Adam and the pre-industrial woodshop

Depends

jim_reed@marietta

>I think it may be hard to generalize about the actual work performed in a cabinetshop. Location is very important because of transportation issues. City cabinetmakers could enjoy the benefits of co-location and could buy pieces from middlemen (turners, etc). Provincial cabinetmakers probably had to make do with their own skills and maybe those of a local sawyer. I'll bet it was just as today. Sawyer works for volume and markets mostly to construction. Cabinetmaker had to form special relationship to get good cabinet woods appropriately processed. These are all fascinating questions to ponder.

Re: Adam and the pre-industrial woodshop

Sam Simpson

>Hi Y'all,

Wiley, you are into an interesting discussion. I think I have a couple of pertinent points to add.

Your question concentrates on materials gathering. For the answer we need to look at proximity of supply. In Europe the proximity of local hard woods was scattered very early (15th century) consequently supply trades became evident soon after. But even then specialty needs still required the user to find his own materials. Chair makers for example.

In the states the supply was closer to hand until the mid eighteenth century. Only as large cites became populated was it necessary to develop supply trades. I saw this happening first hand in the 1950s in Nigeria. When my Father arrived to take over the building of the university in Ibadan, the local carpenters and joiners where still acting as their own suppliers. The trees where just up the road, so they had organized themselves into small teams of workers and felled, logged, and slit there own materials. Following the materials all the way through the manufacturing process, even to the point of delivering the finished furniture item to the job site.

So, it was easy for my Father to create instant efficiency by simply delegating specific trades to specific crews, and one man as a dedicated user of one machine.

So you see, it is going to depend where, and at what time line, you look for the answer.

The other part of the question has to do with the term "industrial" you might get fooled by industrious people or industrialized methods in your search for truth. They don't always add up to the same thing.

In England we generally look to the uprising of the Luddites as the beginning of the end:) I think that is a good place to start any search to establish a break in industrial methods. And here in Texas we still hear the zing of the lumber mills who where able to clean the coastline of trees from Houston the New Orleans in less time than it took to kill all the buffalo.

Regards Sam Simpson.

Re: Adam and the pre-industrial woodshop

joel

>Most cabinetry in the UK (and less so in the US) was industrialized since the 17th century. It wasn't mechanized or automated but it certainly was industrialized.

Within large shops everyone was very specialized.

Also - maybe more relevant to this thread - there was a fundimental difference between a shop in a big city and one in the country.

Also certain very important industries such as chairmaking were separate entities and a cabinetmaker wasn't a chairmaker. And within that industry for example - the person who cut out the legs of a chair wouldn't have been the person who turned the legs, or assembled the legs into a chair. They would have been seperate contractors and seperate business entities.

Re: Adam and the pre-industrial woodshop *LINK*

Greg B�tit, Vergennes, VT

>I think that some of the specialized woodworking you are describing is actually not 'pre industrial'. True, there were factory-like operations putting out furniture in the 18th century. But there were also many shops where the craftsmen did it all. The Dominys were one example of the latter. They made everything from Winsor chairs to windmills.

Greg


Dominy - 18th Century Jack of All Trades

Re: Adam and the pre-industrial woodshop

joel

>THat's exactly my point that just because you don't have machines it doesn't mean you aren't inductrial and in the 18th century there certainly were industrial, organized industries.

Shops like the Dominey's show the difference between large organized urban operations and fairly self contained rural operations.

Also one may add, while the mid 18th century Americans were busy trying to make furniture that was as good as the stuff made in mid 18th century England, the French in Paris were busy doing things like compound curved marquerty and other stuff that was way out of every else's league (and still is). I recently read that a desk made for louis 14 took over 9 years in a big shop to make and cost over 60,000 pounds in 1763 (or thereabouts) Several million in todays money. No wonder they had a revolution but at the same time you see pre mechanical craft industistrializaion at it's peak.

Dominy family *LINK*

Jonathan Peck - N.Y.

>The windmills in Watermill, Bridgehampton and Easthampton still stand today. The old hardware store in Sag Harbor (not the True value on the main strip), the old one across the street from the old jail, still has all the old woodies and woodworking implements in the window.

Sag harbour being a bustling port back in its hayday was home to blacksmithing, saw mills, whaling and the like. For a walk through the past, check the link attached for a glimpse into the daily life of the Dominy family (scroll down past the inn)

Old windmills are historical landmarks in this vacinity. Used mostly for grinding grain and sawing wood, they served a very useful purpose to our forefathers. Some of the windmills were built, at one time or another, in Sag Harbor.

In the year 1780 there were four operating windmills: three for grinding grain and the spider-leg mill for sawing wood for ships' timbers and docks. In neighboring East Hampton Town lived the Dominy family who built most of the windmills on eastern Long Island. Although the Dominy mills show Dutch influence, the mechanical working parts are basically of English design. Much of the heavy timbers for these mills came from Sag Harbor and Gardiner's Island, being hauled overland to the mill site by oxen.

The windmills still standing are in fairly good state of preservation. Local libraries and book shops can provide the interested person with all of the technical details of windmill operation. The windmill at Water Mill standing on the village green, was built in North Haven in 1800 and moved to its present location in 1814 by James Corwith, who hauled it with 12 yoke of oxen. It was used by the Corwith family throughout the Civil War period, up to 1887, grinding corn, wheat and oats for the community.

The windmill at Bridgehampton, on the former estate of John Berwind, is an historic landmark. It was built in 1820 on Sherry's Hill at Sag Harbor by a Mr. Beebe, and moved to Bridgehampton in 1837. Moved about several times, on one occasion fitted with steam power, it was bought by the Berwinds in 1916. This was the famous "Flag on the Mill - Ship in the Bay" windmill, recalling the time when a flag flown from atop the windmill was a signal that another whaling ship had returned home, and overjoyed villagers would rush down to Long Wharf to greet their family and friends.

A scaled-down replica of the Beebe windmill now sits at the foot of Main Street at Long Wharf in Sag Harbor, and is the summer home of the Sag Harbor Chamber of Commerce, which operates it as a Tourist Information Center. The Sag Harbor Lions Club also utilizes it during the month of December, selling Christmas trees and wreaths as an annual fundraiser.


Dominy Mill

Re: Adam and the pre-industrial woodshop

Dave Anderson Chester,NH

>Hi Wiley- Much of what the others have described in relation to the difference between urban and rural cabinetmakers is right on the money. In the urban centers there was a large amount of specialization and subcontracting of work. Even the Goddards and Townsends of Newpott RI contracted out the specialized carving work for their furniture, in Boston and even Portsmouth NH there were gilders, turners, carvers, upholsterers, and specialized makers of premade inlay and marquetry components.

In contrast, the rural areas of NH which included the Bedford home of Major John Dunlop, were much less sophisticated in their work arrangements. First off, cash was rare so barter was a common method of payment even for furniture. Dunlop and his apprentices did almost all of the work themselves though they did purchase rough plankage green and dry it themselves. Their only otheer purchases were the paints and chemicals needed for dyeing, staining, and varnishing the finished product (amber, copal, logwood, alcohol, etc). They even did their own carving though not to a level of sophistication equal to that of the urban centers.

I suspect most of us today are midway between the rural and urban ways since we buy our finishes,abrasives, purchase most of our lumber, and few of us make any of our own tools.

Re: Depends

Adam Cherubini, NJ

>I agree with almost everything here. Just one minor clarification. It appears to most modern researchers that the entire tree was owned or purchased by the woodworker. It sent was transported to the sawyer (even in a pit sawing operation) by a hauler. The sawyers sawed the material according to some instructions and were paid for their time, not material. They could saw a log pretty quickly.

My latest calcs, based on the Head account book,(earliest and most complete American trademan's account book) indicate material prices were slightly more than we pay today. Brasses were much cheaper than those I use. Nails and tacks were surprisingly cheap. Roughly, a 4 day chest might have less than 1/2 a day in materials (including wood, hardware, nails, and glue).

Adam

Long answer

Adam Cherubini, NJ

>Wiley, I�m using the term "pre-industrial" to describe a certain kind of shop. These shops can be defined by their limited access to start-up capital, floor space, and skilled labor. "Pre-industrial" shops were those optimized for low rate production (typically one off). More often than not, woodworking was performed in one�s living quarters. Business was a family affair. Pre-industrial shops relied on discerning customers seeking high quality products.

I believe many of our shops share much more in common with the pre-industrial shops than the more industrialized shops familiar to us. As we learn more about the pre industrial shop we may find more and more relevant and helpful information emerges.

Organizational structure

The master may have worked alone, with family members (likely) or apprentices or journeymen. The apprentice(s) lived with the master and was part of his household, dining with the family, attending religious services etc. A journeyman may have been provided with room and board or not. They worked 6 days a week, 6 am to 6 pm or later in the summer. They probably had a long break in the middle of the day for dinner.

Division of labor

Labor would be divided amongst the workers based on ability. An apprentice would be given a project an apprentice can complete. A few examples I can think of are coffins, hat boxes, cases for scale weights or the like. He would NOT perform some sub tasks like 4-squaring lumber all day. Even in the more industrialized shops, we probably couldn�t characterize them as collaborative or cooperative.

Depending on the availability of skilled labor, portions of any given job were sent out. Urban furniture makers (where labor was available) probably did very little sawyering for example. Carvers and turners were hired to tackle portions of some jobs, though both of these jobs were also often done "in-house" by the furniture makers (much to the chagrin of the turners� and carvers� guilds). In England where the guilds were strong, this would have been a problem. Here in America, it was less of a problem since the furniture maker would say; "There�s only one turner in town and he�s too busy to help me". Rarely did a turner or carver or other specialist co-locate. Some fancy carved pieces actually have the carvings glued on as separate pieces. That enabled the furniture maker and carver to work concurrently.

Materials

Lumber was purchased in several ways: in the round or log, by the tree, and by scantlen. Scantlen seems rarer in my area of study. Every woodworker probably had a lumber yard in which to store his stock. They understood about seasoning lumber and knew which trees were more dimensionally stable than others. They stock piled glue, nails, and other hardware.

Sequencing jobs

In general, it appears any project can be sequenced such that one planes a little, saws a little, joins a little. This staves off fatigue. If an apprentice had 100 hat boxes to make, he probably would have made them one at a time. In my experience, this is actually faster since it prevent fatigue and doesn�t give wood a chance to move after planing.

Doing business

In America, cash money was in short supply. What people had they saved for transatlantic trade. Labor was so short, it was cheaper in coastal towns to buy English goods and ship them all this way, than to buy American goods from local suppliers.

As a result, commerce was conducted by trading. Guys would take 50 barrels of soap in exchange for a fine piece of furniture. The cabinetmaker would never see the soap, but would pay his debts with it. The net result was that every supplier became a sort of general store. If you needed a hat, you could go to your neighborhood turner who was paid in hats. In several instances I am familiar with, tradesmen would buy each others good for resale and not mark up the price. This may have been unique to Quakers.

Conclusion

You�re right that many of us perform the work of several trades. They probably didn�t have to be blacksmith, furniture maker, carpenter, farmer in coastal towns. As you move inland, you�d see more of that and less quality. The Dominy family is an exception in this regard.

I too have heard the term "from tree to chippendale". I think it�s a mischaracterization of early shops

Adam

Follow up question

Bob Hackett

>Adam,

Could you attempt to explain the transition to specialized trades later in our developement.By this I mean,to take boatbuilding for example,how did we transition to specialized trades such as joiners,riggers,sailmakers,metalworkers(smiths),etc even in small boatyards?

I know there`s always some overlap in smaller yards but when I was not beating up on unsuspecting bits of steel I was expected to scrape,rip,tear and stay away from finish work irregardless of my experience in WWing.Here in Maine folks tend to cling to tradition more than other parts of the world and I got the distinct impression that traditionally wood and metal did not mix back then so they will not mix now or in the future.

Given this mind set,and the idea that the older and smaller shops did everything,how and when do you think we made the jump to being specialized trades even in relatively remote locales?This is a question I`ve asked more than afew times and would love to get a reasonable answer to.

Mainely,Bob-Hoping the transition from Curmudgeon to Sage doesn`t wear Adam out.;^)

Re: Follow up question

Adam Cherubini, NJ

>Could you attempt to explain the transition to specialized trades later in our development.

Later in our development? I forget how many livery companies existed in London at the beginning of the 17th century. Anyone? 50 maybe? I hope I didn�t characterize pre-industrial enterprises as guys doing everything, did I? Maybe I screwed up. How much was done was based on availability and markets and other factors. Let�s back up and see if we can�t put this into a larger context:

The medieval social guilds, bent on local economic protectionism, evolved into trade guilds that sought protection for their members. Guilds were quite strong in Europe, and disputes were sometimes bloody. Modern trade unions are direct descendants.

To my knowledge, only America, with its unique labor shortage and unnaturally expanding population (immigrants, who came with nothing and needed everything) strayed from Guild/Union protectionism. American Guilds, in the form of generic labor unions, returned to power during the American industrial revolution of the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a result of abuses in the workplace. Influence of these unions has waxed and waned over the years since, depending on the industry, stability of employment, treatment of employees etc.

Regardless of your feelings about unions, it seems to me they are a natural response to a free capitalist society, for good or ill. It may be tradition that keeps Maine boatyards seperated into individual trades. I�ll take your word for it. Or it may be that members remember what happens when competition between workers costs some 50 year old father of four his job and pension. Like so many other things, out-sourcing overseas for example, if you feel really strongly about it one way or the other, you probably don�t understand it.

But I digress. Sorry for that. Did I answer the question you were asking?

A different point of view

Sam Simpson

>Hi Y'all,

I have a different point of view when it comes to describing the early guilds. The guilds where set up by business owners. They where a way of assuring quality. For protection yes, but to protect themselves from unskilled "chancers" crafts people, who would set up in business without any real training or skills. I don't see the connection with trades unions. More of a connection to the Masonic lodges.

As for Bob's search for a time line in demarcation in trades. It would seem to me that it is one of those continuously evolving dilemmas. Do we bring the work in house? or Outsource it? I have to answer that question on almost every contract I do. The size of the business will be a factor, cash-flow is a factor, and in house skills are certainly a factor. But non of these things is a constant. Not in one time in history not even with one company on any given day.

Let's look at just two companies. One a hypothetical 18th century carriage maker who is building a product that requires metal smithed parts, wooden crafted parts and painting and decorating crafts for the final product. A small rural maker might be forced to have all of these skills in house. Whereas a large city producer might have independent metal smiths and signwriters available for outsourcing. But his profitability would be greater if he where large enough to bring them all in house. This equation would be the same no matter when you looked at it.

The second place to look would be a modern day small business making and restoring furniture. (such as my own) In this company I have the ability to custom grind my own profile cutters, but see an advantage to outsourcing it. I also have the ability to make my own dovetail drawers. But have outsourced that when quantities were so high that it made more sense to do it that way. And what I am capable of producing with one set of employees might not be the same with another set.

So Bob, I don't think you will ever get to the bottom of "when did we separate the trades" conundrum.

Regards Sam Simpson.

Fascinating answer and thread

Wiley Horne--Glendora CA

>Adam, thank you for your detailed reply, here and above. That's fascinating about the woodworker owning the tree and hiring the milling, but I suppose in those days there were trees for the taking. Sam's Nigerian community, with the furniture makers self-sufficient from felling the tree onward also remind of Dave's rural New Hampshire example.

Does anyone else think the barter economy has a lot to commend it? Cash money is fungible with everything, and so is a great lubricant, but a person with energy who can produce something might be able to bootstrap him(her)self up faster in a barter situation. (BTW, judging from folks I know in various trades, there's lots of barter going on right now--it's a significant piece of GNP I would guess.)

Labor productivity. In running down the URL's, and Jonathan provided a really good one if you scroll down to Chas. Hummel's account, I came across this essay about period productivity. It's talking about how much labor went into standard furniture items in the old days. One thing you can tell right away: There wasn't much piddling around going on. About 50 hours in a chest of drawers. Another URL indicated well under one workday in a Windsor chair. The most complicated furniture set the Dominy's ever made--the Gardiner desk and bookcase--took between 10 and 20 days of labor, depending on who's estimating. Compare this with Joel's fabulous Louis XIV piece. So I can see where Adam is coming from when he questions whether we should be so cautious and perfectionist with our work (Adam I apologize if I'm putting the wrong words in your mouth). Our forebears were really making the chips fly.

Wiley.......still digging through historical anecdotes this thread brought up

Re: Fascinating answer and thread

joel

>We didn't mention the "Garret Masters" chronicled in Henry Mayhew's London Labor and the London Poor.

These were cabinetmakers working on their own out of their garrets where they lived. With no capital they would buy wood on an IOU, make cheap furniture and then cart it on their back to see to furniture stores. The stores of course would immediately point out that they had plenty of whatever they made that week in stock already and offer a low price for it. After carting around to several dealers the garret masters would end up sell just so they didn't have to lug the piece home and would have a little money for food and more materials at starvation wages. Collectively the furntiure stores were known as "the slaughterers" because of the way they worked these men to death.

Attached is a picture of used tool sellers in London c 1840's from "london Labor and the London Poor"

Land ownership

Wiley Horne--Glendora CA

>Joel,

A grim story, indeed. Although I see a couple of nice items in the engraving. One of the things this story points up is how critical it is for the craftsman to own some land. If the garret masters had had some land to farm, they would not be so totally at the mercy of the retail stores.

It strikes me that one of the most interesting aspects of this entire historical story is this: What is the path by which the skilled but unlanded artisan in, say, England, in the early 18th century, becomes the rural craftsman in America, owning and farming some acreage, having his own workshop, and beginning to build an estate? This link from renting to owning seems to me to be critical, and perhaps the possibility of owning land was what America was all about to the British/European artisans who emigrated here.

Wiley

Re: Land ownership? (LONG)

joel

>Land ownership isn't the message I get out of it. After all just because you might be pretty good at cabinetry doesn't translate to being a good farmer.

For me most of London Labor and the London Poor is a lesson in what happens when there is no safety net. When you have a choice - work at whatever you can get or starve. And there is no responsibility of employers for anything.

Mayhew's books were based on articles he wrote for "The Morning Chronicle" the same paper as Charles Dickens worked for (and IIRC Dickens wrote a wonderful description of Billingsgate fish market for the book - all before he was famous).

In proper shops - which had long days at hard repeditive work, piece rates were published, and standardized. Most craft shops of any size (in the UK not in the us) in the early 19th century and in toolmakers almost to the end everyone worked on piecework. Some of the labor charts were centuries old - just with a percentage increase to allow for inflation. WHen there is no machinery at hand an employer has no advantage in capital.

In chairmaking for example the shop master paid piecework and the workers paid rent on their benches, a percentage each to pay for the boys who helped out, they paid for candles for night work, they paid for supplied materials, and the only thing they could control was how fast they worked and how many hours they put in.

In the last century workers in the chairmaking industry of high wycombe were even billed for any electricity they used for lighting

THe early trade unions were not about hourly wages but about piece rates and job classifications.

The garret masters were in general people who could not get any sort of job in a larger shop (for bunches of reasons not all unfair), or had some idea at some point to strike out on their own and they failed. Not difficult when capital is impossible to get and an injury can put you out of business. Even going to America required some capital or someone to stake your passage.

My sense is that these men were also not the most highly trained or capable. The problem is of course hand work is expensive. Certainly rich people could afford fine furniture and certainly a middle class person could afford some furniture. but overall in a pre-mechanised society goods were expensive and what the garrett masters did was make extremely inexpensive furniture for regular working people. The market for better work was smaller.

That`s what I was afraid of...

Bob Hackett

>I guess it`s kind of like the doctor phenomenon,one day I woke up and they were all specialists.Who knows when that happened?

Mainely,Bob

Re: A different point of view

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Certainly there was a component of concern for quality in the formation of guilds; but I think the primary raison d'etre was restraint of trade. It always gets down to money. Same as today with all the licensing required to be a lawyer, doctor, hair dresser, carpenter, mechanic, etc.

Pam

Shortage of labor...

Mark Harrison -- in Sydney, Australia

>Very interesting thread this.

The shortage of labor while pronounced in the US, it was not unique. I would expect to find the same conditions in Canada as I know there were similar problems in the colonies of Australia ("Australia" as a country only came into existence in 1901 at federation).

You're probably aware that the Australian colonies were formed for the express purpose of exporting the huge numbers of "convicts" that England was internally besieged with after the War of Independence. The practical effect of this was that there were very few free settlers except for the administrators and jailers. All manual work was done by convict gangs for public works and by assigned convicts to the free settlers or emancipated convicts that stayed on in colonies. The most common reason emancipated convicts stayed on was that a condition of their emancipation was that they could not return to the UK for a statutary period.

Convicts had rights and were not the property of the person they were assigned to. They could complain and their complaints were listened to and acted upon at times. The quality of the management of the rights of convicts was very spotty though and justice was not always reached, as you would expect in such an environment. However, there are documented instances where assigned convicts were withdrawn by the Governor of the colony.

That is all as explanation as to where I am going now...

All colonial societies that I can think of where there was no urban society subjugated(*) had labor shortage problems. This was solved by importing labor either by coercion (slavery, convicts etc) or by free settlers with this method being the least reliable. In Australian colonies, the major draw card for free settlers -- up until the gold rushes in the late 1800's -- was the prospect of a land grant and assigned laborers (convicts) to work that land. How much of both you got depended on your connections and the amount of capital you brought.

This is what held back free (i.e. non-coerced) labor competing for work as they were competing against essentially free (convict) labor. I don't know for sure as I am not as knowledgeable on US history, but I would expect that the same condition applied until well after abolition in the US as well.

In Australian colonies, the availability of free (as in not coerced) labor was a problem until after the gold rushes had run their course.

Leaving aside the obvious ethical problems that both forms of coerced labor have, it is my view that coerced labor actually held back the development of colonial societies. As counter-intuitive as that might seem.

This shortage of free labor also held back the development of guilds and the demarcation of labor in this country as it did in North America.

(*) Let me explain what I mean here about urban society and the opposite. By an urban society I am referring to a society like that which existed in India (for example) where there was a ready supply of labor. Colonies like those in North American and Australia (and others I'm sure) were peopled by pre-urban societies. I'm not making any relative judgement on the value of these societies except that the urban societies were more immediately "useful" to the purposes of the colonisers.

Definitions ;-)

Dan Donaldson

>Funny you should mention Doctors becoming specialists. Here are a couple of definitions that I heard once. They were being applied to Doctors, but could fit many professions:

General Practitioner: One who knows less and less about more and more until they know nothing about everything.

Specialist: One who knows more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing.

Re: A different point of view

Dan Donaldson

>I wouldn't necessarily consider some of the licensing that you mentioned as restraint of trade. If I go to a doctor, I want to be sure that they have met at least some minimum level of training and experience if I am going to trust my health to them. The same goes for a lawyer and several other professions. I look to the license to be sure that they are qualified to do what I am asking. In this case, I would not want just anyone to be able to hang out a shingle to proctice.

Now, if you look at it from the standpoint of limiting the number of slots in schools to get the training, there may be some point to the restraint thing, but that is different from the license per se.

Re: A different point of view

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>I don't disagree with you at all, particularly as our world has gotten much more populated. We don't know everybody in town anymore. However, it used to be sufficient for someone to "read" the law, then practice, as there were no law schools. Not that long ago either, maybe 50 years. And I don't think there's any quality difference, the bell curve is filled out regardless of formal schooling or not. In short, I'd stack Oliver Wendell Holmes and John Marshall over Scalia, Thomas, and Rehnquist any day on any issue.

Pam

Thanks for the history

Bob Hackett

>As you probably know slaves weren`t the only way to get nearly free labor.Indentured service has a long history in the US.

Irish and Chinese labor were also brought in when we needed things like railroads completed.

It`s interesting to note that prior to 9-11 the army was finally filling thier recruitment quota by recruiting outside the US.They offered food,housing,education,and US citizenship in 3 years of service,much the same as they offered people like the Irish during the civil war.In the platoon I had at Fort Leonard Wood one year close to 10% were these type of recruits.For some the only english they knew was"Yes,drill sgt".It`s hard to maintain the needed level of discipline when you have to yell at a private thru an interpreter.

Mainely,Bob

Middle class woodworkers

Adam Cherubini, NJ

>John Head came to Philadelphia from Suffolk England in 1718. Though he called himself a joiner, we would know him as a cabinetmaker. At the time of his death in 1754 he was among Philly's wealthiest merchants.

If you wish to understand who these people were I invite you to my auto mechanic analogy. It goes like this: The 18th century woodworker (probably applies to other trades, but I only study woodworkers) was like a modern auto mechanic.

* They had specialized training and expensive tools. Their tools may have cost 1/2 to 1 years wages.

* Every community had one and needed one.

* Lots of people dabble in the trade. Richer people dabble less so (unless its a hobby), poorer folks more so out of necessity. Skills required to do complicated stuff and specialty tools cause amateurs to turn to the pros when they encounter tough jobs.

* Skilled workers hire a big vehicle to transport their tools to a shop. The master/owner doesn't provide tools (except some specialty things). He does provide a work area with a bench, vise, lift, etc. They work on piecework/billable hours, not actual hours, so hard workers are rewarded. The pay is enough to raise a family but not great.

* Masters/business owners can make as much money as doctors, though despite their wealth, they'll never be accepted into society as such.

* A small town can only have so many Porsche mechanics. If you work for the only one in town, you may have to move to start your own business or wait for your boss to retire.

* Other similarities can be found. Collectively both were called mechanics, for example.

* Customers probably think the master owner is performing the work and he may be in some circumstances. Otherwise, there's really no way to know who's doing what in the shop.

Try it out for yourself and see how you like my analogy.

Adam