Originally Posted by
Charles Guest
In the 'days of yore' so fondly being invoked if you hadn't moved on from four squaring lumber by the time you were in your late teens or early twenties then you were probably out of the profession altogether.
Is this true? I have never seen any evidence for it outside of large shops in London, where the degree of specialization was far higher than elsewhere. I imagine it was true in shops like the Townsend shop, but Townsend was about as typical a woodworker as Mozart was a composer…most shops were not doing elaborate carving for the super-rich.
I can certainly think of places where it was not true…so much of what we know of 18th c. American woodworking comes from the Dominy shop, where only one or two people were working at a time. There is no indication of such a hierarchical division of labor there.
The description in "The Joiner and Cabinet Maker" doesn't support your claim either. Apprenticeship was a two way street: The master was supposed to teach the apprentice to go out on his own after the contract was up. No way he'd be ready to do so if he spent all his time doing grunt work.
Originally Posted by
Charles Guest
Go ahead and work for a year or so completely by hand, whatever it takes to get it out of your system. There's not all that much skill involved in four squaring rough lumber, and it seems such a waste of time if doing so keeps you from developing carving, veneering, doing more complex shaped work, and other skills. If you can't absorb the principles of preparing rough lumber within a week or so, something is wrong. After that, it's simply a matter of being able to physically do the work and still have some semblance of productivity - amateur or professional.
Most people today who work primarily by hand are hobbyists, and they do it for a wide variety of reasons. They may be doctors worried about their hands…people with PTSD…apartment woodworkers…SAPFM members who simply love working (mostly) without power. But there are lots of them, and stock prep will always be a part of what they do. Bringing it back once again to the original topic: the thread was started by a guy who works with all hand tools. That will inevitably color the sorts of projects he will do. Folks who do all their stock prep with machines will likely have different requirements and might prefer a different type of bench.
Oh, and I'd have to agree with Warren: if you think that all of stock prep can be learned in a week, you likely have missed a few things. I've been doing it for years and haven't figured it all out yet.
"For me, chairs and chairmaking are a means to an end. My real goal is to spend my days in a quiet, dustless shop doing hand work on an object that is beautiful, useful and fun to make." --Peter Galbert