The old guys were smarter than most give them credit!

[Bob Glenn]

I am in the process of reading Mortise and Tenon, The Anarchist Design Book and By Hand and Eye. The three go together nicely. What continues to impress me is how the pre-industrial craftsmen and the ancients did what they did, with so little, and made a living doing it.

I am actually coming to realize that they were probably smarter and more gifted than present day generations, who have come to rely on calculators, computers, CNC, and a whole host of measuring devises.

Looking at various builds around the world, I have to ask, how was this done without the aid of electrons or power that we know today. It just amazes me.

Maybe we are not as clever as we sometimes give ourselves credit for.

[Stanley Covington]

We recline on the shoulders of giants astride the mountains they made, and marvel at our achievements.

[Bill White]

I'm always impressed with the craftsmanship of the "giants". They didn't even have diamond stuff, digital battery eaters, the ability to measure in sub-micron increments. How the h@!! did they every build anything?
Bill

[john zulu]

The mindset was different back then. Cut wood with handsaw or axe. Not table saw.

Anyway things have changed and I doubt they would want to cut plywood with an axe..

[Patrick Chase]

I am actually coming to realize that they were probably smarter and more gifted than present day generations, who have come to rely on calculators, computers, CNC, and a whole host of measuring devises.

[groan] Oh, please, not a "these kids today" argument.

Humanity hasn't changed much at all. One person can only learn and retain so much knowledge, and that has always been the case. In order to make any sort of living today (in any field) you have to spend a pretty significant fraction of those brain cells on modern tools/techniques. You will necessarily do worse than previous generations when measured based on knowledge and application of "the old ways", just as they would do worse if asked to use modern machine tools or develop software.

Not better, not worse, just inevitably different.

[EDIT] I would note that people who have the luxury of dedicating themselves to classic technique (for example somebody like George during his Williamsburg tenure) do darned good work. They're still at somewhat of a disadvantage due to the inevitable loss of collective knowledge though.

[george wilson]

Williamsburg or not,we still had the luxury of books,Patrick. And,now we have the internet. Never the less,many secrets no doubt have been lost. That is why I always stuck around the old craftsmen that I was able to meet as a youngster. Learned quite a few tricks on how to get by with nearly nothing from them.

Were the old guys smarter? I doubt it. But they learned how to do things with what they had.

Learned gentlemen of old did not have our modern things to learn. Instead,at the time,they filled their heads with religion,social behavior knowledge,the classics,arts,how to decorate their houses(men did that back then,not women),things like those.

[Andrew Hughes]

I'm thinking that if we didn't spend soo much time sitting in traffic and standing in stupid lines,Sufing the internet.More people with good hand eye coordination would develop skills that would impress the future generation.
What is see today most young adult cannot even drive a nail straight.
I am impressed that people more than a hundered years ago lived long enough to develop the hand skills.
This is not in anyway doging George and his craftsman ship I have great Respect for him.

[John Gornall]

I like to point out to the younger people that no man has stood on the moon since the internet and cell phones were invented. But they were there before that.

[Jim Koepke]

What is see today most young adult cannot even drive a nail straight.

This is one that eluded me until I picked up a four volume set of Audel's Carpenter's and Builder's Guide.

One sentence changed my nail driving markedly. "When possible keep the elbow inline and in the same plane as the nail's head."

I went from bending almost half of my nails to driving a couple gross while only bending one when a knot was in the way.

If one wants to learn what the old timers knew, pick up a set of Audel's. They are also available for other trades.

jtk

[Halgeir Wold]

337306
I'll give you a perfect example : The traditional boat in Northern Norway is the Northlander ( my translation), - a type of boat built in several sizes from appx 16' to 45' over a period of several hundred years. All models are in principle built over the same template, and varied by ratio. Of course dimensions had to suit the size at hand. Tools were mostly handtools, - a handful of planes ( partly to avoid changing the settings), axes, some specialized augers- and a measuring stick. The feel and eyeballing of the dimensions were crucial to the build. All strakes are scarf jointed somewhere around the middle, but the second strake has a twist of almost 80 deg from the vertical stem to the scarf. On older times they wedged the twist out of the log, but around 1800 or so they had developd a way of thinning the strake to make the twist. The correct shape of the hull is also critical to the performance of the finished boat. some families produced up to 100 boats in one season, and an estimate of around 10,000 boats per year is suggested. Production mostly halted during the early 1900s, but enthusiast still maintain the craft.
I've shamelessly stolen a pic off the net, where also noted that the picture was "on loan" :)

[Steve Voigt]

[groan] Oh, please, not a "these kids today" argument.

Humanity hasn't changed much at all. One person can only learn and retain so much knowledge, and that has always been the case. In order to make any sort of living today (in any field) you have to spend a pretty significant fraction of those brain cells on modern tools/techniques. You will necessarily do worse than previous generations when measured based on knowledge and application of "the old ways", just as they would do worse if asked to use modern machine tools or develop software.

Not better, not worse, just inevitably different.

[EDIT] I would note that people who have the luxury of dedicating themselves to classic technique (for example somebody like George during his Williamsburg tenure) do darned good work. They're still at somewhat of a disadvantage due to the inevitable loss of collective knowledge though.

I agree in a narrow sense; people have been making the "these kids today" argument since Socrates, if not before, and it's never been right.

However, I also agree with the spirit of Bob's post at the top; maybe if we substitute "they were equally smart" for "they were smarter" the point would be more valid.

In the context of this forum, I rarely see people showing excessive reverence for the past. What I see all the time is dudes, usually engineers or software guys, who automatically think they are smarter than the 18th century woodworkers. These dudes always seem to think that they can sit down at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and design a better plane/chisel/saw/whatever in a couple hours, even if they have very little practical experience using those tools. A huge percentage of people here would be better off if they stopped trying to invent their own techniques or methods or tools, and just focused on mastering the skills and tools developed in the 18th/early 19th C., when people actually had to make things by hand, expertly and efficiently.

[Pat Barry]

A huge percentage of people here would be better off if they stopped trying to invent their own techniques or methods or tools, and just focused on mastering the skills and tools developed in the 18th/early 19th C., when people actually had to make things by hand, expertly and efficiently.
Exactly. Who needs progress for gosh sakes. Keep things the way they are (meant to be).

[Halgeir Wold]

I agree, more or less totally, but the problem today is that younger people today mostly don't have the very basic skills that we aquired in primary school, and very few references to how things were done or made.

[Jim Davis]

What I think I see in those much younger than me, is that critical thinking and analytical thinking are foreign concepts to them. Farm kids of my generation grew up watching people find ways to get something done and finding their own ways. We were taught the conventional ways and expected to find another way if conventional was impossible or impractical at the time.

Schools no longer teach kids how to think--just what to think.

[Jim Koepke]

Schools no longer teach kids how to think--just what to think.

They are being taught to take a test.

They are not being taught how to handle the tests of life.

jtk

[Halgeir Wold]

It is quite possible that we as parents are also to blame. When I grew up in the late 50s and 60s, - as teh elder son, I had to take part in all sorts of chores, as hiring people to do odd jobs was totally out of teh question. As a kid I often hated this, but as a seasoned (!) adult, I know what I learned from this. Kids today are far to busy playing PC games to take part in practical work, and parents are too busy watcing stupid TV series. My son is 26,and it wasn't until he passed 20 that he really took an interest in practical work, finally understanding that he had to pay others to do the fixes he didn't care to do :)

[Chuck Hart]

I just want to add a couple of thoughts here. Some of the marvels of old were built with slave labor. Very few people had an education and trade skills in Europe were closely regulated. It wasn't until the world expansion started that skills began to develop by the individual learning skills on his own. Most had simple tools up to the 18th century. So most of the items built by individual craftsmen did not become full scale until then. Sure there were beautiful things built in earlier times but most of those were built using cheap labor. Of course cheap labor is what makes the consumer world go round.

[Christian Thompson]

Physical stuff gets mass produced these days so most of us just don't need to make things. So it's only natural that skills with hand tools have declined. It isn't because we are any less skilled, dumber, or less coordinated than our ancestors. Just that we focus on different stuff. There is a lot of creativity and skill that goes into building apps, computer programs, websites, etc... If one of the "old guys" from the 18th century started digging around in source code his head would spin :). Again, not because he was dumb, but because he focused on different things.

Stop and look around at some of the truly incredible stuff that has been invented in the last few decades. We could argue if some of that stuff is good, but 30 or 40 years ago having a watch that you could use for communication was crazy science fiction. And now our phones / smart watches are more powerful than huge rooms full of computers from the 60's. It's really astounding when you think about it.

[Normand Leblanc]

I would really like to see one of those old woodworkers sharpening a blade. It amaze me to see all that beautiful furniture they were able to built without our fancy sharpening systems. All old stones that I've seen were concave, very concave and rough. How were they doing?

[Halgeir Wold]

Our closest neighbour when I was a kid, was an old carpenter. He died in -66 at 93 years old. He did not have a single jig for sharpening..... (his workshop was my favourite hideout..also because he was an interesting old man with fantastic stories. When he took the time...)

[glenn bradley]

Hmmm, I am a little weak on crop rotation . . . Was Farmer John all that much brighter than I? Different world, different skills. There was a time when people didn't run for fun, eat at their leisure or walk about unarmed. Fun for discussion like any apples and oranges conversation ;-)

[Patrick Chase]

I like to point out to the younger people that no man has stood on the moon since the internet and cell phones were invented. But they were there before that.

That has more to do with baby boomers' budget priorities than anything else. The moonshot effort cost close to 1% of GDP per annum at its peak, or the equivalent of $150B/yr today. We could do it more cheaply now, but you'd never get something like that through Congress all the same.

[William Adams]

We've had this shown before, but it's always fun and inspirational:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5OxVgH-T1I&app=desktop

[Jerry Olexa]

A very interesting and good threads..I think we should respect the knowledge and skill of everyone we encounter.. They are doing best they can...everyone has a story and should be given dignity and respect...Even if we don't agree...Sometimes here at SMC that is overlooked.

[Prashun Patel]

Wow, I have a contrarian opinion:

The best way to preserve the past is to embrace the future.

Without the Internet I would never have ironically connected with virtual mentors to open my eyes to the beauty of hand tool work.

Stop hating the future, and jump in and learn about it as MUCH as you can. That's the way you'll connect with young people and get them to relate to the ways of the past.

It's lazy to just complain about it.

The old guys were not any smarter than we are today. The works and art and memories that survive the centuries give a false sense of all the useless garbage that was around also.

In a few centuries, people will be pointing to the 0.05% of enduring, wonderful, meaningful, society-changing advances that are happening right now that we cannot even comprehend for our own myopia.

[William Adams]

It would be easier to embrace the future if it weren't so dead set on forcing me to use tools which I mislike.

I really, really, really wish someone would make:

- a replacement for Freehand --- I loathe Adobe Illustrator, accept Inkscape 'cause it's free, and dread having to install Windows 10 so as to be able to try out Affinity Designer by Serif
- a Tablet PC w/ a truly daylight viewable display and reasonable battery life --- all I want is a replacement for my Fujitsu Stylistic ST4121
- an OS which I would like as much as PenPoint or NeXTstep

Most days, I regret buying the CNC instead of a Jointmaker Pro.

[Patrick Chase]

- a Tablet PC w/ a truly daylight viewable display and reasonable battery life --- all I want is a replacement for my Fujitsu Stylistic ST4121


You do know that there's a physics problem, right? An emissive tablet-sized display with sufficient brightness to be daylight-viewable requires a lot of power, period. What you ask for would require a major breakthrough in displays, batteries, or both.

The Fujitsu ST4121 was over 3 lbs with a 10" display, so that's just good old fashioned brute force. You could bolt a monster battery (they exist) to the back of a modern tablet and get similar results.



- an OS which I would like as much as PenPoint or NeXTstep


I have the latest version of NeXTStep installed on my laptop. It's called "OSX El Capitan". Seriously, OSX is and always has been NeXTStep right down to the Mach/BSD hybrid underpinnings.

[Jim Davis]

...Stop and look around at some of the truly incredible stuff that has been invented in the last few decades. We could argue if some of that stuff is good, but 30 or 40 years ago having a watch that you could use for communication was crazy science fiction. And now our phones / smart watches are more powerful than huge rooms full of computers from the 60's. It's really astounding when you think about it.

In fact, Dick Tracy had a radio watch back in the 1950s. The biggest change that allowed all the digital devices we have was miniaturization. Even logic circuits have been around for 50 years or more. We're just making things faster and smaller. Programmers just build with existing sequences and make more complex sequences. We're also applying digital codes to more servos and mechanisms. I have to think it was as remarkable for the Germans, in particular, to make those complicated mechanical automatons centuries ago. It took the same sort of logical and sequencial thinking.

[Bill McDermott]

Modern conveniences are a true blessing. They enable me to indulge in the manual pursuits.
I do chores, make things and fix things because I enjoy it.

Ironically, at minimum wage, most complex projects I undertake would be done faster and less expensively if I paid a pro.
Simple repairs, not so much. But they aren't as much fun either.

Living continues to be a pleasing paradox.

[William Adams]

Yes, a daylight viewable display is a solved problem, one which was solved by the transflective display on my ST4121.

Mac OS X, since 10.6.8 doesn’t much appeal to me. It kills me that Apple isn’t maintaining Rosetta, or for that matter, Classic.app. I miss the pop up main menu from NeXTstep, repositionable/tear off menus, Display Postscript (and its programmability), &c. Apple also isn’t making a machine I want to buy — I prefer portables, and using a stylus, but need a full OS — if they’d just made the iPad Pro run a full OS, rather than iOS, I’d have one. Oh well, one of these days I’ll win an auction for an Axiotron Modbook — I’ll still be sad about the lack of a daylight viewable display.

[Tom M King]

I fix things that were done poorly a century and a half, to two and a half centuries ago almost every day.

[steven c newman]

Let's try this out.....A large group of people came upon a river that they needed to cross. Too deep to just wade across, and the wagons and other stuff they were hauling along wouldn't take the wet trip across. They were also other people lurking over there....

The leader of the group comes up to the river bank, turns around, and tells the rest to....just build a bridge. Which they did, in about...48 hours, IIRC......it was strong enough for everything they were hauling to go across with dry feet.

The leader of this group? Julius Gias Ceasar. The river was across the Rhone, if I remember correctly. Those same Roman soldiers build the bridge with just the basic tools they carried along everywhere. No plans were needed, just build the bridge, and carry on.

Try that sort of thing today...lawyers and others will lock it down so fast....you might get the same bridge done today, but it would take 3 years to do...regulations to save us...from us.

[Frederick Skelly]

We've had this shown before, but it's always fun and inspirational:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5OxVgH-T1I&app=desktop

That was neat!

[Frederick Skelly]

Let's try this out.....A large group of people came upon a river that they needed to cross. Too deep to just wade across, and the wagons and other stuff they were hauling along wouldn't take the wet trip across. They were also other people lurking over there....

The leader of the group comes up to the river bank, turns around, and tells the rest to....just build a bridge. Which they did, in about...48 hours, IIRC......it was strong enough for everything they were hauling to go across with dry feet.

The leader of this group? Julius Gias Ceasar. The river was across the Rhone, if I remember correctly. Those same Roman soldiers build the bridge with just the basic tools they carried along everywhere. No plans were needed, just build the bridge, and carry on.

A great reminder Steven. The Romans were one of the leading cultures of their time (along with India, China and several others).

[Patrick Chase]

Yes, a daylight viewable display is a solved problem, one which was solved by the transflective display on my ST4121.

I may be biased because I did image quality and image processing for a long time, but transreflective displays are a disaster from just about any perspective *but* brightness and IMO a technological dead-end.

I think you have good points about NeXTStep/MacOS and especially FreeHand. I remember using FreeHand 1.0 on Mac in 1988 and being completely blown away. Of course the way they got those results was by embedding a complete PostScript interpreter and running it interactively, some time before NeXT did the same thing (with Display PostScript).

Way OT though...

[Patrick Chase]

Let's try this out.....A large group of people came upon a river that they needed to cross. Too deep to just wade across, and the wagons and other stuff they were hauling along wouldn't take the wet trip across. They were also other people lurking over there....

The leader of the group comes up to the river bank, turns around, and tells the rest to....just build a bridge. Which they did, in about...48 hours, IIRC......it was strong enough for everything they were hauling to go across with dry feet.

The leader of this group? Julius Gias Ceasar. The river was across the Rhone, if I remember correctly. Those same Roman soldiers build the bridge with just the basic tools they carried along everywhere. No plans were needed, just build the bridge, and carry on.

Try that sort of thing today...lawyers and others will lock it down so fast....you might get the same bridge done today, but it would take 3 years to do...regulations to save us...from us.

Military engineers do the same thing in similar contexts all the time, and have done so in every modern conflict. There's a huge difference between building something in peacetime that will be used by civilians for decades to come, and building something in wartime that only needs to service (inherently expendable) soldiers for a matter of days or weeks.

[William Adams]

Transflective displays suit my need to have a machine which functions as a map reader, Ebook, CNC controller, &c. when traveling, or working on my back deck. Nothing else meets my needs.

Freehand is pretty limited in its on-screen PostScript support compared to Altsys Virtuoso on a NeXT Cube w/ Display PostScript. In particular PS fills and strokes don’t render until printed to .ps.

[steven c newman]

Those same soldiers back then were required to build the roads they walked on ( some are in use even today) every evening, they had to build a fortified camp. Hadrian's Wall was built by those same soldiers, and the outposts and towns along it. When they weren't fighting, they were building. Romans also perfected the use of concrete. They built things fast, yet strong. They also used a fancy form of hand plane, as well. You ight check that one out.....

Napoleon's Engineers were some of the best in their day. Might check out the operations in and around Lobau Island on the Danube river.

[Jim Koepke]

Transflective displays suit my need to have a machine which functions as a map reader, Ebook, CNC controller, &c. when traveling, or working on my back deck. Nothing else meets my needs.

Freehand is pretty limited in its on-screen PostScript support compared to Altsys Virtuoso on a NeXT Cube w/ Display PostScript. In particular PS fills and strokes don’t render until printed to .ps.

I remember back when I was knee high to a grasshopper my great grandpappy saying, "back in the day those transflective displays were driving everyone nuts." :eek:

jtk

[allen long]

In fact, Dick Tracy had a radio watch back in the 1950s. The biggest change that allowed all the digital devices we have was miniaturization..

DickTracy was a fictional comic strip character and the radio watch did not actually exist.

[Bob Glenn]

I fix things that were done poorly a century and a half, to two and a half centuries ago almost every day.

Tom, all due respect, however, I wonder how much stuff made today will be around and in use in a couple hundred years. Bob

[Frederick Skelly]

DickTracy was a fictional comic strip character and the radio watch did not actually exist.

It does now. They call it a cell phone.:D:D:D

[allen long]

Honestly how much stuff is in use today from 200 years ago? Similar finer furniture, tools, and musical instruments made today will be around 200 years from now. There were cheaply made items then as there are now.

[Stewie Simpson]

http://timkastelle.org/blog/2014/04/to-create-the-future-we-must-understand-the-past/

When we look at the history of innovation, it becomes clear that we can’t create valuable new ideas without building on old ones. Think about the example of computers (http://timkastelle.org/blog/2014/03/who-invented-the-computer/) – the device that you’re reading this on is part of a line of ideas that actually goes back thousands of years.

To innovate, we need to be able to imagine a better world. But at the same time, we have to be aware of what has come before.

To create the future, we must understand the past.

[Pat Barry]

The way i see it progress is made by building on existing ideas and designs. Make improvements to an existing design by changing and optimizing certain weak links, etc. That's evolutionary development in a nutshell. The problem is that this is also a process that follows the laws of diminishing returns. True innovation on the other hand involves paradigm shifts in ideas. Examples such as vacuum tube to transistor or steam engine to internal combustion or battery to solar cell. Leveraging these paradigm changes is where true progress is made.

[Patrick Chase]

The way i see it progress is made by building on existing ideas and designs. Make improvements to an existing design by changing and optimizing certain weak links, etc. That's evolutionary development in a nutshell. The problem is that this is also a process that follows the laws of diminishing returns. True innovation on the other hand involves paradigm shifts in ideas. Examples such as vacuum tube to transistor or steam engine to internal combustion or battery to solar cell. Leveraging these paradigm changes is where true progress is made.

Indeed, but there are fundamental limits based on the knowledge capacity of both individuals and groups. We individually and collectively filter "the old knowledge" based on what we think will be most useful going forward in order to make room for the new. Some of my biggest "a ha" moments as an engineer have come when I stumbled on a "useless" old solution whose time had come again for one reason or another (and some of my biggest "d'oh" moments when I failed to recognize such situations, but that's life).

[Lenore Epstein]

Smarter? More gifted? I guess DNA sequencing, spectacular advances in astrophysics, getting to the cusp of genetically-based medical treatment, GPS, are just more examples of modern mediocrity. And certainly you can think of no examples of inspired, gifted woodworkers and other craftsmen in our time, while every single one of those "old guys" were superior in every way...

It's no surprise that "young people" don't flock to what used to be called "the trades" when our culture values tidy white collar work over any whiff of manual labor, and cheap functionality in household goods that at one time couldn't be had unless it was made by a craftsman? And how the heck are your "young people" supposed to learn how to use a hammer when they barely know what one looks like, to say nothing of having seen one in use?

A young buck in the 19th century needed and had lots of time and opportunity to develop manual skills because nobody could afford a handyman, craftsmen quickly learned to see and feel a variance of a millimeter because precise standardized measuring tools weren't available, and everyone valued quality hand made household goods because a way to make cheap, functional, and widely available ones hadn't been invented yet. Similarly, today's 20 year old's expertise is in modern technology and all the ways we survive and adapt to a high tech global environment, and like it or not, video games and sitting stock still in front of a computer actually contribute to her understanding of his world. If you think his or her experiences and skills are shallow and useless, that's because what's relevant now wasn't imaginable 20 years ago, to say nothing of 100..

Sorry if this is a bit strident. I'm just so tired of hearing how much better everything used to be. With my genes I for one would be dead several times over if I lived in the old days, and I wouldn't trade my access to an amazing depth of knowledge and variety of human experience for all the handmade stuff in the world.

[Kees Heiden]

Even gaming is a skill that needs quite a bit of training to reach proficiancy. Just a pitty it leads nowhere.

[Stanley Covington]

Admiring the means, methods, hard work, successes, and beautiful creations made by past generations of the human race in the face of crushing adversity and almost total technical ignorance does not take away anything from latter generations, including those in our time. Our forerunners did the best they could, and some of the things they learned and did became the foundations upon which we are building. Or maybe we are just rearranging the furniture....

In our time, the accumulation of knowledge has accelerated, but it did not start with us, nor will it end with us, God willing. Wisdom is the one product of the human experience that cannot be taught, only learned, or discarded. No excess of it around nowadays.

If I can put on my prophecy hat, I predict that future generations 400 years from now will look at our electronics with dismay, but our woodworking handtools and the surviving things we made with them with reverence.

Stan

[Brent Cutshall]

I don't know if they were smarter or not. What I do know is that way back when, they had no power tools so they learned to move wood at about the same rate with an all too mouth watering workshop filled with tools, kinda like me. I guess that makes them either smarter or more "doing it the hard wayish". So thumbs up to them who got by without switches and buttons but still crafted the old world craftsmanship that we have a hard time accomplishing. Not denouncing anybody, I'm just glorifying others.

[Robert Engel]

We are looking back with 21st century eyes. To really understand it we have to know what the world was like then.
Check out this little story (http://www.cornishworkshop.co.uk/haywardcraftsmen.html) about everyday life in an 18th century ww'ing shop.

The craftsman of old used the technology available to them, just like the craftsman of today do.
Their livelihood depended on their skills, work ethic, and productivity. Ever looked at the inside of the front of a 1/2 blind drawer and seen saw kerfs 6" long?
We consider something like that poor craftsmanship but in the day it got the drawer completed faster and nobody was the wiser.

We use the technology available. For example, those of us who want to build a table in less than two weeks use power planers, jointers and TS.
The guys (who I respect) that don't use power tools are doing it out of idealism, not practicality.

So why do I draw the line at CNC carving?

Well, I think there is a line somewhere we cross and can no long say "I made that".
When someone asked me if I carved that, I want to honestly say "yes".

[Bruce Haugen]

Even gaming is a skill that needs quite a bit of training to reach proficiancy. Just a pitty it leads nowhere.

An Air Force rep at the Pentagon once told me that cockpits of their fighters were being designed to more closely resemble the display on flight simulators because that's where a lot of their pilots were learning their initial skills.

[Mike Holbrook]

Like others mention, I think the difference is attributable to different ways of teaching and learning. Namely apprenticeships. Back in the day, if one wanted to learn a "trade" one found a teacher with a great deal of practical experience and worked with them. There seems to have been a more recent historical period during which great value was placed on a general/liberal arts type education which was suppose to provide students an education that was widely applicable. More recently the pendulum seems to be swinging back towards training in specific trades, just different ones.

I think we find this situation here on the forum. We have access to a great deal of written practical information. Still each individual has to actually put tools to wood to learn methods and techniques that work for their individual skill set and tools. The thing that is often missing is seeing skilled craftsmen doing the work in front of our eyes. I went through a period of taking classes in an effort to see in person how to make things work. An apprenticeship is obviously a much longer emersion in the work, that must engrain the skills in muscle and cerebral memory.

[Zach Dillinger]

I am in the process of reading Mortise and Tenon, The Anarchist Design Book and By Hand and Eye. The three go together nicely. What continues to impress me is how the pre-industrial craftsmen and the ancients did what they did, with so little, and made a living doing it.

I am actually coming to realize that they were probably smarter and more gifted than present day generations, who have come to rely on calculators, computers, CNC, and a whole host of measuring devises.

Looking at various builds around the world, I have to ask, how was this done without the aid of electrons or power that we know today. It just amazes me.

Maybe we are not as clever as we sometimes give ourselves credit for.

The only way to learn is to study the old pieces and attempt to replicate the tool marks that you see. Really understand why things look the way they do. Eventually, you will have epiphanies (some minor, some major) that will fundamentally alter the way you work. It's what happened (and is still happening every day) to me. Sometimes a left-over gauge mark isn't a mistake; sometimes a saw overcut is intentional and not a flaw.

[Jim Koepke]

If I can put on my prophecy hat, I predict that future generations 400 years from now will look at our electronics with dismay, but our woodworking handtools and the surviving things we made with them with reverence.

I am using some electronics that is only 8 years old that is obsolete. In the near future I will have to purchase something new to stay on line.

My longest lasting electronics is a transistor radio from the 1960s.

I have a few chairs from the 1950s. I am sure some of my wood working projects will last beyond my lifetime. I doubt if any of my electronic gizmos will be anywhere other than a landfill. The most likely to survive is probably an old 'hot wire' flashlight.

jtk

[Jim Koepke]

Sometimes a left-over gauge mark isn't a mistake; sometimes a saw overcut is intentional and not a flaw.

I have seen a few things referring to such. Often when making double blind dovetails the worker would overcut the sawing so anyone repairing the piece in the future could determine how the joint was made and prevent accidental damage.

There is usually a reason for everything. Sadly sometime it is just inexperience or sloppiness.

jtk

[Mike Holbrook]

My computer is sitting on a school teacher's desk from the mid 18th century, made in Glasgow Scotland. It needs a little work but still functions about as well as it did the day it was made.

[Bob Glenn]

My computer is sitting on a school teacher's desk from the mid 18th century, made in Glasgow Scotland. It needs a little work but still functions about as well as it did the day it was made.

The computer or the desk? Curious minds want to know.

[Mike Henderson]

Let's try this out.....A large group of people came upon a river that they needed to cross. Too deep to just wade across, and the wagons and other stuff they were hauling along wouldn't take the wet trip across. They were also other people lurking over there....

The leader of the group comes up to the river bank, turns around, and tells the rest to....just build a bridge. Which they did, in about...48 hours, IIRC......it was strong enough for everything they were hauling to go across with dry feet.

The leader of this group? Julius Gias Ceasar. The river was across the Rhone, if I remember correctly. Those same Roman soldiers build the bridge with just the basic tools they carried along everywhere. No plans were needed, just build the bridge, and carry on.

Try that sort of thing today...lawyers and others will lock it down so fast....you might get the same bridge done today, but it would take 3 years to do...regulations to save us...from us.
Of course, they were a military group, they had soldiers who were the equivalent of our army engineers, there was a war going on, and the bridge only had to last a very short while.

In a similar situation today, the Navy CBs or Army engineers could throw a bridge over a river in a very short time and while people were shooting at them. In fact, they did it MANY times in world war II - the Germans, the Americans, and the Russians.

Some of those bridges were used for a number of years after the war, until permanent bridges could be built.

Mike

[The Roman soldier was more of a construction worker than a soldier. He spent a LOT more time building military fortifications and machines than he did fighting. For a good example of some of the work they did, see the Battle of Alesia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Alesia) which was essentially the last battle in the Gallic Wars.

One thing they taught us in Army OCS that really impressed me was how much could be accomplished by a group. If you looked at the job as something you had to do yourself, it was almost impossible. But the group completed the work in a very short time.]

[Tom Vanzant]

I have furniture pieces from great-grandparents on both sides, some nicer than others, all still in use, horsehair stuffing and all. My favorite is a pie safe dating from the 1860s. It has two pairs of doors with pierced tin panels, and two drawers. All the front wood is black walnut, and the carcass is 1"x14" pine boards stained to match. M/T joints, dovetails, and cut nails of various sizes hold it all together. It spent at least sixty years in a garage and needed "refreshing" and repair to a rotted rear leg and warped door. "Minimal" was key...it was cleaned, not refinished, and still looks it's age. A rat's attempt to gnaw his way in was preserved...a bit of character.

[John K Jordan]

I'm thinking that if we didn't spend soo much time sitting in traffic and standing in stupid lines,Sufing the internet...

Don't forget the TV. I quit watching TV about 9 years ago. I haven't missed it at all. I get a lot more done.

JKJ

[Patrick Chase]

Of course, they were a military group, they had soldiers who were the equivalent of our army engineers, and the bridge only had to last a very short while.

One of my favorite examples of a feat of military engineering that only had to last a VERY short while: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bailey%27s_Dam

Short version: A Union naval squadron in the Civil War was trapped up-river of some shallows and in imminent danger of capture. They (actually the army units they were supporting) built a dam to increase the depth of the shallows, then breached the center and sailed through.

[Mike Henderson]

Tom, all due respect, however, I wonder how much stuff made today will be around and in use in a couple hundred years. Bob
The issue is how much of the stuff made today should be around and in use in a couple of hundred years. The lifespan of a cell phone today is a couple of years - not because it won't last longer but because a better one with more features will be available in that time. Soon a cellphone will be able to understand our speech just like a person but that will take more powerful processors and better software.

Even furniture - If I'm a young person starting a household, I don't want to pay for some furniture that will last for a couple of hundred years. I want something that's in my price range and will last for the length of time that I need it to.

Quality is when something is built to meet the need of the customer. Too many people have failed in business because they were making a quality product to their definition, not to the definition of the customer. If a customer wants a product that will last for 10 years and cost $x, you're not going to be successful if you build something that will last 20 years and costs more.

Look around - how much of the things you use today would you want to still be using in even 25 years?

Mike

[Brian Holcombe]

Mike, it's surprising even to me but many many people do not think about buying a product that is not a forever product. People buying Herman Miller, Knoll, Cassina, etc expect to have it for a very long time.

The furniture I own that I have bought, rather than having made, I bought it expecting it will last my lifetime with a reupholster or two along the way.

There are customers who only buy lifetime level quality. In fact I'd be surprised if anyone buying studio furniture did so expecting it to last less than a lifetime.

[Mike Henderson]

Mike, it's surprising even to me but many many people do not think about buying a product that is not a forever product. People buying Herman Miller, Knoll, Cassina, etc expect to have it for a very long time.

The furniture I own that I have bought, rather than having made, I bought it expecting it will last my lifetime with a reupholster or two along the way.

There are customers who only buy lifetime level quality. In fact I'd be surprised if anyone buying studio furniture did so expecting it to last less than a lifetime.
Absolutely. There are people who want lifetime furniture. Just not a lot of them. Certainly not enough to support all the woodworkers who would like to make a living making custom furniture.

The people who are making money in woodworking are those who make (actually, install) kitchen cabinets. And those are certainly not lifetime products.

Mike

[Jim Koepke]

Absolutely. There are people who want lifetime furniture. Just not a lot of them. Certainly not enough to support all the woodworkers who would like to make a living making custom furniture.

The people who are making money in woodworking are those who make (actually, install) kitchen cabinets. And those are certainly not lifetime products.

Mike

Once heard a wise person say, "if you make a product mostly for the higher classes you will live among the masses. If you make a product for the masses, you will live among the higher classes."

jtk

[Brian Holcombe]

Absolutely. There are people who want lifetime furniture. Just not a lot of them. Certainly not enough to support all the woodworkers who would like to make a living making custom furniture.

The people who are making money in woodworking are those who make (actually, install) kitchen cabinets. And those are certainly not lifetime products.

Mike

Mike, I'm not limiting my comments to studio furniture, but also lifetime (give or take) furniture that is production made. There are still companies like Carl Hansen & Son going strong making classic designs.

The ones that survived changed their approach once and began appealing to luxury consumers and commercial installations.

I've heard the same with regard to cabinet work.

[Chris Parks]

I find it amazing that people of past times and before wholesale use of machinery had the endurance to work the long hours they did because their diet and health could not have been good especially when they began to age. They certainly had very little leisure time because before the invention of electricity and for some gas lighting they went to sleep and rose largely with the sun because they could not afford good lighting. Then it was off to work for another easy day at the bench or whatever they did. I suppose in some ways the leisure pursuits did not exist so work filled in the time.

[Patrick Chase]

Once heard a wise person say, "if you make a product mostly for the higher classes you will live among the masses. If you make a product for the masses, you will live among the higher classes."

jtk

IMO that's no longer true. It amazes me how many companies are doing well these days by targeting the 0.1%.

When I was growing up that sort of conspicuous wealth was viewed as unseemly.

[Curt Harms]

Don't forget the TV. I quit watching TV about 9 years ago. I haven't missed it at all. I get a lot more done.

JKJ


Amen to that.

[Robby Tacheny]

I mean no disrespect to teachers, I almost became one, but education is a limiting factor these days. Kids go to school to prepare for college ONLY. They are not taught shop class, home skills, money management, or any useful life skills. Once they go to college they have 4 years to try and "figure everything out" while learning to adjust socially and trying to mature. Socioeconomic differences aside, kids 100 years ago were getting married at 18 or earlier and had families to support. If they didn't have a college degree they went to company to develop a skill. They started doing something almost menial and moved up learning every job along the way.

School no longer teaches life skills and companies in the US don't want to put money into employee development, as they would rather hire a labor force that already has skills to function immediately at their job. Oddly enough, immigrants often come into our country with a higher level of competency for trade jobs because they didn't go to college and had to work and develop skills to survive. As a bonus to the hiring company, they have no education so companies use that to justify paying immigrants them less. Please be advises, I have no problem with immigrants. Everyone in this country was an immigrant at some period in history.

So by my estimation, our education system is keeping people in school longer, giving them less life skills, driving up personal debt, and is actually depriving the job market by churning out 23 - 25 year old "kids" with nothing but entry level skills. Meanwhile, college tuition is going up and higher education is making more money that ever.

I guess want I am implying is that we have created our own problems and the kids really have nothing to do with it. If we want to fix it, we need to look at the end products of our education system and ask if removing things like shop class, music, and art (all things which require to use our heads and hands in a skilled fashion) were warranted. Having higher math scores didn't get us to the moon. It was abstract thinking and application of science to solve a problem.

[Jim Koepke]

IMO that's no longer true. It amazes me how many companies are doing well these days by targeting the 0.1%.

When I was growing up that sort of conspicuous wealth was viewed as unseemly.

I do not know of many companies doing well serving the top 0.1%. I certainly do not see that as a sure fire business plan.

jtk

[Curt Harms]

I do not know of many companies doing well serving the top 0.1%. I certainly do not see that as a sure fire business plan.

jtk

If you're located in the right part of the world (NYC/N. Jersey, LA, Bay area etc.) you might do alright targeting the 1%ers because there's quite a few wealthy people in a relatively small area. For most of the country good luck.

[Jim Koepke]

might
If you're located in the right part of the world (NYC/N. Jersey, LA, Bay area etc.) you do alright targeting the 1%ers. For most of the country good luck.

I do not know Curt. My home and occupation used to be in the San Francisco Bay Area. Besides, Patrick mentioned the top 0.1% a category even smaller than the top 1%. This is not a percentage of the population, it is a percentage based on earning levels.

I knew a guy who worked for a Rolls Royce repair and restoration service. I could almost always find him at home.

Discussions like this always make me think about the guy selling apples on a street corner during the Great Depression. His sign said, "Apples $1,000,000 each." Someone suggested his apples were a bit high priced. His reply was, "I only need to sell one."

It would be nice to have a wealthy patron supporting your endeavors. It could be a disaster if they decide to spend their money elsewhere. It is better to have many people wanting your services. If one leaves it won't be a reason to panic.

jtk

[Curt Harms]

I knew a guy who worked for a Rolls Royce repair and restoration service. I could almost always find him at home.

If his skill level and demand were such that he didn't need to work much to make the $$$ he needed more power to him.



It would be nice to have a wealthy patron supporting your endeavors. It could be a disaster if they decide to spend their money elsewhere.


Very true but certain areas have enough high income individuals ($500,000+/yr.) that one needn't be reliant on one or two people. You just need to be spoken highly of in the right quarters.

[Jim Koepke]

If his skill level and demand were such that he didn't need to work much to make the $$$ he needed more power to him.

He was always a little short of cash on hand. His skill level was high. Even in the San Francisco area there are not that many Rolls Royces needing restorations. Though occasionally I did get to see a couple nice ones.


Very true but certain areas have enough high income individuals ($500,000+/yr.) that one needn't be reliant on one or two people. You just need to be spoken highly of in the right quarters.

If one were to be starting a new endeavor, it doesn't seem one would be on a brilliant course targeting just this crowd. You indicate the top 1%, Patrick used 0.1% in his post. It may have been a typo, but it is an even more rarified field to attract.

jtk

[Brian Holcombe]

I think many have the impression that the only people patronizing studio furniture makers are "1%-ers" (a moniker which I can't stand quite frankly), yet when you speak to the people who have run these shops for years you find that much of the time their studios are kept up by regular folks who are just very interested in having that certain piece of furniture.

[steven c newman]

Hmm, and just how did the oldtimers get so smart, in the first place?

Somehow, one would become known as a "Master" of whatever "Craft" he was doing. Then, young boys were sent to study that Master's ways. Soon, this was made into an apprentiseship. Soo, after working for his room and board, buying a set of tools over the years, this fully trained Teenager, would go out into the world, Journeying around to find work as a......Journeyman. Might have been a Joiner, maybe a Mason, and even a painter. He served his time, until he was ready to make his "Masterpiece" for the respective Guild to approve of. IF it passed, he then could call himself a Master. He could even set up a shop to work from, take on apprentises IF he so desired. Back in the days of the Guild Houses, the ONLY allowed way to learn a trade, was to start as an apprentise to a master. DYIers were highly frowned upon. One learned their craft, applied their craft, and then taught what they had learned to the next group coming of age......But, that was such a long time ago..

back then, even George Wilson, esq. was expected to have and keep as many apprentises as he could afford to keep clothed and fed. Wages? Maybe......

[Patrick Chase]

If one were to be starting a new endeavor, it doesn't seem one would be on a brilliant course targeting just this crowd. You indicate the top 1%, Patrick used 0.1% in his post. It may have been a typo, but it is an even more rarified field to attract.

jtk

OK, Way OT, but offhand:



Yacht builders - 100+ meter yachts used to be very rarified territory (think "Onassis"), now they're status symbols for every tech impressario
"Business" jet makers - ditto
Popular high-end car manufacturers, dealers, etc. Your friend's problem was that he chose Rolls and not, say, Lamborghini, MacLaren, or Ferrari. Rolls is very 20th century :-).
Luxury clothing/accessory brands
Any of a multitude of companies that provide various services that would only appeal to or even be viable for the extemely wealthy
Etc.


The Bay Area is full of this sort of craziness. Just the other day some fine individual with far more wealth than sense blocked the alley of my condo complex in *Dublin* with the Ferrari 458 (list price $260K or so, though they sold above that) that they were using to shuttle their kid to a playdate.

Of course I may be biased because I work in a place that's known for having produced several billionaires and a ton of mere multi-millionaires. Many of them are still around.

[Jim Koepke]

If you were to start a business today, do you think it would be more successful targeting this elite group as opposed to targeting the average guy walking down the street?

How much would it cost to set up shop to build yachts?

I still feel the axiom, "if you make a product mostly for the higher classes you will live among the masses. If you make a product for the masses, you will live among the higher classes."

How many of the people that work in a high end auto dealership live in the wealthy communities? How many of the dealership owners? How many of them are actually owned by a company that sells automobiles in various price ranges?

Same question for those who work on making or servicing yachts. Do they also service lower cost sail boats?

Most of the people I can think of that have the big dollar homes in 'private' communities have usually done so by making a product that appeals to the masses.

Look at the Walton family. How many of the 1% do you think shop in their stores?

Then there are people like Bill Gates and all the other software, hardware and online geniuses. Ebay was made for the average person to buy and sell. Sure, the top 1% likely use Google, but it isn't set up just for them.

If you look at the list of the world's top 10 billionaires you won't find many that got there by only selling to the rich:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World%27s_Billionaires

Berkshire Hathaway is a pricy stock, but it is mainly a holding company with interests in stocks like Coca Cola, See's Candy and many other companies focused on the mass market. (I haven't followed BH for years so those may no longer be in the portfolio.)

The closest one to having a top 1% market is Michael Bloomberg. I am sure there are a lot of less than top 1% income people also subscribing to his news letters and listening to his media outlets.

jtk

[Pat Barry]

Hmm, and just how did the oldtimers get so smart, in the first place?

Somehow, one would become known as a "Master" of whatever "Craft" he was doing. Then, young boys were sent to study that Master's ways. Soon, this was made into an apprentiseship. Soo, after working for his room and board, buying a set of tools over the years, this fully trained Teenager, would go out into the world, Journeying around to find work as a......Journeyman. Might have been a Joiner, maybe a Mason, and even a painter. He served his time, until he was ready to make his "Masterpiece" for the respective Guild to approve of. IF it passed, he then could call himself a Master. He could even set up a shop to work from, take on apprentises IF he so desired. Back in the days of the Guild Houses, the ONLY allowed way to learn a trade, was to start as an apprentise to a master. DYIers were highly frowned upon. One learned their craft, applied their craft, and then taught what they had learned to the next group coming of age......But, that was such a long time ago..

back then, even George Wilson, esq. was expected to have and keep as many apprentises as he could afford to keep clothed and fed. Wages? Maybe......
Interesting thought process, but, what if some nobody just called himself master. Who was there to say otherwise? What was to stop this self proclaimed master from setting up shop and doing some less than masterful work?

[William Adams]

That's what the guilds enforced.

[Pat Barry]

That's what the guilds enforced.
Sure, but how did they communicate the status of some master far and wide? I can see it working locally perhaps, but over distances, and across borders, etc? I don't see the link. How did the guild enforce it? Strongarm tactics? Call a cop? Picketing?

[Jim Koepke]

Interesting thought process, but, what if some nobody just called himself master. Who was there to say otherwise? What was to stop this self proclaimed master from setting up shop and doing some less than masterful work?

Back in the day it was the guilds.

There are always charlatans who will try and pass themselves off as something they aren't. It has gone back far enough in human history to have caveat emptor understood by most even though it is in a language not commonly spoken in modern society except as references to legal, medical or other professional matters.

jtk

[William Adams]

All of the above --- this sort of thing is covered in history texts --- it was hard to pass off as a fraud --- remember, you had to do a masterpiece to be eligible to begin to study to be master (edit, not to be).

[Brian Holcombe]

If you were to start a business today, do you think it would be more successful targeting this elite group as opposed to targeting the average guy walking down the street?

How much would it cost to set up shop to build yachts?

I still feel the axiom, "if you make a product mostly for the higher classes you will live among the masses. If you make a product for the masses, you will live among the higher classes."

How many of the people that work in a high end auto dealership live in the wealthy communities? How many of the dealership owners? How many of them are actually owned by a company that sells automobiles in various price ranges?

Same question for those who work on making or servicing yachts. Do they also service lower cost sail boats?

Most of the people I can think of that have the big dollar homes in 'private' communities have usually done so by making a product that appeals to the masses.

Look at the Walton family. How many of the 1% do you think shop in their stores?

Then there are people like Bill Gates and all the other software, hardware and online geniuses. Ebay was made for the average person to buy and sell. Sure, the top 1% likely use Google, but it isn't set up just for them.

If you look at the list of the world's top 10 billionaires you won't find many that got there by only selling to the rich:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World%27s_Billionaires

Berkshire Hathaway is a pricy stock, but it is mainly a holding company with interests in stocks like Coca Cola, See's Candy and many other companies focused on the mass market. (I haven't followed BH for years so those may no longer be in the portfolio.)

The closest one to having a top 1% market is Michael Bloomberg. I am sure there are a lot of less than top 1% income people also subscribing to his news letters and listening to his media outlets.

jtk


Jim,

Buffet made the base of his wealth investing money, with his target clients being people with money to invest. In fact he suggests this as being one of the best ways to amass wealth. Many people have done the same to create the base of their wealth, selling financial products.

[george wilson]

You made a masterpiece to become credited as a journeyman.

Here's how a journeyman found employment in a guild in Flanders as a harpsichord maker. Having learned the trade already,he found a master within the guild to prove himself with. He was allowed to live with and be fed by the master while he made a harpsichord. And no goofing off and wasting time. If the harpsichord passed muster with the guild,he was allowed to open himself a shop and be the master there. The harpsichord that he made while living with his host master was kept by that master,and sold to pay for his food and lodging while he was making it.

Now,of course,during his time elsewhere,working as a journeyman,he had to have lived frugally and saved his money to buy all the tools,benches and materials to open the shop. This could take him years to do.

The guilds were very powerful. In one case,a French violin maker's work went downhill in quality. The Guild made him burn all his instruments. He had to do this,and make better violins to be kept in the guild. And,unless he was in the guild,he was not allowed to make and sell violins,so he would be unable to make a living.

In some countries,like Italy,you HAD to o into the same trade as your father,like it or not. In more liberal countries,like England,your father could secure you an apprenticeship with any trade he liked. But,you were under the control of your father as he got to chose that trade. Wogdon,who became one of the most elite of the gunsmiths(specializing in dueling pistols) was the son of a saddler. Wogdon developed a trick to make his pistols shoot ON TARGET. Pistols had larger breeches than muzzles. They had little front sights,so would shoot higher than aimed. Wogdon secretly BENT the barrels of his pistols down a bit to make them shoot where aimed. Poems were written about how deadly Wogdons were.

[Tom M King]

Whether the old way or the new way, you can't target the "elite" market without a reputation, and that reputation doesn't come easy any kind of way. In any case, you don't start out with that reputation. Reputations worth anything are built over time.

[Jim Koepke]

Jim,

Buffet made the base of his wealth investing money, with his target clients being people with money to invest. In fact he suggests this as being one of the best ways to amass wealth. Many people have done the same to create the base of their wealth, selling financial products.

Buffet is a wise man. When he started out he bought the same stocks anyone else could buy. Of course he bought some companies outright. My father wasn't a believer. He didn't want to take stock in Berkshire Hathaway for his Hathaway shirt stock. So he took the money. He also bought a lot of companies for their retirement funds. Funds he could use to invest to make more than would need to be paid out by the defined retirement plans. (I am not a financial type, so I do not know all the details, just a bit of what I read and grew up learning along the way.)

I do not think there are many items in the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio that are makers of items aimed at the top 1%.

What was it that Buffet invested in? Mostly companies selling products to the general public. Now his stock is something that only the higher income folks among us can buy, but it wasn't always so.

Many of the 'financial products' that have made their sellers wealthy are mutual funds sold to everyday people planning for retirement.

Yes, it is possible to market a product that is strictly aimed at the wealthiest segment of society and get rich. It is more likely to get rich selling a lot of product to the general public.

jtk

[Stewie Simpson]

If you read the Frank Klaus bio; you get a clearer insight into the minimum standard set before submitting an application to the Master Craftsman's Guild.

At the end of four years, Frank became a certified journeyman cabinetmaker, on his way to becoming a master (which required one year of work in each of three different shops). http://www.frankklausz.com/homepage.html

[Stewie Simpson]

You made a masterpiece to become credited as a journeyman.

As George rightly points out this was submitted during the final year of internship by the Journeyman; nothing to do with an application to join the Master Craftsmen's Guild.

[Steve Voigt]

You made a masterpiece to become credited as a journeyman.

Here's how a journeyman found employment in a guild in Flanders as a harpsichord maker. Having learned the trade already,he found a master within the guild to prove himself with. He was allowed to live with and be fed by the master while he made a harpsichord. And no goofing off and wasting time. If the harpsichord passed muster with the guild,he was allowed to open himself a shop and be the master there. The harpsichord that he made while living with his host master was kept by that master,and sold to pay for his food and lodging while he was making it.

Now,of course,during his time elsewhere,working as a journeyman,he had to have lived frugally and saved his money to buy all the tools,benches and materials to open the shop. This could take him years to do.

The guilds were very powerful. In one case,a French violin maker's work went downhill in quality. The Guild made him burn all his instruments. He had to do this,and make better violins to be kept in the guild. And,unless he was in the guild,he was not allowed to make and sell violins,so he would be unable to make a living.

In some countries,like Italy,you HAD to o into the same trade as your father,like it or not. In more liberal countries,like England,your father could secure you an apprenticeship with any trade he liked. But,you were under the control of your father as he got to chose that trade. Wogdon,who became one of the most elite of the gunsmiths(specializing in dueling pistols) was the son of a saddler. Wogdon developed a trick to make his pistols shoot ON TARGET. Pistols had larger breeches than muzzles. They had little front sights,so would shoot higher than aimed. Wogdon secretly BENT the barrels of his pistols down a bit to make them shoot where aimed. Poems were written about how deadly Wogdons were.


George,
Cool post. Great info. I love this stuff. Thanks!

[Brian Holcombe]

Buffet is a wise man. When he started out he bought the same stocks anyone else could buy. Of course he bought some companies outright. My father wasn't a believer. He didn't want to take stock in Berkshire Hathaway for his Hathaway shirt stock. So he took the money. He also bought a lot of companies for their retirement funds. Funds he could use to invest to make more than would need to be paid out by the defined retirement plans. (I am not a financial type, so I do not know all the details, just a bit of what I read and grew up learning along the way.)

I do not think there are many items in the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio that are makers of items aimed at the top 1%.

What was it that Buffet invested in? Mostly companies selling products to the general public. Now his stock is something that only the higher income folks among us can buy, but it wasn't always so.

Many of the 'financial products' that have made their sellers wealthy are mutual funds sold to everyday people planning for retirement.

Yes, it is possible to market a product that is strictly aimed at the wealthiest segment of society and get rich. It is more likely to get rich selling a lot of product to the general public.

jtk

Sorry Jim I'm realizing my post was vague. I'm talking about prior to Berkshire Hathaway, he was creating partnerships with clients so that he could invest their money for them. His partnerships were structured like a hedge fund. So my point is that while the businesses they were purchasing may have been geared toward selling to everyone, his approach was to sell a 'financial product' specifically designed for people who had a minimum of 10k to invest in the early 1950's.

Anyways, we're well off topic so I do apologize for that, and I accept that your saying is accurate on the whole.

[Jim Koepke]

Sorry Jim I'm realizing my post was vague. I'm talking about prior to Berkshire Hathaway, he was creating partnerships with clients so that he could invest their money for them. His partnerships were structured like a hedge fund. So my point is that while the businesses they were purchasing may have been geared toward selling to everyone, his approach was to sell a 'financial product' specifically designed for people who had a minimum of 10k to invest in the early 1950's.

Anyways, we're well off topic so I do apologize for that, and I accept that your saying is accurate on the whole.

Yes, it is a bit off the topic. The "old guys" likely knew there were more opportunities to amass wealth selling to the masses. They also knew money could be made selling some of their work to narrow segments of society such as the top income levels, just not as many customers in that area.

jtk

[Patrick Chase]

Sorry Jim I'm realizing my post was vague. I'm talking about prior to Berkshire Hathaway, he was creating partnerships with clients so that he could invest their money for them. His partnerships were structured like a hedge fund. So my point is that while the businesses they were purchasing may have been geared toward selling to everyone, his approach was to sell a 'financial product' specifically designed for people who had a minimum of 10k to invest in the early 1950's.

Anyways, we're well off topic so I do apologize for that, and I accept that your saying is accurate on the whole.

The US was a very different place when Buffet/Walton/etc made their fortunes. How they did it says a lot more about how the US worked 60 years ago (or even 30 years ago) than today.

As recently as 1980 the US Gini index was 0.40, now it's 0.48 (where 0 means "everybody has the same income" and 1.0 means "1 person makes all of the income in the entire country"). That's a drastic change as such things go, and means that business strategies that worked as recently as the 80s are no longer optimal or in some cases even viable.

As has recently been pointed out in many places, the top 0.1% in the US now have as much wealth as the bottom 90%. The distribution is even more lopsided when you consider disposable wealth, which is what matters if you're selling anything other than food/shelter/etc.

[Bob Glenn]

Sure, but how did they communicate the status of some master far and wide? I can see it working locally perhaps, but over distances, and across borders, etc? I don't see the link. How did the guild enforce it? Strongarm tactics? Call a cop? Picketing?
Christopher Schwartz has said "Show me the paperwork" when talking to self proclaimed Masters.

[george wilson]

Amen to that,Bob! But,I doubt that any actual masters of their trades these days actually have papers to prove it.

I was selected by a room full of people at the museum. We had,years later,a forum made up of masters of different trades in Williamsburg. They appointed ONE person as Master during their couple of years of existence as a group. Trying to get them to agree on anything was like pulling teeth. Too much personality conflict and egotism. I thought the whole thing was a waste of time. No paper was issued to the appointed master,but he went into the pay grade for masters. There was a pay grade for different levels of employees.

So,Schwartz might as well whistled into the wind. He was a few hundred years too late. But,we do have too many self proclaimed masters! And beginners who talk like they are masters.

I'd say,instead of "show me the papers",SHOW ME THE WORK!

[Matt Lau]

Bob,

I'm probably one of the younger guys on this thread, and definitely the least experienced.
While I'm a millenial, I definitely have a strong appreciation for the tested wisdom of tradition and good taste.
Actually, I'd say that my generation has a strong yearning for the authentic, no-fluff stuff of yesteryear (that's how all this highly priced "free-range," "artisanal" stuff is supported).
We've seen Ikea, fluff-ware dot com stuff, Eames crap, and way too much Web 2.0 crap...personally, I'm sort of sick of it.

I also find it extremely ironic that we're making a big deal about how the internet is making us dumber-----while *we* are on an *internet forum* dedicated to hand tool woodworking. Thanks to you guys (and this internet that allows us to connect), I've learned lots of things not to do (which is incredibly valuable). I've learned what to look for in a good tool, and what not to waste money on.

I definitely don't think that we are getting dumber if we set our mind to learn.
My family has a saying: To a hero, will go a great sword. To the right student, will find a great teacher.

-Matt

ps.
I'd personally recommend that you try making a small box out of firewood.
Resaw a few boards by hand. An inkline is helpful for marking.
Plane them down to what *feels* right. You can use a simple wooden caliper to check for flat.
Cut the planks to shape, and refine with a shooting board/plane.
Dovetail the boards together.

This is an incredibly liberating feeling.

pps. -- rant time---
Note: Next time you go to your (American) dentist, ask them about gold and/or the Tucker study group.
You will have:
A. The guys that say it's the best thing ever, and that it can last several decades easily. This has been proven for at least a century.
B. The guys that tell you its an antiquated dinosaur technology that is past it's prime. Then, they'll try to sell you their CEREC milled zirconium crown.

As a dentist, I find that it's very telling that the vast majority of guys out their will pimp the CEREC crown that costs them $25 a unit (along with the massive financing cost of a $180,000 computer machine that will go obsolete every 18 months) instead of educating their patients about the pros and cons of different modalities (Gold, different ceramics, biomimetics, biomechanics, biology, etc). There's less work doing that. We look better because of the newest "technology." And it's more profitable to slap a $25 crown in someone's mouth for $500 that will fail within 10 years, than to sweat the details and spend extra hours to make a gold crown by hand for $2000 that will last a patient's lifetime.

We know that the average patient doesn't give a crap, and just wants to get "what insurance covers." Most people will gladly get their teeth cut to nubs to avoid $200 of copay, even if their tooth is irreparably killed and the bone suffers too. They'd rather have their new i-thing or a vacation to Cabo. This is why Western Dental and Clearchoice (where they rip out all your teeth, stick in 4 implants [all-on-four], and slap in a premade denture in one day) exist!

This is why we complain about the newer generation being dumber.

Thankfully, there's also a hunger for true quality.
That's why people like me and my mentors can stay in business.

Thankfully, we are in the same tribe...where we can see the value of tools that will outlast us, and impractically well made stuff that will outlive our grandchildren.
I am particularly thankful for craftsman like Finn Tonsberg (my dentist mentor, who fixes houses for fun), George Wilson, Derek Cohen, Stan Covington, Dave Weaver--people that inspire me to be a better person.

ppps. After 17 months sitting on a broken office chair that my mom found for me off craigslist for $20, I splurged and bought a used Herman Miller Aeron chair.
It costed almost 17.5x as much, but is well worth it. I saved much more than that by learning/teaching myself how to install and fix equipment around the office (largely learning from sites like this, MIMF, experimentation on scrap, etc).
Today, I saved $180+ by buying the battery for my touch n heat instead of sending it to the overpaid company that makes it--it's going straight to my tool budget.

[Larry Edgerton]

It all comes down to something as simple as a loaf of bread.

I make a living doing woodwork, and my end goal is to buy a loaf of bread meteorically speaking. I do know how to do things with hand tools, that is how I learned, but in order to buy a loaf of bread in todays world, I have to do things a different way. I have to have machines that allow me to get more done in less time.

For example,, today I am making edgeing around an 8' round table out of Makore. I could use hand tools to cut them out, and plane to fit with a radius plane, but I will rough them out with a bandsaw and use a pattern and a byrd head on the shaper to finish. I will have them all done by mid day. I am competing with the guy with a CNC that will have them done by 10 AM, I just do not have a choice. I could spend two days making the part by hand, and buy a loaf of bread, or do it with my machines and buy four. Easy choice. I like bread.

[Jim Koepke]

I could spend two days making the part by hand, and buy a loaf of bread, or do it with my machines and buy four. Easy choice. I like bread.

My work has also had to go the route of quicker output. Most recently some of my joinery has been done with pocket screws. Most folks won't even notice. Those that do usually want hand cut joinery at less than Ikea prices.

jtk

[Mike Henderson]

Sorry Jim I'm realizing my post was vague. I'm talking about prior to Berkshire Hathaway, he was creating partnerships with clients so that he could invest their money for them. His partnerships were structured like a hedge fund. So my point is that while the businesses they were purchasing may have been geared toward selling to everyone, his approach was to sell a 'financial product' specifically designed for people who had a minimum of 10k to invest in the early 1950's.

Anyways, we're well off topic so I do apologize for that, and I accept that your saying is accurate on the whole.
And $10K was a lot of money in the early 50's. You could buy a house where I grew up for $10K at that time. And people financed that for 20 years. My uncle told me that when he and his wife bought their house, the payments were about $50/mo and he was concerned if he would be able to make the payments.

Mike

[$50/mo for 20 years at 3% interest is about a $9,000 loan. He was a WWII vet (signal corps) so I'm pretty sure he got a VA loan which would be almost 100% of the price of the house. He was wounded in Europe tracing wire that had been broken by shell fire. After I served in Vietnam, he would talk to me about his wartime experiences. Before that, he never said anything about it to me.]

[Larry Edgerton]

My first house was $15K. I just put $156K materials into a house the same size, and I did all of the labor with the exception of the wiring.

I make three time as much now. Something wrong with the math. But...... I have no payment.

[Larry Edgerton]

My work has also had to go the route of quicker output. Most recently some of my joinery has been done with pocket screws. Most folks won't even notice. Those that do usually want hand cut joinery at less than Ikea prices.

jtk

I recently bought a pair of Dominos to pretty much eliminate mortise and tenons, all in an effort to speed up the process. Did not want to, but the reality was I was taking too long, and the competition was not. Idealistically I would like to build reproductions of classics even down to the hidden details, but the reality is that I would be working for too little.

Its that bread thing.....

[george wilson]

My first house was $16,000.00 in 1964. It was a decent little house with a full house sized basement. The owner and builder had had an upholstery business in the basement. Trouble was,he made the basement floor about b2" below ground level,and sometimes it would flood 2" deep. I built many guitars there,but always had a moisture problem there that I could not afford to address.

[Brian Holcombe]

And $10K was a lot of money in the early 50's. You could buy a house where I grew up for $10K at that time. And people financed that for 20 years. My uncle told me that when he and his wife bought their house, the payments were about $50/mo and he was concerned if he would be able to make the payments.

Mike

[$50/mo for 20 years at 3% interest is about a $9,000 loan. He was a WWII vet (signal corps) so I'm pretty sure he got a VA loan which would be almost 100% of the price of the house. He was wounded in Europe tracing wire that had been broken by shell fire. After I served in Vietnam, he would talk to me about his wartime experiences. Before that, he never said anything about it to me.]

Thank you for your service, my father and grandfather were Vietnam (navy) and WWII (army).

Indeed it was, I always get a laugh out of the statement that floats around about Philip Morris stock, if one had bought $1k worth in 1920~ it's worth about 500M currently, but anyone who had $1k in 1920 to put in one stock was likely already very wealthy.

[Patrick Chase]

Thank you for your service, my father and grandfather were Vietnam (navy) and WWII (army).

Indeed it was, I always get a laugh out of the statement that floats around about Philip Morris stock, if one had bought $1k worth in 1920~ it's worth about 500M currently, but anyone who had $1k in 1920 to put in one stock was likely already very wealthy.

Per-capita real (inflation adjusted) GDP then was about 1/6th of what it is today, and inflation since then is about 10.6X, so $1K then would be roughly equivalent to $60K now in terms of %age of income.

[Robert Engel]

Re Post #71 I think that education is a very important point often overlooked in discussions like this. Our education system has failed our children just for the simple reason that somewhere it became a college prep institution.

The irony is, those recent college grads, after paying their loans, have less net income then their plumber, AC guy, electrician, or auto tech.

[Frederick Skelly]

Thank you for your service.

I wholeheartedly agree Mike. Thank you and all our Veterans.

Fred

[Brian Holcombe]

Per-capita real (inflation adjusted) GDP then was about 1/6th of what it is today, and inflation since then is about 10.6X, so $1K then would be roughly equivalent to $60K now in terms of %age of income.

Then replace with 'fairly well off' as we're talking about an individual stock and many people buy more than one. I realize they're picking an arbitrary number and one might as well be using $100 as an example, but I find it funny :D I always read the context of the statement to be like it was a flip decision; Meh, I'll throw a $1000 into PM and see what it does. Not sure why, but I do.

To give perspective, it was about the same price as a middle of the road sear's house kit.

[Robby Tacheny]

The irony is, those recent college grads, after paying their loans, have less net income then their plumber, AC guy, electrician, or auto tech.

It kills me to pay $200+ to (insert plumber) to unplug my drains. Not because I don't value the work, but I realize they just made $200 in an hour when I work in a "highly desired" IT/Tech job, have high stress job, on-call hours, and still don't make even 25% of that hourly rate.

It just makes me again question why go the college route to graduate with debt, only the ability to get an entry level job, and very little life experience.

Robby

[george wilson]

I made more money than the conservators in the museum. And,they had to have Master's degrees,and know a heluva lot about many things. Of course,we did,too. But in a less "academic" sort of way. For example,you didn't see any of them who could hand forge,bore and rifle a gun barrel.

I don't know what my BS degree did for me. My important college education came from hanging out with Will Reimann in the Art Department as much as possible!

I will say that none of them could cut accurately with a bandsaw,and some were deathly afraid of the table saw. They knew chemistry re: removing old,unwanted paint(over the original),removing crud and other undesirable stuff. But,when it came to metal working,they were always totally dependent upon Jon and me to make missing parts,old style locks,18th. C. casters,etc..

We probably learned a lot from each other in the final analysis. I'd say it was a BIT heavy on them learning from us!:)

The jist is: they had to be highly educated and made less than the master craftsmen in my department. Even the curators(except the vice president head curator) made less than we did. Some of them tended to act like they were the elite,and we were the "troops",though. But NOT the ones who really knew us and our work.

[Robby Tacheny]

I made more money than the conservators in the museum. And,they had to have Master's degrees,and know a heluva lot about many things. Of course,we did,too.

I think this is how it should be. How many people nowadays have master and doctorate degrees? How many people have ability to craft a period accurate piece of replica furniture with hand tools?

Education alone does not indicate intelligence or skill and it certainly doesn't mean entitlement either. I'll take proven ability over education any day!

Robby

[Mike Henderson]

It kills me to pay $200+ to (insert plumber) to unplug my drains. Not because I don't value the work, but I realize they just made $200 in an hour when I work in a "highly desired" IT/Tech job, have high stress job, on-call hours, and still don't make even 25% of that hourly rate.

It just makes me again question why go the college route to graduate with debt, only the ability to get an entry level job, and very little life experience.

Robby
Sure, but you're not comparing apples to apples. For that $200/hour the plumber made, he might have had to spend several hours traveling to and from your place. And he doesn't work every available hour. Some days, he might not have any clients. And his income is very dependent on the state of the economy. During good times, he can do well. During recessions, he can go for long times without a job.

His work environment is sometimes not the best. He may have to crawl under a house and deal with some pretty stinking messes. In northern areas, he can have to work in some pretty miserable weather - often cold, wet and stinking dirty.

I have a good friend who is a plumber and he doesn't make a killing at it. In fact, he just squeaks by.

Office jobs are consistent (if you're an employee and not a contract person), they come with benefits such as health insurance, pension and or 401K, and they're generally clean. Back in the days of "comparable worth" people tried to argue that an office job was "comparable" to some dirty, outside job that paid more. My response was always the same: "You want to make as much as that job, go do that job."

Mike

[Patrick Chase]

Sure, but you're not comparing apples to apples. For that $200/hour the plumber made, he might have had to spend several hours traveling to and from your place. And he doesn't work every available hour. Some days, he might not have any clients. And his income is very dependent on the state of the economy. During good times, he can do well. During recessions, he can go for long times without a job.

This is exactly right.

With that said, I know some higher-end plumbers (the sort who do trenchless line replacements etc) and they do very nicely indeed in basically all economic conditions. Recessions don't stop the pipes from clogging.

[Jim Koepke]

My response was always the same: "You want to make as much as that job, go do that job."

I used to work as a technician in public transit. It was often enough people would see me and sneer, "you are overpaid." My response was to ask them if they have ever applied for a job at a transit agency. The first entry test for technicians usually had a 95% failure rate. Most of the applicants had degrees and experience.

I was amazed by all the people who said they had a degree in electronics from some technical school and they didn't even know Ohm's Law.

When my position was as a Mainline Technician (fixing train problems while in revenue service) it was seldom anyone groused about my pay. They were just happy when the train was spared from being taken out of service. Occasionally there would even be a round of applause when I brought a dead train back to life.

jtk

[Kenneth Fisher]

I've been self employed for 16 years now and charge $150 an hour for my services, after licensing fees, supplies, continuing education, rent, taxes, advertising, etc. I may hit $20 an hour if I'm lucky and busy. After all that I still have to set aside money for retirement, emergencies and health care. Then I get to pay my personal bills. I often daydream about what it would be like to have an employer matched 401k or regular office hours or even paid time off.

[Patrick Chase]

I used to work as a technician in public transit. It was often enough people would see me and sneer, "you are overpaid." My response was to ask them if they have ever applied for a job at a transit agency. The first entry test for technicians usually had a 95% failure rate. Most of the applicants had degrees and experience.

When my position was as a Mainline Technician (fixing train problems while in revenue service) it was seldom anyone groused about my pay. They were just happy when the train was spared from being taken out of service. Occasionally there would even be a round of applause when I brought a dead train back to life.

jtk

Please come back! :-)

They're not doing so well since you left. The Bay Point / Pittsburgh line has been killing cars with alarming regularity.

[William Adams]

Self-employed == working 60--80 hrs. a week so you don’t have to work 40.

Coming back to the topic, those old guys managed to survive in a world w/o 401Ks and such-like — one which in many ways, I think we could learn from, since it was in significant ways, more sustainable and forward-looking, w/ a longer-term vision than this “modern” world which can’t understand the consequences of scientific principles which were discovered in the 1700s.

[Kenneth Fisher]

Self-employed == working 60--80 hrs. a week so you don’t have to work 40.

Coming back to the topic, those old guys managed to survive in a world w/o 401Ks and such-like — one which in many ways, I think we could learn from, since it was in significant ways, more sustainable and forward-looking, w/ a longer-term vision than this “modern” world which can’t understand the consequences of scientific principles which were discovered in the 1700s.

I agree.

As I've learned more about woodworking and the history of the times, I've started to try to become more self sufficient and relearn what they knew and accepted as common sense. I think if we could set aside our personal egos, there is a lot we could learn and potentially leave this world a little better off.

[Mike Henderson]

Self-employed == working 60--80 hrs. a week so you don’t have to work 40.

Coming back to the topic, those old guys managed to survive in a world w/o 401Ks and such-like — one which in many ways, I think we could learn from, since it was in significant ways, more sustainable and forward-looking, w/ a longer-term vision than this “modern” world which can’t understand the consequences of scientific principles which were discovered in the 1700s.
Sure, people lived without 401Ks or retirement pensions, but they lived with their children when they got old and they didn't have the medical expenses that we face today. The reason they didn't have the medical expenses is that there wasn't much medical science could do for them and most died much younger than people today.

And a lot of them died on the way to old age. Prior to about 1900, approximately 40% of children in the United States did not live to the age of 21. Some people lived to old age (which might be considered 60) but it was a lot less, as a percentage, than today.

If you want to live in today's world, you need to have some savings for retirement and the ability to pay for medical treatments. If you want to go live in the woods and forego medical advances, you can live like our ancestors, but you will probably give up some years of life.

Mike

[Just a bit more on how many children survived to adulthood. Today, the replacement birth rate is approximately 2.4 children per woman, worldwide (the amount over 2 accounts for infant mortality and for girl babies who don't go on to have children). For industrialized nations it's closer to 2, meaning that most children survive to adulthood. When you look at the growth rate of global population over the centuries, you see that the overall population growth rate has been just a small percent per 100 years. And yet there was no birth control products, and people are the same back then as they were today, so we know there was a high rate of pregnancy and live births. If an average of 4 children per woman survived to adulthood, population would have doubled each generation and we know for sure that didn't happen. So the average number of children surviving per woman must have been just a bit over 2. Estimate the average number of live births per woman and you can estimate the percent who didn't survive to about age 21.]

[I'll also add that a lot of women died in childbirth. Getting pregnant was a risky business back then. A lot of men had multiple wives (not at the same time) because their wives died in childbirth.]

[Jim Koepke]

The notion of traveling back a few centuries to live among our forefathers is romanticized by many. When one ponders a bit more, it becomes clear how difficult this could be. It would be as difficult for one from today to live back then as it would be for someone from yesteryear to try living a productive life in our time.

jtk

[george wilson]

Anyone traveling back in time would last about 2 weeks before death. Today we have such weak protective systems in our blood,we'd soon die.

[Frederick Skelly]

The notion of traveling back a few centuries to live among our forefathers is romanticized by many. When one ponders a bit more, it becomes clear how difficult this could be. It would be as difficult for one from today to live back then as it would be for someone from yesteryear to try living a productive life in our time.

jtk

I agree. Life was hard and the work was backbreaking. Going further off topic here, but don't forget some of the social conditions they also had to endure....Imagine being imprisoned or executed for killing a rabbit to feed your hungry children, because you'd taken it on some nobleman's hunting preserve. Imagine working from sunrise to sunset every day and having some fat, spoiled nobleman take a sizeable hunk of your harvest as "taxation". Imagine being put on a cramped, stinking ship and "transported" half way around the world to a penal (slave) colony - for some very minor offense. (Read some of the history of Australia.) No. I wouldn't want to go back in time to live.

[Larry Edgerton]

I agree. Life was hard and the work was backbreaking. Going further off topic here, but don't forget some of the social conditions they also had to endure....Imagine being imprisoned or executed for killing a rabbit to feed your hungry children, because you'd taken it on some nobleman's hunting preserve. Imagine working from sunrise to sunset every day and having some fat, spoiled nobleman take a sizeable hunk of your harvest as "taxation". Imagine being put on a cramped, stinking ship and "transported" half way around the world to a penal (slave) colony - for some very minor offense. (Read some of the history of Australia.) No. I wouldn't want to go back in time to live.

One percent of the population at present has 99% of the money as of the last report. Some things don't change a heck of a lot.

[Frederick Skelly]

One percent of the population at present has 99% of the money as of the last report. Some things don't change a heck of a lot.

Very, very true Larry. That won't ever change, IMO. But FWIW, I'm not under their boot heel on a daily basis and I just got a belly full of lunch. Family legend says that neither one of those was always true for my ancestors. More people live a little better today than a few hundred years ago. Not enough yet, but more of them. I'm glad I live today and not in an earlier century.

[Mike Allen1010]

Smarter? More gifted? I guess DNA sequencing, spectacular advances in astrophysics, getting to the cusp of genetically-based medical treatment, GPS, are just more examples of modern mediocrity. And certainly you can think of no examples of inspired, gifted woodworkers and other craftsmen in our time, while every single one of those "old guys" were superior in every way...

It's no surprise that "young people" don't flock to what used to be called "the trades" when our culture values tidy white collar work over any whiff of manual labor, and cheap functionality in household goods that at one time couldn't be had unless it was made by a craftsman? And how the heck are your "young people" supposed to learn how to use a hammer when they barely know what one looks like, to say nothing of having seen one in use?

A young buck in the 19th century needed and had lots of time and opportunity to develop manual skills because nobody could afford a handyman, craftsmen quickly learned to see and feel a variance of a millimeter because precise standardized measuring tools weren't available, and everyone valued quality hand made household goods because a way to make cheap, functional, and widely available ones hadn't been invented yet. Similarly, today's 20 year old's expertise is in modern technology and all the ways we survive and adapt to a high tech global environment, and like it or not, video games and sitting stock still in front of a computer actually contribute to her understanding of his world. If you think his or her experiences and skills are shallow and useless, that's because what's relevant now wasn't imaginable 20 years ago, to say nothing of 100..

Sorry if this is a bit strident. I'm just so tired of hearing how much better everything used to be. With my genes I for one would be dead several times over if I lived in the old days, and I wouldn't trade my access to an amazing depth of knowledge and variety of human experience for all the handmade stuff in the world.



As the old expression goes, opinions are common place. Although when I was is in the Navy, many moons ago the language was certainly more colorful.

IMHO, Lenore's comments above have the logical resonance of truth. No one cares what I think, but generational value judgments strike me as somethingvthatcan only be accurately done through the lenses of time

[Lenore Epstein]

As the old expression goes, opinions are common place...No one cares what I think, but generational value judgments strike me as somethingvthatcan only be accurately done through the lenses of time
Lately I've been reading fiction set in the 15th and 17th centuries, and am up to the late 1400s after 200 pages of "The English And Their History" (which might just be the death of me). Superficially all this human history is familiar, but after a week of getting down and dirty in the details of what daily life was like for most people at various times in the past it starts to feel like I'm time traveling, or maybe just waking up on a distant planet. It gets harder and harder to be nostalgic for another time or place based on one particular factor once you get a taste of the hardships, harsh restrictions, and vulnerabilities that went along with that one pure thing we wish we could have.

Anyway, I realized a long time ago how hard it is for any of us to understand the people we actually know well, to say nothing of people far removed from us in time and space. The best we can do is to try and give each other a break every once in a while for not being exactly like us.

[Frederick Skelly]

...harder to be nostalgic for another time or place based on one particular factor once you get a taste of the hardships, harsh restrictions, and vulnerabilities that went along with that one pure thing we wish we could have.

+1. This is well said.

[Tom McMahon]

What do logic and truth have to do with the internet, we all know it's all about arguing about opinion, after all Abe Lincoln was 7 feet tall and from Venus.

[george wilson]

Lincoln had a disease that caused his bones to grow longer. I can't recall what it was.

I spent 40 years "imitating" life in the 18th. C.. While some aspects of it were fun,I have NO desire to actually go back in time and live. As I said,we have very weakened immune systems these days,with the anti biotics we're always taking,and the general sterilization of things around us,refrigeration,even anti spoiling agents(which everyone seems suspicious while living longer and longer). I'll STAY HERE,thank you!! I'd long be dead without modern surgery and medicines. Had double bypass when I was less than 50 years old!! Had prostate cancer at 57. That's all gone,thanks to modern surgery.

[Larry Edgerton]

Exactly George. Most of us having this conversation would be dead already in the good old days.

[Lenore Epstein]

What do logic and truth have to do with the internet, we all know it's all about arguing about opinion, after all Abe Lincoln was 7 feet tall and from Venus.
Oops, my bad!!