Hand forged?

Re: I don't think so

joel

>Power tools have been around since forever. They called them "apprentices". In days of old when things were rotten most "apprentices" in a big shop stayed apprentices. THe master may take credit for great skill which he might have had but, the the wood was sawn to almost finished size on a water powered sawmill or by professional sawyers who did nothing else. The lathe would have been powered by a guy on a treadmill or using a great wheel. the marquetry would be saw own on a special fixed frame saw, the finishing would be sent out to a finish shop and worked on by specialists.

THe craftsmanship and quality of work that could be done by an industrial community in bascially the 18th century version of a factory setting way exceeded except in rare exception what the lone craftsman could do.

In the early part of the 19th century whole factories were set up using no machines to make furniture - chairmaking being a lead candidate here.

For me the difference is custom vs mass produced. but some mass procued stuff is amazing and some custom stuff isn't worth the effort.

Agree to disagree

Adam Cherubini, NJ

>I guess we have to agree to disagree on this subject. I appreciate the fact that good people sometimes differ on some subjects:

I just don�t think of planes as woodworking machines. I think I�m technically wrong, but that�s just the definition I feel comfortable with.

I don�t think routers or circular saws or jig saws are hand tools. I don�t mean to sound offensive, but I have to ask why we don�t discuss those hand tools here on the WC Hand Tools forum?

I�ve been in big commercial furniture shops. Those guys have hand planes, they have zeta saws, and chisels. There is no robot that puts the furniture together. They do it by hand and sometimes trim parts to fit by hand. They rout edges by hand. But I guess I don�t think of that as hand made furniture. Nor do they advertise it as �hand made� or �hand crafted�. They all have work benches, but they don�t call it �bench made� furniture either. Its good quality furniture and they are good craftsmen.

If some work is done by hand and some by machine, is it hand made furniture? (That's the question here, right?) By that definition, isn't IKEA hand made furniture? Dare I ask if IKEA makes wooden furniture, or are we redefining that word as well?

You don't have to agree, but I hope I've adequately made my point.

Adam

Drop Forged - slightly OT

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>Back in my youth, when you had to watch your step so as not to trip over an Apatosaurus tail (they get hinky when you do that, and getting stomped by one just ruins your day), some of the tools that passed through my hands were marked "drop forged," as if this were a good thing, better than what I wasn't sure. I always sensed that it was also saying that the tool had been made in a Modern Up to Date Factory, Yeah.

Only one of my chisels is so marked (this one needs a handle, like most of mine; some time, some time). This one's only maker's mark is "Germany, British Zone," which would put it at about 58-59 years old.

I find it interesting that what was a marketing virtue not that many years ago (he said, defensively) would now be a road to marketing oblivion, replaced, instead, by references to pre-Industrial Revolution practices.

Re: Drop Forged - slightly OT

Todd Hughes

>I have seen old adds where is was proudly proclaimed that the item was "Machine Made" as a sign of quality.This was one of the selling points for the early,[1850's] Colts guns that they were machine made ...if you think about for many things being made by a mchine probably did remove alot of variables and did make a better product as well as being less expensive...Todd