Muscle versus electrons
William Claspy in Cleveland
>Hi folks-
My buddy was over yesterday. He is a jack-of-all-trades, and a very accomplished one at that. He wanted to use my table saw to cut down two cabinet doors for a client's project. Once the doors were cut down, they needed a 3/8" by 3/8" rabbet cut along two sides.
He trimmed the doors to size and began to set up the saw to cut the rabbets. I suggested using a plane instead, and while he didn't scoff, he raised his eyebrow. So while he was setting up a cut on the saw, I took my #78 off the peg. Marked and scored the width of the first rabbet with a marking knife, set the depth stop on the plane, and had at it. He was still setting up the first cut on the saw.
By the time he had made the first two cuts on Door Number One, I had flipped Door Number Two around on the bench, adjusted the bench dog, and was scoring the second rabbet. He fiddled with the saw fence and depth of cut as the dust collector droned on and the saw whined its impatient song.
We finished our work at about the same time- I was just truing up the rabbets with my 073 when he brought his door over- which also need some cleaning up. It was no race, but simply one of those many indications of the suitability of hand work when doing "one off" work. And I was glad when we could turn off the dust collector and saw!
Cheers!
Bill