Originally Posted by
Deirdre Saoirse Moen
... it took me a while to realize that a) I could learn to do everything by hand and b) I wanted to learn to.
I'm not in great physical shape. On the one hand, this made me reluctant to go the hand tool route, because it is more physical. On the other hand, I realized it was physical work I enjoyed. I love planing. Until I discovered that, I wasn't really willing to commit to the neander path.
It's not an "either-or" choice between hand an power....and not really about tools at all....it's about making things outta wood.
Don't be afraid to use the power tools where they make sense for your work and your body, and the hand tools where they make sense. Once you learn to split and plane out a board from a tree, you don't have to keep repeating those same grunt skills, and spending too much time there will be at the detriment of fit-and-finish skills where hand tools really come into their own. Think of the basic electric motors as your apprentices, if you like.
Even for those interested more in the history and use of hand tools than woodworking, you'll never come to any real level of skill unless you make a maturing series of completed projects instead of just shavings and simple shop fixtures. Visualization, design, stock selection, measuring, layout, etc, all are tied in to an economy of effort you won't acquire otherwise...where you learn that pushing more tool than you need is wasted effort better spent elsewhere.
Last edited by Bob Smalser; 07-23-2006 at 11:46 PM.
““Perhaps then, you will say, ‘But where can one have a boat like that built today?’ And I will tell you that there are still some honest men who can sharpen a saw, plane, or adze...men (who) live and work in out of the way places, but that is lucky, for they can acquire materials for one third of city prices. Best, some of these gentlemen’s boatshops are in places where nothing but the occasional honk of a wild goose will distract them from their work.” -- L Francis Herreshoff