Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
I'll agree there's a good case to be made...
John in New Mexico
>just not a financial one, or at least not in 99% of the comercial situations. But of course, I'm probably defining things a bit differently to suit my position :)
I certainly wouldn't try to disuade any part-time woodworker from using hand tools for whatever they please. I wouldn't encourage someone to focus on hand tools though if they had a week to produce an armoire, or two days to make a hall table or side chair.
John
Re: $10 bills
Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX
>Both brain surgery and woodworking require a high degree of manual dexterity, don't know if they share brain requirements. I suspect they don't, since surgeons are concerned with putting things back the way they should be and woodworkers are concerned with building from scratch. I started woodworking at 11, well before medical school decisions, loved carving and refinishing, have always loved working with my hands.
I kind of agree about mortising, not tenoning though. I bought a huge foot powered Barnes mortiser (still haven't set it up yet, needs the larger shop), because it became obvious that doing craftsman style and shoji required a lot of very small mortises. The machine seemed to make 1/4" mortises something I could contemplate achieving. Using the hollow chisel motorized versions was too tedious, much like powered jointers and planers. Maybe if I were to get real professional, a high end shaper would be something to contemplate.
However, manual and power tenons require roughly the same amount of time, whether spent adjusting jigs or simply sawing. I've watched Norm do tenon jigs and nibble away the shoulders with table saw blades, ugh, boring, I don't enjoy adjusting table saw blades for height, so I mostly use the ts for carpentry only.
Pam
Re: I'll agree there's a good case to be made...
Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX
>Not sure I'd want a one week armoire, but we don't really disagree. My basic position is that American business substitutes machinery, or capital, for skilled labor. And I'm not at all sure that results in faster work in all cases. It does result in cheaper work, but shortcuts are normally required, say nailed butt joints instead of m&t. So yes, we get piles of stuff, but a lot of it is short lived.
Pam
In most cases I think you're right about....
John in New Mexico
>the substitution yeilding lower quality. There are definitely exceptions though, and though I tend to deplore the reduction in skilled labor, I don't think quality is always seriously affected. I built two armoires in the two years I worked for the shop I'm thinking of, and though I probably was closer to 50 hours on both (not including finishing, that was somebody else's problem), I could have hit 40 hours on the next one. All the joints were M-T except for splined miters and nailed miters on the molding. The guy who made most of the dining chairs averaged about 10 days on a set of six, with two of them armchairs. My only serious complaint with quality there was the sliding dovetails for drawers, and that wasn't major.
The economic reality of running a shop like that is that it needs to gross on the order of $5k per builder every two weeks or so. There's a lot of overhead, and there needs to be a cushion to get through dry spells and similar problems.
Reading your comment to Wilbur above about cutting tenons, I have to say thats the single slowest way to do it I've ever seen, and is indeed very tedious. Even a well equiped hobbyist shop can do much better than that, and someone with an excellent quality handsaw could probably compete for speed. Is Norm still cutting them this way? (haven't watched in years)
John
Re: It's official!
ThomD
>There are now more than 300 million americans, and in excess of 350 million ways of sharpening. It all starts to sound like a discusion of how people's handwritting varies from perosn to person.
Woodworkers and surgeons
wilbur
>The brain requirement issue might be a chicken and egg thing. Maybe whatever in our brains that makes us like working with our hands is the same factor that drives us towards a career path that allows us to work with our hands, which could be either woodworking or surgery.
Re: Woodworkers and surgeons
Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX
>Maybe, but since women really weren't allowed/encouraged to do either, I settled for software, where the only desirable dexterity is typing fast and accurately. While I enjoyed software development work a lot, I always hated the business politics and spent a lot of time trying to find something else to do for a living. Sure hope it's going better for young women today.
Pam
Re: Question for Warren re dados *LINK*
Wendell @ Murphy, TX
>Has anyone tried using a clamp-n-tool guide to guide a dado plane? I have a 48" long version that I used to use to guide a circular saw when cutting down plywood. The quick clamp mechanism makes it easy to move without leaving behind nail holes.
Wendell
Tru-Grip Clamp-N-Tool Guide
Re: Question for Warren re dados
mikew
>Hi Wendell,
I've used them. Work well if one increases the height. On mine [I have that brand and two others] I made an attachment to slide into the T slots. It was itself a T-shaped doohickey made from BB ply. If I hadn't given away the clamps and repurposed the add-on, I would take a picture, but...I did.
The increase in height is pretty necessary, at least for narrow dado planes like 1/4" to 1/2". Above that there is enough sole to probably keep the start of the dado true.
Take care, Mike
Re: It's official!
vlparisian - Houston
>Good thoughts.
Re: "It all starts to sound like a discusion of how people's handwritting varies from perosn to person."
My hand writing sucks. My lettering is somewhat better. My typing is slow and (sometimes) thoughtful. None of the above are improving as I age. However, my sharpening skills have improved enormously in the past few years of following this board.
Victor - in Beautiful Houston
Re: Woodworkers and surgeons
wilbur
>In 2006 the ratio of female to male medical school graduates was 49% to 51%. Female applicants to medical schools outnumbered male applicants for the first time in 2003. Some areas within medicine are still male dominated (surgery, for one), but I would venture to say that things overall have gotten better over time.