We had company over this morning and the talk turned to our kitchen and to handmade pieces of furniture. Though I'm proud of our kitchen, of the many solid Maple elements and the shaker style cabinetry, I thought back to earlier times when our kitchen would have earned a C+.
My dad was a machinist, and I remember him telling me as a child --- shortly after WW II --- of his final project as an apprentice. He worked for the large metal fabricator A.O. Smith in Milwaukee. His final project as an apprentice was to fashion a 4 or 5" steel ball out of a billet. He had to do this using hand tools only.
As a journalist and editor, I bought some pretty high quality typesetting and printing. I remember a seminar where a printer talked about his apprenticeship in Scotland. His apprentice test involved his foreman taking a handful of 8 pt type and he had to identify the font of each piece. And each was a period. A simple dot. The same size as today's New York Times (which may be slightly larger at 9pts).
And I just marvel what those earlier generations could do with by eye. I'm both inspired and intimidated.