Happy New Year! Welcome to the first Modern Woodshop Podcast episode of 2009! This week I give you a brief synopsis of my hectic holiday season (there were these three annoying ghosts that wouldn’t let me get any sleep on Christmas Eve), I talk a bit about woodworking resolutions for the new year, and I tell you all about “The Pendulum.”
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Great show Dave. You got me thinking here. Damn you.
I definitely think you are right about most things being cyclical. And we are clearly moving back toward heavy hand tool use. But I think it might be too soon to call it a cycle. It seems that we started with hand tools, simply because that’s all we had. Then, motorized technology came along and quickly built momentum. And now, we are seeing the resurgence of hand tools. So I think a second possibility here is a happy medium. Maybe the pendulum will just poop out and stay in the middle? lol
For me personally, I have discovered a lot of uses for handtools in my shop. And these are things that actually speed up the work and increase the quality. So they are now permanent parts of my workflow. And I don’t see me abandoning them any time soon because that just wouldn’t make sense. I guess if the majority of woodworkers are swearing off their power tools, in favor of a complete hand tool workshops, we may indeed see a strong push in the other direction in the near future.
Anyway, great topic as always.
Dave………..you are late to the party, the woodworking pendulum you mention is doing a loop-da-loop. Just this past week, of course justified by the user, I’ve seen silly or worse yet ridiculous uses of both a handtool and a machine. Shook my head, questioned where the integrity of the craft is headed and moved on.
You’ve left two issues in your pendulum swing off the table, that dictate tool usage, no matter what “the media says”. One is materials used, the other is woodworking experience. The individuals reacting to” the media” are those woodworkers just starting or with limited experience.
Those individuals who add a productivity coefficient to their hobby will work in a blended fashion. I’ve said on numerous occassions that once an individual attempts to grow his or her woodworking skills and has the experience to envision a higher level of styling to their woodworking, he or she will need specific hand tools, but may not necessarily use them as they were intended.
No matter what level woodworker or what area you enter in woodworking, handtools are part of the workflow from day 1.
You’re late Dave……..you should have already selected your swing point.
If I have a woodworking resolution it is this: every time I finish turn a bowl (which probably won’t as often as I would like) I will rough turn at least one or two bowls.
Jason
I think there’s another pendulum out there that is still in mid-swing, and that is the price that people will pay for tools. Right now it seems that the pendulum is way out there in premium land. If you can afford top-of-the-line, you are an idiot if you don’t buy it. Festool and Lie-Nielsen are the main corporate culprits, but in the hand tools market there are plenty of individuals and mom-and-pop outfits who are making handsaws that cost more than a table saw. And look at the prices of Japanese hand tools!
But if the economy truly tanks like it looks like it will, expect more competition for old Stanleys at the yard sales, and with it, another pendulum swinging towards rehabbing old tools.
I agree completely with your resolution to enjoy shop time. Along those lines, I have been improving my shop and my goal for 2009 is to complete the improvements needed to let me build, to build, and to use a Roubo-style workbench.
I also agree that often we hobbyists can do things just as quickly with hand tools as with power tools. And I know that I enjoy working with hand tools *much* more than power tools. But as you pointed out, I’m not going to give up a table saw/jointer/planer for making lots of identical cuts and dimensioning stock. I expect to be a hybrid hobbyist forever, unless the price of electricity goes through the roof
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With regard to hand tools, I think it’s not just that the pendulum is accelerating, it’s that quality hand tools are much, *much* harder to mass-produce. As a result, the hand tool side of the pendulum is shorter than the power tool side.
I also agree with Eric’s comment, when he pointed out the insane prices for boutique (insanely high quality) hand tools. That can’t last for long in the world economy that is currently unfolding.
Dave – I listen to woodworking podcasts when I travel (makes the flights go faster), so I fall behind a bit.
I’m not sure I completely agree with your theory on hand-tools vs. power tools, except that I do agree the media is in love with the hand tool thing right now. But the power tool manufacturers continue to come up with nifty innovations as well as screwball stuff, so I think they’re still pretty healthy.
My resolution? Clean up the firetrap… urr, that is the shop, and try to keep it that way.
I would like to point out that pneumatic tools do have a motor. It is the compressor. If you use a pneumatic sander a bunch the compressor will wear out just like the motor in a portable tool. It will wear more slowly than a portable tool because lightness is not a consideration in its construction.
I have a Fein pneumatic detail sander. It works like a whiz, far faster than my electric detail sander. That is because it is driven by a fifteen hundred watt compressor motor, not the dinky one hundred fifty watt motor in the electric detail sander.
The pendulum of hand versus power tools may be swinging, but the economy, not the media will control its pace over the next few years.