How fast/slow/efficiently do you work?

[steven c newman]

When I go to the shop...to work on a Project...I try to have a set of tasks that need to be done. I lay out each task, and complete that task before the next one....while I am rarely rushing around, I am also not just standing around, wasting time. I am there, in the shop to get a task done. Then move on to the next task on the "To Do" list....

I am not concerned about what tool should I use....I merely use the best tool in MY shop for that task. hand tool..power tool...doesn't really matter. Whether it is the "correct" tool in someone else's shop, is not my problem to worry about.

The one the things I hear about those projects I do.....is how "Fast" I seem to get them done.....I am not THAT fast...however, I do not dwaddle along....I am in the shop to get the tasks for that day..done.


YMMV..

[James Pallas]

Confidence and fear of mistakes are always part of it. Confidence that you can saw straight and true to the line and than fear that this is all of the material you have. That is when self doubt makes for errors. You can sometimes proceed with caution and eliminate some of the fears. Ask yourself which you would rather replace a nice drawer front or a pine drawer side. If you have done a cut a hundred times chances are you will do it right. If you have only done it once than maybe a guide will give you confidence. Give yourself ten seconds to decide. What takes up time is pondering it for hours. I call that being in a swivet, firmly planting one foot and turning round and round not knowing which direction to take. So don’t get in a swivet. Make a decision and go for it.
Jim

[Edward Weber]

It's been echoed in almost every response but I'll say it again, confidence, which usually comes from a certain amount of practice. As confidence grows through practice, increased speed typically follows.
Efficiency is a whole other ball game. Some people work quickly at a task but it dies not automatically equal efficiency. Efficiency is more of a method of work issue. The flow of the work, the logical progression of tasks, even an orderly shop all contribute to being efficient.
You can work slowly and still be efficient

[Phil Gaudio]

You may recall seeing this: my latest project https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread....-Project-A-Bed

I purchased the first piece of lumber for this project on Sept 3, 2021. I know this because I kept the receipt on my bulletin board as a reminder of the duration of the project and level of progress or lack thereof over time. So I started on 9/3/21 and declared victory on 4/12/22: a little over 7 months. In the olden days I'd be disappointed with this pace. I now realize that I'm not trying to earn a living at this WW stuff (I'd starve to death if I attempted this) and it really does not matter how quickly a given project is completed. What is your goal: enjoying the hobby or maximizing the number of pieces in your project portfolio? I take projects one day at a time, and when they're done, they're done.

[mike stenson]

Sometimes life has other plans. I bought the stock for my current project in May of last year. I have to finish one shelf, and the doors and it'll be done. Which I'm both happy and sad about, to be honest. So most likely it'll be completed this week. With that said, I didn't start on it until late January in earnest and I've been fairly restricted to working on it on the weekends only (and half of my day on Sundays are already claimed). My last project was a toolchest, that took me a couple weeks in November and December, since I had time off work.

Some things im very effecient at. Things I have done before, especially numerous times. New things, are more methodical. Although, the more work I've done, the more previous things I've learned can be applied.

[Roderick Gentry]

There are many things that impede speed in a project. But if having wizard like speed with hands is the main issue, then practice is good. I used to tie flies for shops as a kid, and I got paid by the 100. One learns a lot from that. Speed and quality can go hand in hand. The woodworkers I meet are mostly project oriented and they practice by making things. Often every project has new challenges, which is part of what we like about them, but it raises anxiety and competence issues. I am amazed by how little practice actually improves competence. Practice should help with skill and understanding.

With amateurs, if you put them in front of a process that intimidates them, they may invent slow workarounds, jigs, and unnecessary tools. If risk is always eliminated, then the risk of using skill dependent techniques will stay high. The other thing about these "solutions" is that they often do not reinforce themselves. There are a lot of jigs for making the fret slots on guitars. I use just a saw, sometimes a hacksaw. This requires crosscutting skill where the saw can hardly be raised above the surface, so the teeth skate. But I worked it out. I had a skill for other situations, whereas one of the jigs would teach me nothing, and likely not be transferable to the next project of that type, say a shallow tenon shoulder on a trestle table. Guitar making is fascinating that way, you can build a guitar with virtually no hand tool skills, or freehand skills. There is a jig for every process. But if you want the skills, be sure you are learning not from people who always talk about how easy their new method is, build fundamental skills. You not only increase you hand woodworking skill, but you can speed things up because all these unrelated skills are a toolbox for creating other solutions.

Fundamental skills like chopping, planing, and sawing to a line. One good way is to do more of these things. I have a lot of power tools. I will use my jointer, or my planer to prepare boards, but I will use hand tools when the job is pleasant. I was making strips for canoes one time, and I planed them all to thickness because it was just so much fun. Some of the nicest wood I have ever planed, it would be sad to let the planer have all there fun. I just gradually used hand tools for more things, when it was pleasant. A lot of this was initially to limit dust. But it became part of my process. There are a lot of ways to use hand tools instead of layout tools, so when possible the hand tools might be chosen for that, or in some cases layout would be freehand. These are easy things to do, and once I get to one of those projects where I might feel stress that I would ruin a part, I have a lot more time on task to fall back on.

Quickly one can become equally confident with the hand tools as one does with tools like table saws that are designed to produce a result without any skill (well survival skills are pretty important). Then I realized that there were many things for which I turned to power tools because of the certainty, they weren't actually more efficient, or otherwise indicated. When you get failsafe basic skills, it turns out that on occasion the power tools were used as a crutch not because they were faster. Obviously, but it turned out that the crutch was what I sought more often than not.

At the other end of practice, if I haven't made any cuts in a while, particularly with the saw, I will drop a few lines till I feel fluid before taking on some dovetails. I haven't done this in a few decades, but I used to spin my chisels in my hand when watching TV.

(Note: I have around 30 stationary power tools, and I feel skills with those are just as important, and they do a lot of the grunt work. I believe in using tools where the are appropriate. I am just suggesting that leaning into hand tools, and using them fundamentally, will pay dividends if that is what you want. The pure Neaderthal approach is great also, but it can slow things down and hold you back, depending on how you do it.)

[Roderick Gentry]

Don’t compromise.

Also the more I do this, I find more time is spent designing and less on actual building. So what I wish I was most efficient at now is using confounded sketch up.

Compromise is one more thing to manage. Perfectionism is a problem for a lot of people. Good balance as you suggest.

I wish that for some of the projects the design was the slow bit. With boats you can spend an evening coming up with something one will be building for years. And not only because some boats are big projects. Now 3D printing, there is something where the design build ratio is quite satisfactory.

[Steven Herbin]

I'm retired, so speed and efficiency are not a concern. During "the shut in thing" I really learned to enjoy the process. It is now my mode of operation.

[Mike Allen1010]

Most of what helps me maximize efficiency revolves around the order of operations; I try to minimize re-clamping workpieces multiple times and try and do everything I can with the tool I have in my hand, rather than putting down one tool and picking up another.

Good example might be dovetailing drawers. I try and range all the drawer sides together on the bench oriented the same direction, then I use the marking gauge to layout the baseline for all the drawer parts of the same thickness (usually the sides first, then backs and fronts which may vary in thickness). Next is using dividers to layout spacing for all the tails, and then penciling in layout lines for dovetails. You get the general idea, for me it's better to do one operation on all relevant parts (i.e. laying out dovetails), rather than doing the operations for single drawer to completion and then moving onto the next drawer.

Most my drawing/planning is pretty superficial. I focus on proportion/dimensions of the entire piece – front, top and's right side view. I don't worry about planning dimensions for internal components like doors, rails, styles drawer fronts etc. as all these measurements will be taken directly off the carcass itself.

Last thought; when of completed task and am thinking about the next step in the project, I like to take the time to clean off all the work surfaces and put the tools back where they belong, slave then I can only get out the tools I need for the next task.

Interesting to thread. Appreciate hearing everyone's thoughts.

Best, Mike

[Osvaldo Cristo]

Honestly, if I wanted to work more efficiently, I would be using power tools.

I do hand tool woodworking specifically because it’s the opposite of my job (self-employed in an unrelated commercial art). I don’t want to have to work fast. I don’t want to have to get something done by a certain time. I’m not going to obsess about Rob Cosman-like dovetails because I just don’t care; I have my own version of “good enough for me to be happy.”

And to be REALLY honest, I enjoy the woodworking and my lowest emotional point on any project is a few days after one is completed. I like the process as much as, or more than, the finished product.

I make your words mine. I fully agree you.

[Luke Dupont]

Thanks guys. Great insight.

I think that my main problems are probably:

1. Not planning sufficiently ahead of time and making a lot of minute design decisions as I go. I always have a basic plan and dimensions, but the devil is in the details, and you can fret over those details for a surprisingly long time before moving on

2. Not "batching" tasks, ie, laying out all of the dovetails at once, or giving enough thought into the order of operations, IE, plane a groove for the shelf bottom in a single piece before I cross cut it into a bunch of pieces, etc.

3. Not thinking about the next step. Honestly, I often find myself pausing for a long time after completing a task and asking myself "Okay, what's next?" And/or just taking a break and losing momentum because I'm not mentally prepared to just flow into the next task.

4. Lacking confidence in some operations. I guess this can't be helped as I'm always doing new things with each project, or things that I've done before, but haven't done so often or in a while.

5. Working to appropriate tolerances rather than wasting time being too perfect. Perfection and tight tolerances where they're needed or contribute to the piece in some way only.

My intent is never to rush, just to be clear, but rather just to be more efficient/"faster" in effect, because I know that I'm painfully slow, and I have always been painfully slow at any work that I do. It's something about my habits and way of working/doing things. So, I have to give some thought as to why I'm this way.

[steven c newman]

Spent one hour IN the shop, today....one task to do....joint a few edges..
The Shaker Table Top, 1st jointer.JPG
Make sure they are square..
The Shaker Table Top, squared edges.JPG
And gap-free...
The Shaker Table Top, 1st joint done.JPG
Do a dry fit...
The Shaker Table Top, dry fit.JPG
And glue up the panel
The Shaker Table Top, glue & clamps.JPG
And that was the task.....not much messing around, just get it done...sweep the floor..
The Shaker Table Top, Clean-up, Aisle #1.JPG
And watch glue dry....took exactly one hour, counting sweeping the floor...even changed jointer planes, as the first one was fired....was taking too long.
The Shaker Table Top, better jointer.JPG
This one seemed to work better.

[Richard Hutchings]

An hour spent well. Why do you suppose the BU was taking too long, dull?

[steven c newman]

For some reason, or other....it always wants to cut a bevel. spent almost as much time jointing the edge as in checking with a square....then correcting the tilt.....plane just not want to balance on an edge...cuts kind...just not where I need it to. Had no such issues with the No. 6c....seemed to always sit balanced on that edge. No issues with the grooved sole, either.

The 62 always has issues going with the grain on a face....tear-out city. Yet no issues with going across the grain like a scrub plane....which might be the job it gets, from now on.

[James Pallas]

For some reason, or other....it always wants to cut a bevel. spent almost as much time jointing the edge as in checking with a square....then correcting the tilt.....plane just not want to balance on an edge...cuts kind...just not where I need it to. Had no such issues with the No. 6c....seemed to always sit balanced on that edge. No issues with the grooved sole, either.

The 62 always has issues going with the grain on a face....tear-out city. Yet no issues with going across the grain like a scrub plane....which might be the job it gets, from now on.

Must be incorrectly set up or something is broken.
Jim