TV Show Filmed at Lie-Nielsen Factory

[Steve H Graham]

I haven't posted in a long time, but I felt like I should return to let people know about something they might find interesting. I've been watching a reality show called "Titans of CNC," which is about an ex-con who owns a CNC machine shop. He spent a large part of one episode at the Lie-Nielsen factory, talking to the owner. Interesting stuff, if you're a machinist OR woodworker.

The show is kind of obscure, but DirecTV has it.

Incidentally, if anyone wants several tons of free live oak trunks, I'm the man to talk to. Irma did a number on my farm. All you have to do is cut it and take it. Somehow I don't think I'll get any takers. Too bad it's not walnut!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i67V9anV6fY

[Andrew Hughes]

I would love to have some Live oak trunks but I'm 2000 miles away.:(
Out west here we have lots of live oaks in fact my shop sits under the canopy of a live oak.
I've had to beg tree services to call me when they remove one. Somehow I cannot get thru that I don't want fire wood.
Anyways live oak makes very good wooden plane body's if your interested the fibers are very sticky to the iron.
Thanks for the Ln heads up.

[Larry Frank]

Very interesting and I would like to watch. Can you tell me the episode number. I believe some are also on YouTube.

[Matt Day]

Who needs an episode number when you have google?
Search for “titans of cnc lie nielsen” and it’ll be the first hit.

Thanks for posting.

[Nick Decker]

Yup, plug those search terms in at You Tube, it'll pop right up.

[Matt Day]

I watched it earlier and it was a good show, the host leaves a bit to be desired but it was cool seeing the inner workings of LN.

[Larry Frank]

I am so sorry for asking the episode number. Silly of me not to Google it like you suggested. I just googled the name of the show and got an episode list.

For anyone else....Season 1 Episode 13 and available on YouTube.

[Andrew Joiner]

Great video. Amazing to see new tech tools making old tech tools.

[Robert Hayward]

Steve, what town you in down there ?

[Ole Anderson]

Thanks fr the link. Great video.

[Steve Demuth]

The cognitive dissonance associated with using fully automated CNC mills to produce specialty hand tools is pretty stark. Woodworkers should master joinery with multi-hundred $ hand held tools, but metalworkers go computerized to make those hand tools, right? So where does Lie-Nielsen really stand on the value of hand craftsmanship?

[Greg Mann]

How far back in technology would you like him to go? Fully automated CNC mills is an oxymoron. They need to be programmed, parts need to be fixtured properly, the right tools need to be used (in the proper order). Only then can the motors do their work moving the relative pieces. LN still has to compete selling a product that many others can and do make, Vertas to name one. And, you should be aware that they use high tech machinery as well. If these makers did everything the ‘traditional’ way we could not afford to buy what they made and those products would be scarce.

The tool representing hand craftsmanship for the toolmaker was a file. A lot slower than a rasp.

[John Sanford]

The cognitive dissonance associated with using fully automated CNC mills to produce specialty hand tools is pretty stark. Woodworkers should master joinery with multi-hundred $ hand held tools, but metalworkers go computerized to make those hand tools, right? So where does Lie-Nielsen really stand on the value of hand craftsmanship?

Clearly, you haven't been to the South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center when AWFS is in town. Catering to "woodworkers", the South Hall is filled with CNC machinery the size of a room, or a house. I've joked that you could throw a tree in one end and a full set of kitchen cabinets would pop out the other end.

Given the capital cost of equipment to make handplanes in quantities that number higher than the "dozens per year", combined with the quality demands of their market, the only cognitive dissonance is thinking that L-N could do what they do at the price they do it at without using CNC mills.

Plenty of metalworkers/machinists still do without CNC. The vast majority of them are hobbyists. And unless they're buying old iron/old iron teeth, their tooling and often their machines are made using... wait for it.... CNC.

[Steve Demuth]

Greg and John,

I'm well aware what modern CNC and factory automation can do - I can go down to the engineering department at work and see it in action, if I want. For Greg, who thinks "fully automated" doesn't exist, take a look at this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKuYvSE9rE8&t=61) - the human in that line is reduced to carrying parts in a bucket, the rest having been fully automated by any definition. It's not (yet) worth it for Lie Nielsen's batch runs of a couple hundred planes of one model, but there is nothing technical preventing it.

My only point was that there is a mental disconnect in making tools for hand work using increasing automated machine tools. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, just that it gives one pause and food for thought about the value of hand craftsmanship if the best hand tools you can buy are made by machines.

[Wes Mansfield]

The cognitive dissonance associated with using fully automated CNC mills to produce specialty hand tools is pretty stark. Woodworkers should master joinery with multi-hundred $ hand held tools, but metalworkers go computerized to make those hand tools, right? So where does Lie-Nielsen really stand on the value of hand craftsmanship?

Its the love of a finely crafted piece I strive for. A machine is just another tool in the bucket, while automated to some extent, it still required the input of a skilled machinist and woodworker to complete the hand tools you see being crafted in the video. Its the love of craftsmanship you see here, not the hum drum plodding of someone making a buck an hour pitching out as many pieces as they can a day.

If you want a purely hand made tool, go look up pricing on Mr Carter's infill planes and the like. They are pieces of art and priced like them too!

[Greg Mann]

Steve,

i probably overstated the case about ‘fully automated’. Interestingly, you cited the lack of need for more automation in Lie-Nielsen’s case because his batch runs are only a few hundred. I manage an operation with fifty machining centers and we are beginning an initiative to automate more fully so that we can run batch quantities of one. I would bet LN would like to manufacture his products in the exact sequence as his customers orders come in. That would take even more automation than running even larger batch quantities than he presently runs but it would ultimately be beneficial to his bottom line, not to mention customer satisfaction.

[Bill Graham]

The cognitive dissonance associated with using fully automated CNC mills to produce specialty hand tools is pretty stark. Woodworkers should master joinery with multi-hundred $ hand held tools, but metalworkers go computerized to make those hand tools, right? So where does Lie-Nielsen really stand on the value of hand craftsmanship?

Maybe there's a dissonance but what are the alternatives? Do we go back to the 10th century when the blacksmith made the iron from ore and then pounded it into a tool? Or maybe around the time of the Industrial Revolution in the mid-1800's when mass-production machinery made tools available to more craftsmen than were ever possible before but those tools were hand-finished?

Skip forward a century to the 1980's and you find Tom Lie-Nielsen making his edge plane in a small shop in Maine using castings from a local forgery with modern machine tools controlled by humans. Even back then(when dinosaurs roamed the Earth ;) ) there was usually a back-order on those planes from Garrett-Wade(does anybody remember Garrett-Wade?)

The world moves on. Tool making requires a level of precision far beyond working with wood and meeting that requirement along with today's demand for quality tools makes CNC technology a must. I think Tom has struck a nice balance, he uses current technology along with a strong workforce to inspect, finish and meet demand.

The alternative is shelling out 4,450 GBP for a #983 block plane from Carl Holtey, but he uses machine tools that are made with CNC machinery. And there are only two left (http://www.holteyplanes.com/).

Where do you draw the line?

[Steve Demuth]

Steve,

i probably overstated the case about ‘fully automated’. Interestingly, you cited the lack of need for more automation in Lie-Nielsen’s case because his batch runs are only a few hundred. I manage an operation with fifty machining centers and we are beginning an initiative to automate more fully so that we can run batch quantities of one. I would bet LN would like to manufacture his products in the exact sequence as his customers orders come in. That would take even more automation than running even larger batch quantities than he presently runs but it would ultimately be beneficial to his bottom line, not to mention customer satisfaction.

I agree - how far you can go with automation, and it's relationship to batch size is complicated. But in general, the more you can automate, the closer you can go to true just-in-time manufacturing, with zero standing inventory. Sounds like that's your intent. Over a decade ago already I worked on a project to automate and then optimize a semiconductor batch fabrication plant - hundreds of machines all linked by robotic conveyors, loaders, and unloaders. The plant could be working on a dozen or more different chip designs simultaneously, all weaving their way through the various stations, all fully automated and optimized so that dead time on the machines was minimized, despite the varying demands of the simultaneous jobs. Multi-billion dollar plant and a fully staffed shift had maybe a dozen technicians doing routine maintenance. Even they were typically not very busy. That's what 21st century manufacturing will look like.

[Steve Demuth]

Bill,

I'm not drawing any lines. I've spent much of my career building automation (although mostly not in manufacturing), most recently in health care. I spend my down time taking wood - often from trees I planted myself - from standing timber to finished item, generally using as little automation as possible. I'm a walking, typing dissonance myself. But I'm also completely honest with myself - the stuff I've been building for decades puts a distance between those who perform specialized tasks and their material - when it doesn't outright put them out of work. Modern automation often turns what was a tactical, physically skilled task that involved hands, mind and senses, into a programming task, even as, as you point out, it produces superior products.

[Steve H Graham]

Steve, what town you in down there ?

I'm in Marion County. I have not updated my location in years.

[Steve H Graham]

It looks like the forum needs a new level. Neanderthal, normal people, and Buzz Lightyear.

[John Gornall]

I produce parts for another company's product on a CNC machine. I used to make them with hand tools. I can make them by hand just as fast and as good as the CMC machine. The CMC machine can make them all day - I would poop out. I can teach someone to run the CMC machine in 20 minutes and then I don't have to go to work everyday. Life has been good since I got my first CNC 19 years ago. I get to spend time at home working wood with my fine hand tools.