ripped oak lumber to build door jambs. Figure about 35 feet of hand ripping make one door jamb. (A table saw would have been nice, but I would still have ripped one side to have a true straight edge on the board. I like hand saws better than my circular saws or table saw for the same reasons listed above, no noise, safer, and they don't throw sawdust every where and then have to breath it.

One other plus on hand saws, I can use a hand saw to rip lumber, for critical applications, and get it a lot truer than I can using a circular saw.

I am not a purist. I still use my table saw some, and use my power drills a lot, but if needing a bit larger or deeper hole than is handy with a drill will use a brace and bit. I have routers, jig saws, etc., and use them some but use hand tools a lot and want to learn to use them better. There is more enjoyment for me in using the hand tools. I do use my planes quite a bit.

The hand tools I use most are hand saws, planes, and chisels. I am working at restoring some of my hand tools as time .permits. Lately I have been cleaning up the garage so I have a better place to work, and dreaming of a small shop.

Stew

[Scott DelPorte]

When I was in high school in the 70's, they still had Industrial Arts, or shop classes. I took metalworking (they actually had a foundry for sand casting back then) and woodworking. I liked woodworking better and kept at it. They had power tools in shop class, but I started reading Krenov books and decided I wanted to try to do as much as I could with hand tools. I mostly used hand tools for the last 30+ years of woodworking, but a few years ago built a large (for me) shop. I still use hand tools a lot, but have gone to the dark side and routinely use power tools to dimension wood before fitting and finishing with hand tools.

[Derek Cohen]

I had about 15 years of power tool use before I moved to handtools. I loved (still do) Norm, and would watch his videos. As with many others here, I started building by renovating and restoring homes. Even before this I have used tools, in one form or other, all my life - from building surfboards and windsurfers to restoring cars.

I came to handtools in woodwork almost by chance (20 years ago now). Below is a copy of an story (written in 2010) I have on my website, "Bob's Stanley #3" ...




I have a special fondness for the Stanley #3 handplane. I inherited my father-in-law's English-made #3 at a time when I was still solidly into powertools, and so it disappeared into the back of a shelf. About 15 years ago (circa 1995), having built a new house, I was deep into attaching doors and using a noisy, messy, powered Makita plane to trim the edges, suffocating under the usual earmuffs and eye protection needed for this tool. At some stage the blades on the Makita became too blunt to use and, being a weekend, the store that stocked replacements was closed. Then I recalled the little #3 at the back of the shelf. I'd never used one before, and only had a general idea what to do with it. Indeed, my FIL had passed on several years before the #3 came to live with me, and so the blade had not been sharpened for a couple of decades.

I must have done something right, or Bob was smiling down and had a hand in it, but the moment I place the sole on the edge of the door and pushed forward, I got this "schhhhiiiiiiikkkkkk", and a long ribbon of wood appeared in the silence of the workshop, getting longer and longer as I pushed the plane forward. There is no way to forget that moment - I was hooked!

The #3 is small and intimate. I just loved using this plane.

Now here's the embarrassing part. My confession is that I am a compulsive modifier, and have been ever since I could walk (so my parents tell me). I read about tuning planes. One of the tips was to file a chamfer inside the mouth to aid the flow of shavings. But I clearly misunderstood the directive ... and filed the outside of the sole .. effectively opening the mouth! I didn't recognise what I had done for a few years (as I only really used the plane on softwoods), until I became educated by Badger Pond. And then I felt awful! How could I have done this to Bob's plane?!

I never told anyone in the family. I very much doubt that they would have understood the issue anyway. Years went by with the #3 on the shelf again. Every now-and-then I searched eBay for another plane as a donor. Finally I found one that was identical to Bob's. I was not interested in a better #3. I just wanted the same English casting, one in the same condition - but the #3 is not easy to find ... Onto the "new" base I placed Bob's frog, blade, knob and tote. I sharpened the England-made blade for the first time in many years and ran it over a piece of Karri Pine. It went "Schhhhhhiiiiikkkkk".

The jazz on the shop stereo never sounded sweeter.

Regards from Perth

Derek