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.

[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.

[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!

[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

[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.