At 10:15 PM 10/3/1997 -0500, Michael D. Sullivan wrote:
>On Fri, 03 Oct 1997 14:52:57 -0400, Patrick Leach wrote:
>
>>So, when did it dawn on you that you were given to fits of
>>handtool fundamentalism?
In graduate school in New Jersey about 14 years ago.
My father was a weekend woodworker who was an amatuer machinist on the
side. He designed and built a milling machine when I was a kid, as well as
made a lathe long before I was born. A machinist's approach extended to
woodworking - meaning that he did lots of things with a t*blesaw, RAS, and
so on.
I got a hammer and scewdriver by the time I was four, and designed a
rubberband gun at age six that got the other kids to tolerate me when I
made them rubberband guns of their own, using my screwdriver as a chisel to
mortice a slot for the trigger. But basically my dad was always so much
better than me at making things that I never thought of myself as a
woodworker or anything else. I did spend some time in highschool making
projects which looking back were pretty sophisticated and well-done. A
tone arm with bearings comes to mind (not to mention various pipes for
smoking dope in high school). But they never were as nice as the things my
dad could do.
Then I went to college and cludged together some futon frames, bookshelves,
etc. but the only way I knew how to build those were with tablesaw dados
and I had no saw. So that stuff was pretty abominable, though functional
as student furniture.
Then I went to college in New Jersey, half way between NYC and Philly. I
had my VW squareback and I used it to hit flea markets. At the same time I
decided to build a friend a dulcimer. Having few power tools I picked up
various things at the Lambertville flea-market and made it mostly by hand.
It turned out OK, though the going was rough at times (I used a sabre saw
to cut the headstock. The college bookstore had FWW and I started reading
it. I also started building a guitar. And I started buying handtools in
earnest. Planes, planes and planes, a nice vice, and so on. Price made
lots of difference. My guitar, a telecaster copy, required me to use a
spokeshave to make the neck, and it was a great success.
I still used power tools when I could. Never having had a sharp handsaw, I
always prefered sawing with a tablesaw or bandsaw. I also used a router
for various operations. And after a while I found the physics department
student shop where I used the drillpress. I ended up housesitting for the
guy who ran the place and used his basement shop to build a workbench that
is still just shy of completerly finished 13 years later. And while I used
power saws and even a jointer, I handplaned the top.
I acquired and rebuilt a tablesaw along the way, and used it for most
sawing. So at this point I was using roughly 50% power tools and 50%
handtools. And things stayed that way for the next ten or so years. Then
a couple of years back I started reading wreck.norm and Patrick was there
elaborating the virtues of handtools along with Vince and a few others
whose names I can't recall. I started looking harder again for planes and
using handtools a bit more. Since I'm a relatively resourceful scavanger I
found a good number. One of my best finds was a carpenter's toolbox
complete with Stanley 289, a set of forstner bits, and Irwin bits, #45,
#71, #6, #7, drawknives, spokeshaves, several Disston D12s and 112s, all
pre-1920, and more I'm forgetting offhand.
A real turning point came when I got some sharp handsaws. These were the
saws that came with the toolbox. I started using them more and more. That
was maybe two and a half years back. A little before the time this group
was born. An IT, and a nice miterbox also speeded up the process. I also
bought a house and built a kitchen addition. This required me to use a
power saw a lot, but lots of what I did was with handtools, saws, braces,
planes and of course a hammer. At this point I'd say I'm 80% handtools,
20% power tools, even on the house. When I can I use the handtools for the
lack of dust and noise. It is more relaxing. But I do still use the
electric implements of destruction for various purposes when it saves time
(I'm surprised at how often it doesn't), or when I don't have the handplane
I need to do the job.
So I guess the answer is somewhere in the last 15 years (partly thanks to
the person who started this thread).
Mark
Mark van Roojen P.O. Box 83836
Department of Philosophy Lincoln, NE 68501-3836
University of Nebraska (402) 438-3724 (h)
1010 Oldfather Hall (402) 472-2428 (w)
Lincoln, NE 68588-0321 (402) 472-0626 (fax)
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