Why are hand tools "the dark side?"

Because....

HC Sakman

>you can use the hand tools in candle light, dark & romantic, that's why Darin! ;-) No electricty=darkness, that's my equation!

So, you missed the clamps, what else have you got at the show?

Chico...

Uh... a bit confused, are we? *LINK*

David Barnett - Venice, Florida

>The "Dark Side" has long been applied to shameless and misguided electron burners, especially those who believe any power tool trumps all hand tools in every respect. Apparently, a few posters have lately mistaken it to mean 'unpowered' and hence 'unlit'. It's really no different than Americans referring to all things 'north of the border' as "The Dark Side" (you did know that, didn't you?). You didn't think that had anything to do with those long winters, did you?

"Step into the light, neighbor. Step into the light."


The "Dark Side", properly used (1997)

Re: Why are hand tools "the dark side?"

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>This is NOT the Dark Side. That's just a bunch of spin, newspeak, propaganda, or whatever you want to call it, promulgated by the Nahmites. Even with your #8, set for a really rank cut, and a running start, you can't trip a breaker, plunging the whole shop into darkness, like they can.

Re: Why are hand tools "the dark side?"

Todd Stock

>I have to disagree with the application of 'dark side' to the nosier forum here at WC.

There is absolutely nothing sensual in the shrill whine of a table saw, just as there are no multi-layered mysteries of use to reveal themselves while using a chop saw. An electric router has no secret language of sound and feel to pleasure your senses, nor do power tools command us to seek mastery of arcane skills and knowledge simply to flip the ON switch.

Let's face it...there is a slippery slope with hand tools because all things seductive and perhaps a bit wicked start with our first minor act of surrender to our own secret desires. For further proof, simply compare the thrill of unwrapping a custom-made marking knife - nestled in its own bed of fragrant cedar shavings - with the drudgery of separating your new poly boxed geegaw, smelling of used cutting oil and vinyl plasticiser, from it's four language labelled, anti-theft enabled, environmentally destructive blister pack. Not even a fair contest.

Embrace the Dark Side...it is your Destiny...

Re: Why are hand tools "the dark side?"

Ernie Miller

>Am I going to be banned for the board? I just sent Hoa a marking knife and forgot to pack it in cedar. I must have missed that thread where it gave the proper packing techniques for marling knives. It's called the dark side because we use our shamen idealized practices of making wood look mysteriously beautifull with out ever letting it touch a power tool or carbide biting monster of lectricity.

Re: Why are hand tools "the dark side?"

Todd Stock

>Is this Hoa's first knife? Cedar is only used for the second. Ugly uju/karmic impact on the first;-)

Re: Why are hand tools "the dark side?"

Stephen Kirk in Quakertown PA

>OK, you guys are scaring me a bit here. I mean, I like hand tools, but I go outside occasionally.

Noooooo! You are not my father.

Isin't Cedar for the...

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond,CA

>2nd anniversy?

Re: Why are hand tools "the dark side?"

Richard A.Gillespie, Jr.

>Ernie

Just what is a "marling knife" Is it some thing that really needs to be baried in cedar shavings?

Re: Why are hand tools "the dark side?"

Todd Stock

>Marling, from the Olde English 'to marl', or place your personal mark on a prized leather - usually silver, wood, ivory, or other 'durable' possession. Marling knives became very popular with sailors due to their shared close quarters. As the years passed, marling knives became ever more ornate and specialized in function, often becoming the sailor's most valuable belonging - quite ironic when you consider the purpose.

To shorten a long story: As has usually been the case with men of the sea, gambling and other ill conceived vices ashore often conspired to leave these sailors stripped of clothing, possessions, and dignity with no where to turn for the barest essentials but to the ship's bosun and his floating version of the company store. Without his tools of the trade, the impoverished mariner marked his belongings with the rust-encrusted grime found on the ship's collection of iron rigging tools.

Thus, hard-luck sailors 'marled' their few rude articles of ship-issue clothing, resulting in eventual application of the term to the iron tool we now know as the marlin(g) spike.

Hope this clears things up...

Naw...Knowing Ernie he just misspelled "marking"

Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia

>

Re: Because....

Darin in Victoria

>I got the clamps, but on order. Had to pay the shipping :(. Oh well, the price is still cheap. Had to resist the temptation to pick up an LA Jack. That has to wait until Xmas. Fell in love with the bevel up smoother in the summer and now I'm hooked on bevel ups. Anyone want a couple of Stanleys with after market blades and cap irons :)? Oh and if Santa is listening, my wish list includes a Victoria Lee Valley. And if he's not listening... MY WISH LIST INCLUDES A VICTORIA LEE VALLEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: Why are hand tools "the dark side?"

Darin in Victoria

>Somehow I knew that a simple question would get a whole lot of funny history trivia. Where do you guys get all that information? The young apprentice is still in awe of you masters.

Why does that sound...

Ellis Walentine

>...like a lingerie store for woodworkers and gardeners?

Nevermind. :-)

Not bad, Todd, not bad at all

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>

"Utter marl!", he retorted.

David Barnett - Venice, Florida

>"Marling" is gerundial of "marl", the Germanic verb which means "to tie" or "to hitch" and clearly precedes Old English, our Germanic dialect, as it also branches into Breton and Norman, with Medieval Latin precedents, although these are up for grabs among some scholars, as are questions about Celtic acquisition.

I don't know where you came across your etymology, but I can assure you there is no support for it in the O.E.D., nor in "Old English and Its Closest Relatives: A Survey of the Earliest Germanic Languages" by Orrin W. Robinson, nor in Pollington, nor Clark Hall, et al. In fact, "marling" in English means (and has meant) primarily to "manure with marl", as in "marlite", "marlborough", and so on. Dickens likely chose Jacob Marley's surname name as it hearkens to flavors of things peaty, musty, calcified, as in the adjective "marly", which means what one would suppose. "Marl" can also be dug from a "marlpit", rather than directly issue from a beast: "my shepe to dongue or marle his land.", or "yf God beginne to mucke and marle you." Marl became the common term for a peaty, chalky, clay-like lime-bearing soil that had widespread use as a fertilizer in the Brit. Isles, whether mixed with animal wastes or applied neat.

"Marling" (also "marlyng" and "marlyn") is also a type of twisted line or cord. The earliest attribution of "marlin-spike", "marline-spike", "marling-speek", is 1626.

Ain't words fun? Although I'm thoroughly dubious of your version (although it could turn out to be entirely true), it certainly made for entertaining latenight marlaceous* reading.

*Yes, it's actually a word.

Re: "Utter marl!", he retorted.

Todd Stock

>What, me have a little fun creating a seemingly plausible defense of Ernie's typo?

Never!

OK... maybe on a slow day.

Re: Mixing metaphors and pH balance *LINK*

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>It appears that the language has gotten confused over the centuries, probably because the medieval (and maybe even modern) farmers, or at least the literary types commenting on them, didn't really understand the difference between peat and marl. Most cultivated plants need a relatively neutral pH balance, neither too sour nor too sweet, to thrive. Either too acidic or too alkaline, and some of the required nutrients will not dissolve, or certain metalic elements will disolve in poisonous concentrations. Manuring (manually spreading) animal wastes and peat on the soil lowers the pH. To counteract this, marl, or calcium carbonate, was also manually spread on the soil to bring the pH back into balance. Perhaps the literati were averse to getting close enough to the soil or the chemistry to tell the difference.

At one time, I thought a marlin spike must have originally been busted off the nose of a beakfish :^) I noticed in Bob's article on a Work Knife Replacement that he called his marlin spike a fid. I thought a fid was typically made of wood, and used mostly for splicing natural fiber lines, while a marlin spike was steel, and used for splicing steel cable.

Words certainly can get in the way of communications.

My bad! My bad! Hoist by my own petard.

David Barnett - Venice, Florida

>Hahaha... I'd quickly read Ernie's post, seen his correctly typed "marking" knife in the first instance but entirely skipped the subsequent "marling". Then I read Gillespie's reference to "marling", completely missing the jest. Glancing back to Ernie's note, I saw only "marking" and carelessly concluded that this once Ernie had got it right and Richard had somehow misread it. Oh, how convoluted a course doth haste make. So I was totally stumped by your satire, Todd, yet no less entertained when so ably assisted by my own stupidity, which alone has sufficed to amuse me and others for countless hours. My apologies to all and my thanks to Ernie for being so good-natured. I must say, perhaps a "marling" knife would be just the thing to cut through the copious, well... "marl" I cavalierly dispense from time to time.

Because...

HC Sakman

>....it is Ellis! It is! ;-)

Chico...

Of fids and bodkins

David Barnett - Venice, Florida

>Although fids generally are wooden, they also occur scrimshanded from pan bone, considered of high quality for the purpose. I have a somewhat flattish cordwainer's fid of polished steel in an ivory haft, blunt for its purpose, but no less a wicked little bodkin.

Interesting about the pH of marl. I'd not thought of that, nor of possible differences between the red, grey, or other varieties. I do recall a botanist's log prescribed a fine marl of sphagnum rinsed in a "watery yet rich wanu* gruel" before transporting unfortunate orchidaceae to their suffocating European hothouses.

*guano

Re: Of fids

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>It sounds like fids would be a good use for some of the dogwood turning blanks I have seasoning in my shop, for the same reasons that dogwood is favored by weavers for shuttles. Now, all I have to do is find some specifications and dimensions, and I'm in business.

Re: Because....

Rob Lee

>....I heard you Chico..

I mean - Darin!

Cheers,

Rob

(If you want to help look... 25-30K sq feet...50-80 parking spaces, and $10-12 buck a sqft would be nice....)

Re: Of fids *LINK*

David Barnett - Venice, Florida

>Dogwood would make a lovely fid. Besides fids for rope splicing (see link), you could make basketweaver's fids. The fids used in cold glasswork are really used more for burnishing, more akin to bone folders. For that matter, a dogwood 'bone' folder (get it?) would actually be a useful tool. I have one made from box that gets lots of use. The ones with a radiused flat end and tapered curved end are the nicest, as I opine.


Fid-O