I've been programming computer since 1976. I probably have the world's greatest text editor. Drop by and for only $129,578.86 you can have a copy. Or you can get a freeware editor 98.5% as good for ZERO $. You may have to shim the freeware editor's cast extension tables....
Wes, to a point you are correct. I too worked as an automotive machinist and mechanic. My interest and love of woodworking began with my grandfather, a master furniture builder. Continued by my father, who taught me at a very young age, 40 years ago or so, just how important a sharp tool is. I do not make my living as a woodworker however, I do take it as a serious hobby.
I have most of the tools available to woodworkers, Delta, Porter-Cable, Jet, Ect. I also have Miller and Lincoln welders (my other hobby), and there is no comparison in the quality. As we all know, the mass quantity of tools available in a rational price range are made in Taiwan/China. The USA gave up making them long ago.
The main difference between woodworking and metal working/machining is precision. The sort or precision required for machine work simply is not required for woodworking. Some talented woodworkers use no power tools at all and manage to create fabulous pieces. I have yet to see a neander metal worker. (Except maybe a blacksmith.)
The quality of your work in wood is a reflection of your skill and talent, not your wallet. Do you need to buy the absolute carp they pedal at HF? No. Will you have to buy a euro type saw to make furniture? No.
What you will need is quality hand tools and the ability to make and keep them sharp, and above all, the desire and talent to make quality pieces out of wood.
If many people looked at any new car the way they looked at a new power tool, cars would also have a 100% defect rate. Most of these defects WOULD get a "tough shit, buddy" from the dealer. It's a perception thing. Most people jump in their new car, and drive away saying "wheeee, I'm in my new car!"
We woodworkers are anal, know it all, pains in the asses, who think a .003 dip in the table, or .001 error in the parallelism to the miter slots makes a huge difference.
How many people roll their new cars onto a race scale and check to see if each wheel is weighted the way they should be, or chassis dyno it to see if the advertised horses are there? How would a dealer react if you brought your Subaru WRX back because it only measured 218 HP (or less) at the wheels, and the ad says 227? How may dealers or buyers would actually know where the advertised HP was measured?
On a more realistic bent, how many cars leave the dealer's lot slightly misaligned, which won't show until the tires get 10-15k on them? At that point, the dealer will blame it on you for hitting potholes. Who _checks_ the alignment before accepting the car?
I'll bet you and I can find defects, especially cosmetic and fit and finish, on every new car on a lot, you pick the lot.
On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 22:34:26 -0800, "TeamCasa" wrote: [snip] | |What you will need is quality hand tools and the ability to make and keep |them sharp, and above all, the desire and talent to make quality pieces out |of wood. | |My two cents.
Wes Stewart wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
Eh? I don't beleive you paid very much attention to the millions of dollars of machinery & test equipment you were specifying. We not so long ago installed a several million dollar leadless component assembly line. Took a team of guys a week with shims & laser levels to get it to run...which is totally normal for that kind of equipment: it needs to be fine tuned and adjusted before it's ready for use. By the same token, every bit of electronic test equipment we get goes thru the calibration lab before it's put to use - even the $60k stuff from Aligent needs to be checked against a standard, and possibly adjusted, before it's used the first time. This is totally normal for the electronics industry. And I don't see that woodworking tools are any different - they need adjusting & fine tuning (in general in inverse proportion to price) to be ready for use.
Actually, they generally don't. Most woodworkers buy the quality they decide they need; and many are willing and able to trade off purchase price against the investment of time and effort.
Woodworking tools are available from a number of quality ranges: [1] Junk, [2] Consumer, [3] Contractor, [4] Professional, and [5] Production. Every time a woodworker buys a tool, he/she makes a determination of quality requirements and an assessment of how much can be spent on that purchase.
Most of my shop is at [4]. I've replaced most of the [1], [2], and [3] stuff that I started out with; and just added my first [5] tool (a CNC router, bought to produce a specific set of products.)
There is a fair variety of equipment available that'd satisfy anyone's thirst for quality - but as with machine tools, the quality goes up linearly as the price goes up exponentially.
I'm thinking pretty seriously about adding a tiny milling machine and lathe (7x12) to my shop. I plan to spend about $1K for the pair and don't have great expectations about precision - but then I don't really need the kind of precision that the people in the Hughes model shop take for granted.
A lot of woodworkers seem to find as much joy in their tools as with what they create with the tools. Sharpening, tuning, aligning, squaring, truing, calibrating, polishing,... all bring their own satisfactions - at first because of the "I can do it!" factor; and later because of the difference in results made by liberally applying elbow-grease and TLC to the tools.
And after all, this is a /recreational/ woodworking forum
Wes, You're right and your post rather ammusing, but what's the point? If we could all afford Bridgeport milling machines, surface grinders and fly cutters our furniture projects would all be super accurate and cold as the space shuttle. :)
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