I've been wondering

Where do your materials come from?

AZ in Colorado Springs

Everything can be done using hand tools, or as John describes it, using human power only (and maybe water power).

Cutting a t slot? There were what I'd think of as a specialized scratch stock used to create male & female threads for wooden screws. The same type of device could scratch out the t of a t slot. Wouldn't be quick, and it would require frequently resetting the cutter, but could be done.

Take a walk around colonial Williamsburg some time. They had to add a sawyers pit (which wasn't original) as lumber was brought from another location 15 or 20 miles away. So, to have the hand sawn lumber that's period correct, they had to establish their own source of supply. (I think I was told hand sawn lumber was still available somewhere else a long ways off, and it was too expensive for them.) They have sawyers, joiners, carpenters, cabinet makers, each interesting to visit.

There's a gun shop there CRCwith no electric milling machines. It's not fast, but they cut rifling into the barrels of their firearms with files attached to long wooden "screws."

There are a few guys around who rive their own stock (such as Peter Follansbee and maybe Adam Cherubini) for their projects, but I think most of us get lumber from vendors who derived their stock using modern sources. I think their projects (those who rive or mill their lumber) are "small" -- not much bigger than a breadbox. Probably not a bedroom set of furniture.

So, I think the answer is that you can build a jig or mechanism to carry out any cut or process you can do with power tools. But few people today actually do that. For the historical reenactment that goes on at places like colonial Williamsburg, the various steps along the way are done by many people.

Derek speaks of hybrid woodworking, combining hand tools and power tools. I think everyone who uses power tools is in that category. Who doesn't own a screwdriver and a sanding block? But how many hand tools purists use hand tools exclusively?

Small Projects

Warren in Lancaster, PA

You are not the first to suggest hand work was for small work. Bill Tindall suggested the same thing on this forum about a dozen years ago.

At the time I was working on a manteltree for a historic home. A manteltree is a big beam that goes over a walk-in fireplace. The piece I was working on was 21"x22"x14 feet, 540 board feet of wet white oak. It had to have a grand moulding cut out of the solid that was 15 inches high, 5 inches deep and 13'6'' long.

I got a chuckle trying to think how Bill would cut this beam on his little router table.

Pre-industrial power tools...

John in New Mexico

There's a word for them - apprentices! I recall reading that they did a great deal of the work now delegated to machinery as they learned their trade. I am not a scholar of these things however.

I agree that few if any people in the US are building large projects wholly by hand - amoires & other large furniture for example, a full room of paneling, full kitchens, etc. Time is the reason, because time is money. I don't doubt that there could be exceptions, people working in a very niche market for totally period reproduction furniture for example. The joy of the free market is that you can make a living doing stuff like that if you can find the customers who want what you provide. Hat's off to those who succeed at it!

But the lumber sourcing is an excellent point - one that we don't usually consider when discussing hand tool work and also one that is relevant to Eliot's exercise. You can do all the felling and sawing from tree to lumber with hand power, but its no where near as time efficient. It is not something one could do single handed either - pit sawing is a two man job.

Personally I would put water power in with electrical power rather than hand power. Just makes sense to me that the line falls on one side rather than the other. A history buff might call it the opposite way.

Re: Small Projects

AZ in Colorado Springs

I was not trying to convey that hand work "was" for small projects. The pyramids were built without electric or petroleum power (but that's not woodworking)! Everything was built with hand tools for millennia.

My point was that I don't think hand tool workers these days are building nearly as many large projects as smaller items.

There are always exceptions, of course.

It's not what can or can't ...

Bruce McCrory

... be done by machine or hand, but what I can justify or am able to do one way or the other. After all machines replaced hand work for efficiency and speed.

I can justify an electric drill, and driver, and power driver for screws, leaving a hand drill and brace for last resort because: I don't have the strength to use hand tool alternatives. I even screw timbers since nails rarely penetrate fully--for me now.

Methods and techniques of construction are always influenced by the tools available. For most people. I used to cut dovetails with hobby saws. I don't have commercial tools. I can't justify them. I look at a truck and see "dinosaur". 98-percent of them on the road are Jurassic relics. MY truck is a Prius, and; it used to be the backseat ski door on a Nissan Maxima.

That's my take on the subject.