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Handedness in Tool Use

Posts

Handedness in Tool Use

#1

Handedness in Tool Use

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>The digression in the recent thread about LV's new plow plane, combined with cutting and fitting the valance over the sink in the kitchen today, got me thinking about handedness in tool use. I can use most (non-handed) planes fairly equally well right or left handed, can pare with a chisel ambidextrously; can do only light and imprecise hammering with my off hand, and have no endurance with that hand; and can't saw right handed worth a tinker's dam. When I use a miter box for a cut in which the wood is primarily to the left of the saw, I wind up with insane contortions to hold the wood with my right hand and saw with my left. It's interesting how much fine motor skill is involved in hammering and sawing - we see these as coarse tasks, but they in fact require quite a bit of skill.

(digression of my own: I'm agnostic about whether there's a heaven, but, if there is, there's a special part of it reserved for people who developed tools like the Langdon miter box - SUCH a tool. With careful layout, I cut the valance and slipped it in, no planing at all).

Re: Handedness in Tool Use

#2

Jim in Burlington Ont.

I find power tools scarier

Jim in Burlington On

>I can nail and saw with both hands. Although right handed, my left hand is a fair bit stronger. My left eye is the only good eye I have. I find there's quite a bit of compensating to be done just to get a good view of what I'm working on. Yet I'd never use a skillsaw with my left hand. People that have strokes or accident's manage to train what they have to get work done. I'm sure it has more to do with the way your brain is wired over physical disfunction.

Re: Handedness in Tool Use

#3

Ambidextrous planes

Angus Barclay, in New Zealand

>The digression in the recent thread about LV's new plow plane also got me thinking about handedness in tools, but my thoughts were that LV had made an elementary (and uncharacteristic) design error by not making their new plow ambidextrous.

It isn't really that difficult to make any plow or combination plane work for right-handers and the south-paw crowd - especially if the fence is mounted on rods that slide through the body of the plane.

My ugly but very functional modern Stanley comination plane (a 13-050, shown in photos below) and #43 clone are fully ambidextrous simply by swapping the fence to the other side. Even the #78 can be used left-handed, albeit without the nicker or depth stop.

regards

Angus Barclay

Re: Handedness in Tool Use

#4

Right-handed combination plane 

Angus Barclay, in New Zealand

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Re: Handedness in Tool Use

#5

Left-handed combination plane 

Angus Barclay, in New Zealand

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Re: Handedness in Tool Use

#6

Re: Ambidextrous planes

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Even more important (hey, a left hander can always pull a right hander in a pinch) is the ability to plane with the grain. Using a handed plane means that about half the time you're planing against the grain, which may or may not be OK for hidden grooves, dados, and rebates; but it's definitely harder work.

Pam

Re: Handedness in Tool Use

#7

Re: Handedness in Tool Use

Moses Yoder in White Pigeon, MI

>I think a large portion of handedness as we are calling it is practice. I used the #358 stanley miter box yesterday to cut some frame parts and although it felt strange to make the left miter I simply held the wood with my right hand and sawed with my left.

My father was religiously opposed to left handedness. It was like he figured if a person was left handed they must be homosexual. He would spank my brother for holding a garden hoe in a manner that he thought was left handed. I of course took my brother's experience to heart and decided to hold the hoe right ;) So of course my left hand is totally inept. I couldn't hammer a nail in left handed to save my life.

Re: Handedness in Tool Use

#8

Re: Mouldings

paul womack

>Only planes with straight blades are (even potentially) reversible; a moulding plane HAS to be a "one-way" beast.

BugBear

Re: Handedness in Tool Use

#9

Re: Mouldings

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Big difference between reversible and handedness. Of course it makes no sense for making a molding plane reversible; but it does make a lot of sense to be able to plane with the grain.

Pam

Re: Handedness in Tool Use

#10

Re: Mouldings

paul womack

>Of course it makes no sense for making a molding plane reversible; but it does make a lot of sense to be able to plane with the grain.

Indeed. But a moulding plane CAN'T always plane with the grain (sensible or not), since it is not, and cannot be, reversible.

As someone else pointed out, thoughtful stock selection becomes part of the task.

BugBear

Re: Handedness in Tool Use

#11

Re: Handedness in Tool Use

Bob Lang

>My grandfather was ambidextrous-he said it came from when he was an apprentice in the tool and die trade. We was 12 or 13 and had never really worked with tools and they had him busting things apart with a hammer and a cold chisel. He was so bad at it that he hit his chisel hand every 3rd or 4th whack. When one hand couldn't hold the chisel anymore he would switch to keep out of trouble for slacking off.

When I started to learn woodworking, I made a conscious effort to try new tools and techniques with both hands. I'm right-handed, but figured since I didn't know how to do it with my dominant hand either, it wouldn't be so hard. It worked pretty well for me, most things I can do right or left handed. It's a lot easier to switch hands than move the work or my whole body. The exception is driving nails. I can almost do it right-handed, but wouldn't attempt it with my left.

Bob Lang

Re: Handedness in Tool Use

#12

Re: Handedness in Tool Use

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Yeah, when I was a kid, about 4, my cousin broke her arm and had to miss school. This was impressive, I never wanted to be in a position to miss school or not be able to perform; so I taught myself to deal cards (canasta was a big summertime activity) left handed. To this day I can't deal right handed and I do lots of woodworking and other tasks with either hand. However, according to a doctor friend of a few years ago, that doesn't make me ambidextrous, it makes me non-right handed.

Pam

Re: Handedness in Tool Use

#13

Re: Handedness in Tool Use

ThomD

>One of the first hobbies I got deeply into was fly tying. I did some production tying and it was suggested that doing stuff with either hand would speed things up. I have pretty much carried that through in all the things I do. But the idea isn't necesarilly to do the same thing with either hand, just to do stuff as efficiently as possible. Typing with two hands is another example. I would have thought that an ambidextrous person had not have a predisposition to either hand. Rather than jsut having well trained hands, as in driving, shooting, or golf.

Re: Handedness in Tool Use

#14

Re: Handedness in Tool Use

paul womack

>There are many degrees of "being handed", some of which have names.

BugBear

Re: Handedness in Tool Use

#15

Re: Handedness in Tool Use

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>My understanding of ambidextrous is it's the ability to do any task with either hand as easily as with the other hand without training. But this opinion is dated, it's about 12 years old.

Pam

Re: Handedness in Tool Use

#16

Cool, but I only know three. :)

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

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Re: Handedness in Tool Use

#17

Re: Handedness in Tool Use

Stephen Shepherd in the State of Deseret

>I like some of the others use both hands except for hammers and mallets, got to use my right hand for those.

I have two left handed workbenches in my shop (I did not build either one) and they are very ackward to use. I am getting permission to sell them and replace them with benches that are more right handed or actually non handed.

Stephen

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