Why do you use hand tools?
Bill Tindall, E. TN
>In a post below a new woodworker, Jane, asked what plane to buy and a lengthy discussion followed that in some cases didn't consider why she might want a hand plane. I know that my feet were in my moccasins, not her's, when I responded. Some respondants suggested a multipurpose plane while another stated that one could not make more than a bookcase with only one plane. It became clear that there is a great diversity of hand tool objectives on this forum, and that can result in communication problems. One can make all sorts of things without any plane. I suspect that the great majority of woodworkers never use a hand plane, for a variety or reasons, but mostly for lack of knowledge of how and when to use one. This Forum could be a great help to these people, but it must be considered that they may have a different woodworking perspective.
Not long ago during a trip to Krenov's school I watched students fitting things using hand planes- simple inexpensive affairs that they had made. It became abundantly clear that in the hands of a knowledgable user, a plane was the best way to do some furniture building tasks. It became my goal to determine what tasks in furniture building were best suited to hand tools and learn the skills to use these tools. This Forum has been a great source of help as well as a great source of confusion. I suspect Jane may have been as confused as helped.
This Forum has made me reailze that there are people that mostly collect planes. Others use planes because they like the process of planning things or emulating historical ways of doing things. Still others plane things that their thickness planner and belt sander can't handle. The latter can't imagine why anyone would waste the time flattening something with a hand plane when a planner could do it in a minute, while the former can't imagine how anyone could derive any satisfaction flattening something with a machine.
It seems to me that the most knowledgable hand tool people on the Forum greatly enjoy the process of using(and/or colecting) hand tools. (Meyers- Briggs "P" personalities) They seem willing to spend more time, making fewer things, for the pleasure derived from using their hand tools.
There is another woodworking perspective-persons that have an endless list of things they want to make, the best way that they can make them. "Best" is a compromise of quality, speed, and cost. The pleasure (or payment if selling things) comes from accomplishing the task.
As we drift over here from the power side, and elsewhere, we look to the experts for advise on hand tools and techniques to insert into the equation of time, quality and cost. And we hope we are welcome even though we intend to keep our thickness planner and router. When communicating keep in mind that woodworking objectives may be greatly different.
