woodworking with hand tools

Geez. His pile of shavings is nicer than some of my work, and his shop is neater than my house. Whoever complained about the reverberation on the video can blame the large uncluttered shop. As if that isn't enough to be jealous of, apparently the video was shot "con luz natural".

I'm curious. Given adequate free time, would any of you do the rip-sawing and thickness-planing by hand? Untouched as I am by any personal experience, I think I can see how there would be real satisfaction in doing the joinery by hand, but I'm less convinced that I would find all that thickness-planing "un trabajo feliz".

In the day, it was called an apprentice :-)

I don't know about others but I am quite happy just to get good Joinery by machine

Before I got a jointer, I had to flatten everything by hand. I kept wishing for a scrub plane, but just took one of my planes and cambered the blade heavily and moved the frog back... still a scrub would be nice. At times I had no problem , being able to move quickly.. Others... I was frustrated as all hell. I kept getting better though, but still ran into wood that was hard to understand... swirling grain where a growth must have been on a slice further out on the log... change in direction... Where it swirls is gets hard and gnarly.

I have flattened , but also thickness planed by hand with wide boards, that were too big to bandsaw....

I would still if I had to work wider boards by hand, and now that I Have a proper bench (solid) for sure. It can be satisfying, but it can be frustrating. When you are able to get it the way you want, after struggling, it's particularly satisfying, as you realize you climbed Mt Everest.

I am not sure I would rip long pieces by hand though... I just don't see the need. I have a beautiful rip saw, and use it for small work.. something that I would be afraid to do on the TS, or BS. I am going to restore it.. I had cleaned it up long ago, but after seeing some work that one LJ guy does, it might be worth it. I just didn't want to put that much effort into it. But it's a saw that should get passed down... Too bad the notches and finger reliefs are for a righty, I am a lefty.. but it's still pretty comfortable.

I mostly do Dovetails by hand, I have only done machined a couple of times... I like hand dovetailing, I just consider it a nice touch.. If I had a lot of draws, I might bring out the jig, but I always find that I get the precision I desire, and look from hand cut.

I know what a troll is, what bothered you about his post.

As woodchucker pointed out, it has a lot to do with having the right hand t ools. Same as with power woodworking. Right tool makes the job easier. U sing a scrub plane makes dimensioning boards fairly quick. Not as quick as with powered jointers and planers, but still fairly quick. Scrub planes r emove a lot of wood quickly. Whereas when you use a regular plane to remov e wood and dimension it, it takes a long time because regular planes cannot cut a lot of wood. Scrub planes are fun to use.

Dimensioning wood is not fun with hand tools. Its physically demanding wor k. Its not really skilled work. Its hard physical work. I think there ar e a fair number of handtool woodworkers who use machines to dimension the w ood. Joint, plane, rip. Then use handtools to final dimension, smooth, jo ints. Mix.

I've done it... and still do at times. I also taught my sons, starting at about age 8, how to resaw, rip saw, crosscut, 4-square, and shoot with handtools... They understand the intent, purpose and process now rather than just know they have to shove a board through a machine.

In recent times they've been using my large stationary tools (bandsaw, jointer, thickness planer, table saw). This coming weekend my youngest will use the shaper for the first time to shape and mold using the template I recently mentioned in another thread. This would have happened last weekend but the rub collar I needed didn't show up until yesterday... I tested the set up last evening and it works like a charm.

It is satisfying and with small stock it is often the right way to go.

John

Not any more ... but, the ability to be able to do it, if it is the only way to get the job done ... Priceless. ;)

Luckily, both my grandfather's, and my Dad, were self reliant men in a self reliant culture, so I was blessed to have been exposed to the use of woodworking hand tools early in life. Mostly by my maternal grandfather who had a shop, sawmill, and built his farm buildings, home, and the furniture that went into it.

I wouldn't necessarily advocate that everyone start off with only hand tools in the 21 century, but skills, once learned to a level adequate for most jobs, tend to stick with you, and come in handy even though you may be rusty.

I recently installed crown, base and shoe mostly by hand (I did use a finish nail gun) in a bedroom remodel. Learned to cope inside miter joints when I was around ten, and here, 60 later, it's was like riding a bicycle. And, by being able to do so, I managed to save and reuse a quite a bit of trim that was no longer available in a house 90 years old; and a good deal of time to boot by not having to remove but one side of the trim on intersecting walls.

Basically, and though I have never even been anything but barely adequate with hand tools, I can't count the number of times what I did learn as a youngster has saved my bacon.

And ... I grew up in an age when there were actually SHOPS to be seen in public schools ... Man, have we lost an incalculable amount of desirable human traits, skills, and basic psychological/cultural health, in that regard.

I think this holds true with most anything and may be one of the reasons that some people have difficulty in learning to using computer drawing programs. Having a formally taught back ground in analog? drafting seemed to have helped me greatly 28 years ago when I first started using CAD programs.

That along with "unnecessary bickering" with krw made me put him in the "troll" category. Am I wrong? I want to do what I can to reduce troll-participation. Trolls seek to waste our time and denigrate our newsgroups.

I'm willing to reconsider and apologize. Wasn't he the one carrying on an ongoing bicker-session with krw? As you may know, I don't come here to argue with anyone. Maybe it was a misunderstanding? His post appeared to exhibit "troll behavior" though. Maybe I can take classes on recognizing troll behavior when I see it...

Bill

No, it's trolling if you try to split the group too. Since you have some supporters, I unkill-filed you (not that you have to care..lol). I've been wrong before, this surely won't be the last time.

Bill

It is sad. You know theres a song, in the year 2525, ..... if you look it up, we are headed that way, useless ... just useless... no more arms, or legs.... just useless pieces of crap..

You picked the wrong one to put in the troll category. KRW fits the TROLL...

Dave, an exceptionally good guy, has added a lot to the newsgroup down through the years. He, simply put, doesn't take s*it off anyone. Give him a break.

Started lurking here in the late nineties, starting posting under another name ("Chakra", if you can believe that) around 2000, and my current in 2001, and trust me, we will all have our turn in that barrel at some point ... some of us more than others. ;)

Congratulations Billy boy ! You are even a bigger pussy than Leon ! ~g~ You wouldn't know a troll if it crawled up your vagina and set fire to your ovaries.

Good luck - let us all know how that kill-file works out for ya. John T.

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On Wed, 16 Apr 2014 10:45:29 -0500, Leon

That's just about the best definition of me that I've seen.

On Wed, 16 Apr 2014 16:24:05 GMT, snipped-for-privacy@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal)

Sounds similar to my first shop teacher. He had us saw wood by hand until we almost had blisters and then taught us to use the table saw. His reasoning was we had to learn the basics before we went onto the advanced stuff.

On Wed, 16 Apr 2014 12:31:39 -0400, woodchucker

And, from what I've read by a few other experienced woodworkers here, dovetail jigs are frequently a pain to setup properly.