Can you hand tool woodworkers do everything that a powered tool woodworker can do?

[Art Mann]

I have to take issue with your assessment. If you look at the power consumption of stationary power tools, it is almost irrelevant in comparison to the material cost of building nice furniture. For example, you can surface plane more rough sawn 4/4 material to 3/4 in 10 minutes than it takes to complete most furniture projects. Assuming a 240V, 15A planer, the electricity would cost around 6 cents in most locations. On the other hand, it would take days to plane that much lumber by hand. The cost of heating a shop in winter for several days is huge by comparison. There are good reasons to use hand tools only but saving money isn't one of them.

In all of this discussion the one thing that a power tool can do that a hand tool can't do has been missed - make the electric meter spin like a top, run up the light bill.

Yes, it's snowing out, I've not able to do much but think silly thoughts.

-Tom

[Archie England]

gosh, that's just downright depressing.

[Robert Engel]

Like Henderson said, you can't make a living with hand tools.
I, like many, use hand tools for the therapeutic value.

Then I go rub some Bengay on my shoulder after an hour with my jointer plane and a table top........

[Brent Cutshall]

I don't know about that. I know some people that make their entire living on their pieces and it might not matter here but I don't have a job (only because I don't have a car or drivers license and I'm still in high school) and I make a quite a shiny penny off of carvings and other pieces on top of what I make selling vegetables and I don't use power tools. At all.

[Warren Mickley]

Like Henderson said, you can't make a living with hand tools.

I have done this full time for three decades. It is shocking what people will write.

[

[Roderick Gentry]

- Does hand work have to be used to make items like musical instruments? We don't really know, the march of CNC has not gone far enough. There are many old trades that are being sucked into mechanization, like tailoring. That is a far more handsy thing that woodworking, but the market makes it possible to make the investment to get to bespoke levels of customization. Something like guitar making is different, because the last 50 years have seen to it that the market searches out meaningless variations in style and format that fragments production in meaningless ways. If a craft sets out to fragment itself, then the mechanization is harder to do because the investment level isn't possible. Stradivarius would be an interesting case, because whatever made those violins better, is not something that you can really see just by looking at them. Tim White of guitar accoustic fame, once said you could map out everything we needed to know about guitar acoustics for a few tens of K, but nobody has ever been willing to make the investment. It has more to do with the market than the method.

- At least as many of the injuries I have suffered in woodworking over 40 years have been the result of handwork. You can certainly amputate a finger with an axe, and the level of ignorance required to do things in the wrong way is probably similar. My hand woodworking tends to run in concert with working directly with trees, and that can get your killed or injured in a hurry.

- The idea that one should work entirely with hand or power tools seems to be a new thing, at least as regards WW since the advent of power tools. We aren't talking an arts and crafts deal here, this is all recreational, not the factory vs the workshop. There are other dichotomies possible:

1) Quiet vs noisy. I have been lucky to have a free standing shop since the kids came along. But had I been working in the basement, as I once did... Well hollow chisel mortisers are a lot quieter than mallets and chisels. Sometimes the speed of power tools means a lot of noise in a few minutes will save a less noise spread over hours.

2) Dusty vs not dusty. Usually a win for hand tools, but some tools like planers and bandsaws make less of a mess than the hand tool variation if the extraction is good. I have thought of building a bench that could survive out of doors, but a lot of my hand tools are wood, and are best kept out of direct sunlight,and moving my bench outside with attendant tools is impractical. I never use my TS in the shop, but it does move easily out of doors, which saves on dust vs hand tools.

3) Early vs late. Lots vs. little. So when I started, the reason I bought an Inca planer/jointer was to make my beech woodworking bench. Ironically I found a guy with beech, and sent him the cut list. I thought he would just send me enough raw wood to fit the bill, but he laminated or dimensioned every piece, a great deal. But my approach was still reasonable. You can do a lot with just a table saw and a planer. In the absence of those tools, I would have needed a boatload of hand tools to do the same work, including a bench that was the object of the build. As you gain experience you learn more ways to leverage stuff, but it seemed like that was the best way to start out at the time. (Late 70s)

4)... Skills vs less skilled... Production vs, tinkering. There are lots of dichotomies.

5) Diversity vs lack of it. So with hand tools there is a far wider range of possible effects than with the average collection of power tools. CNC is a game changer there. It makes complexity in design, in certain instances, far more likely and easy to achieve. 3D printing (not woodworking for the most part), takes this a further step, complex shapes are actually faster and cheaper to model.

6) Jigged vs un-jigged/Certainty vs uncertainty. Both power and hand tools have that woorkmanship of risk (design and disaster in execution of design risk/potential, not danger to the body alone) vs. certainty dichotomy. Probably the riskiest are things like power sanders that can cut in almost any direction. Chainsaw carving. Even the lowly gouge is more jigged to the cut with it's bevel, than something like a Lancelot. Things like table saws and planes are pretty certain in the outcome, though either can be used freehand to an extent.

[Brian Holcombe]

Tailoring is an excellent comparison. They too have something lost between man and machine, two areas that must be done by hand properly are the shoulders and canvassing the chest.

People like Mariano Rubinacci stay in business not because people romance a lost art, but because man exceeds the machine.

[Art Mann]

In the town where I live, there is a furniture maker who uses all hand tools exclusively except for planing of rough sawn material. I don't know him but he has been making a living that way for several years. As best I can recall, his furniture is priced at 2X or 3X what you could buy similar furniture for in a fine furniture store. There are people who will buy hand tool furniture at a premium price, even if it looks and works no better than power tool made furniture.

[Roderick Gentry]

That was then Brian. . Just thinking of the efforts that are being made by guys like Jeffrey to set up factories that do the bespoke canvasing by machine on blind stitching machines. The body can be measured in a laser booth, CAD and CNC can do the design and cutting, and much of the hand work can be eliminated if one throws enough money at it.

[Roderick Gentry]

In the town where I live, there is a furniture maker who uses all hand tools exclusively except for planing of rough sawn material. I don't know him but he has been making a living that way for several years. As best I can recall, his furniture is priced at 2X or 3X what you could buy similar furniture for in a fine furniture store. There are people who will buy hand tool furniture at a premium price, even if it looks and works no better than power tool made furniture.

My Father in Law had a retirement shop and he sold shaker furniture in it. He added a line of windsors. They were really beautiful, but despite looking great and being made in seemingly competent small factories that might have an attention to detail, all the chairs fell apart. I have some Windsors rescued from a bar, and despite having to saddle them for greater comfort, they are impossible to destroy, but heavy. Beech. Well made furniture by hand will outlast the other options, but it isn't the power or hand tools that make it special, it is the taking of no shortcuts. By definition, a competent person who is blowing time out the window doing things by hand, should get something for it, but one never knows.

[Brian Sommers]

I live in Holmes County Ohio - Amish country.

There is a young Amish woodworking about 2 blocks where I live and he is 9 months out. When I was visiting him that day, he was working on a table that he sold for $4000 and told me he had sold another table for $12000. Now he didn't show me his books, so maybe he was making it all up, but I doubt it. I think he is doing very well. He does everything by hand.

[Brian Holcombe]

That was then Brian. . Just thinking of the efforts that are being made by guys like Jeffrey to set up factories that do the bespoke canvasing by machine on blind stitching machines. The body can be measured in a laser booth, CAD and CNC can do the design and cutting, and much of the hand work can be eliminated if one throws enough money at it.

That is current, not then.

Sure, it is accurate, but it is only as good as the program. It's great at duplicating things, beyond that it has it's limitations. Humans, especially those with experience, are employing incredibly complex decision making very rapidly.

I have little interest in making the world out of plastic and making everything a commodity. I feel that generally speaking people have had their fill of stuff that has been pumped out of a factory, those that still want it know where they can find it, but the new search is for that which was seemingly consumed by the machine age. Everything the same is boring, they want the romance of applied intuition, skill, and expertise; the virtuoso's performance.

That which is hand made, and made well offers a depth of user experience which cannot be reproduced as a commodity. I have had young people walk through my shop and they never ask me why I don't simply chuck wood into a machine and have it churn out the work, they're asking me to explain how a plane makes a beautiful surface.

[Zach Dillinger]

I live in Holmes County Ohio - Amish country.

There is a young Amish woodworking... He does everything by hand.

Are you sure? Lots of Amish use power tools, they just don't use on-the-grid electricity to power them. Diesel generators powering hydraulic or pneumatic systems are very common amongst the Amish here in my area.

[george wilson]

If you cannot tell the difference between a piece of hand made furniture vs. machine made,something is wrong. Either the craftsman is not very skilled,or the viewer hasn't sufficient aesthetic comprehension to appreciate the object being viewed.


as for everything you need to know about guitars being available in 10,000K,I say BALONEY! You cannot accurately quantify the individual hardness or flexibility of wood,or the differences in sizing arches or braces needed to get the best possible tone. The differences in tone can be huge if the builder has the judgement and experience to know what to do.

Why keep this silly thread going? It just exposes the lack of understanding of some people. The simple truth is YES,hand tools CAN do MUCH more than power tools. The World's greatest masterpieces in museums were all hand made(until you get into the bent tubing furniture of a modern and decadent period and its ilk.)

[Art Mann]

The one thing that power tools can do that hand tools can't is produce attractive and durable furniture and cabinets at a price point that the average guy can own a house full of it. That is where I am. I am not trying to produce artwork, copy museum pieces from centuries past or demonstrate my advanced skill set. I want to build things the average guy can afford. As a small example, I make and sell premium coasters that are CNC carved with 19th century quilt patterns. I have altered the geometric patterns to produce defects reminiscent of hand work. I never claim they are hand made. I sell a lot of them. If I did them by chip carving, hardly anyone would buy them because they would cost too much.