I've been woodworking for several years now, and I had an interesting thought today as I was driving to town for some red oak. There used to be quite a bit of discussion here about tool quality. And this started me thinking...
Given the same project, how would a master carpenter with cheap to mediocre tools fare against an amateur with superior tools and perhaps 1-2 years average experience?
In other words, would most of the difference lie in experience or tool quality?
About as interesting as a bucket of spit, IMO ... tools have very little to do with it, experience, AND talent, everything. Yo-Yo Ma can make the cheapest cello sing like it was from Cremona .. nor was Claude Monet's art in the brush he used.
mostly experience.Tom Subject: Interesting Question
Someday, it'll all be over....
"To do good work, one must first have good tools." - Chinese proverb
Probably depends a lot on the project.
JP
Probably the experienced worker would win out. He should be able to tune up his lower-quality tool and compensate for its weaknesses. An amateur may continue to use a superior tool, not realizing it needs sharpening.
Its not in the tools Bob, Its in the man
Bob ARe you from Phoenix, AZ ????
you must have missed my post about the dull adz...
dave
Bob Becker wrote:
I took up golf a couple of years ago. My set of clubs cost about $400. On a very good day I might break 100. Without knowing for certain, I would guess that the clubs that V.J. Singh uses would run several thousand dollars. If we were to swap clubs and play a round, who would you put your money on?
Okay . . . probably a lousy comparison. However, the primary advantage of nifty new, modern, high-quality tools (in woodworking) is that it enables the craftsman to work FASTER. This is important to a professional since he is basically selling his TIME. As an amateur, I could (and have) produce(d) a sophisticated project with cabriole legs using a hand bow-saw, spoke shaves and scraper blades. The result was satisfying, but if I sold it at market value, my time would pay out at less than the equivalent of flipping burgers at Micky D's.
What are they building? How inferior and.or how superior are the tools?
I'm of the opinion, that a someone with a couple of years experience, (your parameters), using top of the line tools could probably meet or exceed the product of an acknowledged master, saddled with significantly inferior tools, IF the project was to build a simple box. In other words, the tools can compensate for a lack of specific experience and a hundred years experience will not compensate for table saw fence that locks into position in a random manner.
BTW, doing the same thing over and over again for twenty years, is not the same as twenty years experience doing different things all the time.
A master carpenter, a master woodworker, a master pattern maker, a master trim carpenter, a master furniture maker, a master shipbuilder, all share some basic skills, but the expertise quickely diverges.
Many moons ago, I knew a "master" carpenter. Starting with just a couple of measurments, he could calculate and cut a set of stair stringers, that were PERFECT. Every riser was exactly the same height as every other riser. Every step was exactly the same width as ever other step and ALL the steps were dead on level. (I know that some computer programs will do it. But, he did it with a framing square, a carpenter's pencil and a piece of scrap wood.) He even compensated for the subflooring and flooring on the last riser, so that AFTER the final flooring was installed, the total height of the top riser, was still the same. But, he never figured out how to install crown molding so that every cut was perfect. He was a master carpenter. He wasn't a master trim carpenter.
I knew master trim carpenters that figured they reached that status by compensating for the screwups of the framing carpenters. THEY considered a perfect set of stair stringers as the Holy Grail, only achieveable by black magic.
I figure a lot of what experience teaches you is what not to do. And I'd guess the first lesson is to not try and make inadequate tools perform like superior tools.
I'd guess that even the Neanders would suggest that one of the first things to learn is how to put a gleeming edge on a piece of steel. In other words, how to take a mediocre tool and make it immeasurably better.
James... Just puffing guys. Don't take it serious.
An expert *knows* the limitations of his tools, _and_ "how to use them".
This lets him overcome _most_ of the 'issues' that might arise with 'mediocre' tooling.
OTOH, _nothing_ can "compensate" for loose/wobbly bearings on the arbor shaft of a table saw. It will cut a rough line, _no_matter_who_ is using it.
But, the expert will -know- that =that= saw behaves that way, and do something like 'cut everything a bit oversize, and route or joint the edge to precise finished dimension.
This is the first rational statement I've ever heard from you.
BTW how'd the corn come out?
I just love a backhanded compliment! Makes me feel so special!
You would be rational if you'd give up the Remedial Arm Saw and stick with a TS, BS and CMS. Wassamatter witch yous anyhows?? :)
dave
Rumpty wrote:
I have 3, witch on should I give up?
Whichever one of you had drunk the fewest beers.
Experience, clearly. Me, for example. I'm finally, gradually, incrementally learning how to get good things done with bad equipment. If I had started off with tools that could be depended upon more reliably to do what I asked of them without balking, I wouldn't have had to develop this sense of being totally anal about quadruple checking everything, and I would be a lazier, more complacent woodworker.
About twenty years ago, Patrick Moraz (then with Yes, later the Moody Blues) was doing a music trade show as a (iirc) Yamaha clinitian.
Unfortunately, his keyboards and his roadie never arrived, and he had to make do with whatever his sponsor had available?
How'd he sound? Well DUH! He's Patrick Moraz!
Yeah, it is funny, the things you think about while driving.
Odds are on the experienced "master carpenter" with some possible exceptions due to an inexplicable quantity known as raw talent.
Equal talent, the experience will compensate for the tools and probably do the better job. But, a hack with 20 years of experience is still a hack. The flip side is the occasional person who is just naturally gifted. I have seen this is different areas of life and there are some people that seem to best all but the grand-masters about two minutes after they take something up. I've seen this in siwmmers, programmers, and musicians so presumably there are some woodworkers who would do fantastic work with only a couple years experience.
Bill Ranck Blacksburg, Va.
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