charlie belden
>Pye - haven't seen that name in a while. The workmanship of risk and the workmanship of certainty? Doesn't matter if I use handtools or power tools, the outcome almost always seems to be risky ; ). And when it comes to woodturning - it's always risky - for me.

I initially thought of the hand tool vs the power tool in terms of wood to the tool or tool to the wood - wood still/tool moves or tool still / wood moves. The JMP doesn't meet the tool to the wood criteria - so that's no help.

Then I thought of the rate at which things are done - hand tools operate at human speed, power tools typically operate at faster to much faster rates. The former provides both tactile as well as audible feedback - and time to react, the latter provides little if any tactile feedback - and usually when something is going wrong and there's not much you can do about it - and the same goes for audible feedback. You can feel and hear while hand planing, when the grain has changed - and adjust to that.

There was an issue raised having to do with essentially the School Of Hard Knocks / Dues Paying - traditional stock prep and joinery - done with hand tools adding some level of craftsmanship to the finished piece - whether it will be seen - even by an intermediate to advanced woodworker. Unlike a relatively short period in the history of woodworking - sepcifically solid wood furniture making - The A&C Movement - joinery has traditionally been unseen - by intent. Most chinese solid wood furniture at least in the last couple of hundred years uses very complex, difficult to do, joinery - all invisible from the outside of the piece. And when you don't have modern glues and the pieces are moved with the owner - several times a year - to different climate conditions - joinery that allowed for wood movement and didn't rely on glue to hold things together was essential. You DO NOT want a chair or bench you made for a powerful man to fail - with him or any of his sitting on it.

Then there's the "Do you want to actually make things - in a reasonable amount of time - or spend a lot more time doing things the traditional way using traditional tools.

I found the DOMINO, which brings loose tenon mortise and tenon joinery to even a beginning woodworker to be a valuable tool. I mentored an absolute novice woodworker through making a floor to ceiling linen cabinet - with raised panel doors. It had to be assembled on site because of its height and the ceiling height.

Everything was put together with loose tenon M&T joinery - except for the slots for the raised panel doors - which were done on the table saw and tuned with a Lee Valley plane made for that purpose. She would never have been able to do this project without the DOMINO. I set it up, showed her how to use it and she did all the rest of the mortise cutting - literally hundreds of them - with maybe five that had to be plugged and recut.

She spent far more time on what was going to show - getting the nicest look out of the boards she bought for the project - and staining - the poplar (she wanted to go with cherry or mahogany - 'til she priced a board foot of that stuff) than she did on cutting all the mortises. The loose tenon M&Ts took care of more than enough structural strength - and allowed assembly on site.

She ended up with a four raised panel doors cabinet that looks nicer than anything she could afford to buy - and it'll last a lot longer. The fact that she made it - with a minimum of help and guidance - priceless. It was 8 or 9 weekends of here time - spread over three months - and they weren't two 8 hour days either - more like 6 to 8 hours spread over Saturday and Sunday.

Now she's wanting to do a bathroom vanity and possibly a small end table or two. Without the DOMINO - and a router table and raised panel bit - her plan would have had to be simplified quite a bit since she rejected pocket screw joinery and flat 1/4" thick ply panels.

Make furniture - or spend time doing hand tool work - because that's enjoyable - and time isn't an issue.

I must admit I was disappointed when she rejected doing some bead details - using a LN beading tool - but I did get here to use the GNT Gordon shave - just a little ; )