Looking into the darkside

[Spectric]

Hi all

Well nearly all my tools have one thing in common and that is a power cable, but I keep seeing post refering to planes, block planes, scrubbing planes and planes so it does make you wonder why and curiousity gets the better eventually. So are they just interesting collectables from a bygone era when there was no electric lighting, do they have a place in modern woodworking or are they a tool only used by the very skilled sandal wearing traditional woodworker?

 

[Adam W.]

They have a place in modern woodworking to be sure.

Edit.

I'll add, portability, reduction of noise, no dust, exercise in an increasingly sedentry lifestyle and crucially for me, gaining a deeper understanding of wood as a material.

 

[Spectric]

Please elaborate, I am still on the learning curve and all ears, anything that may help can only be a positive.

 

[Adam W.]

It's been a long and convoluted journey for me, but I'll try and condense it.

I studied for an OND and HNC in building studies in the 80's and worked on large construction sites in Essex, but I didn't really fit in with that type of work. So I went to the west coast of the US

I started out working with wood in Oregon, on period timber houses, which I found fascinating for their craftsmanship and quality of materials, but it was all machine work and a rush to move onto the next job.

When I moved to Bergen in Norway in the 90's, I had to use a lot of hand tools, as I didn't have power tools at that time because money was tight. I had always been interested in architects like Lutyens and traditional English vernacular architecture and working on houses in Bergen really opened my eyes to quality materials such as old growth pine and historic brickwork. They had pine which was so hard and dense that paint wouldn't stick to it, but it still wouldn't decay. It was amazing stuff.

My uncle trained as a joiner in London, just after the war and when we moved to Somerset he came and helped on the 16th. century stone house we had bought. He was very old school and he spent the first 3 years of his apprenticeship sanding and finishing. He could finish like the devil, it was very impressive watching him work and I was hooked by the way he could plane to a finish without the need for sanding.

I also worked with a shipwright who had a passion for fixing up old elm barges and he also had a huge influence on the way that I worked. He used hand tools all the time, but funny enough he wouldn't let go of my electric planer which I had. He taught me about seasoning timber and I was entranced.

I then studied Historic Timber Building Conservation at the Weald and Downland museum in Sussex and started my own building conservation business using only traditional materials and techniques.

Fast forward to Denmark and this, which I bought as a basket case...

And here I am, planing by hand and selecting and converting timber for framing and lately, splitting for furniture. I'm still studying, now in London and it's old stuff and only hand tools.

I have become proficient with moulding planes and can make any profile of cornice or architrave at my bench by hand. The guys that teach at the college all work in conservation, but use power tools.

They call me Mr Old Fashioned and originally thought I was slow, but when I showed them the architrave I had made they were blown away by its size and complexity. One of them said that he would have to pay £3000 for a cutter to make it and wait three weeks before it would arrive if he wanted 3m for a job, but I could make that profile in a day and still get away with charging £3000 for the cutter.

And hand planing will teach you about wood grain faster than anything else.

As a re-payment in kind to those men who have taught me, I sit here willing to pass it all on to you free of charge.

 

[Popey]

I am a fairly new woodworker and I find that using handplanes is one of the most satisfying aspects of the craft. In my view, the most important aspect of hand tools is knowing how to sharpen. A keen edge makes all the difference. There's plenty of information out on the inter-web-net thing, but I think that if you want to use hand tools, it better to buy new or good secondhand tools.

 

[Jameshow]

I think what's great about hand woodworking us that with a few tools contained in a apprentice tool box are enough to make all manner of items.

Yet the number of tools, skills and knowledge of woodworking are enough too last a man a lifetime and employ the greatest of men.

Cheers James

 

[Jacob]

....do they have a place in modern woodworking ......

Entirely up to the modern woodworker to choose. Or the client if you are selling stuff. Or employer if you are working for somebody else.
Might as well ask if there is a role for traditional music, cookery, etc. It's all part of our culture and history; interesting stuff but you are under no obligation!
And of course there's no knowing when trad skills, back to basics, might suddenly become a priority.

 

[Adam W.]

I'll have to add.

Don't get put off by all the hokus pokus, it's all quite simple really.

 

[JobandKnock]

If you need to earn a living in the main part of the market for carpentry, joinery, interior fit-out, etc then the materials alone tend to dictate the use of power tools over hand tools nowadays, but so do the economics of the game. By that I mean that a carpenter or joiner from 100 years ago simply wouldn't be able to earn a living these days with his kit. He also wouldn't recognise much of the kit we do use, but the basic stuff like levels, squares, chisels, hammers, drill bits, etc they would recognise. They probably wouldn't understand the lack of hand planes these days; I'm considered old fashioned because I still carry a block plane, a jack plane and a shoulder rebate or bull nose plane with me all the time, but I'm young enough to recall the drubbing I got for turning up to a job with my own electric drill and an electric planer (we were installing doors on price). That job paid for my first plunge router
.

 

[Nigel Burden]

I've only been playing around with wood for about three years and only use hand tools. One reason for that is that my shed has no electricity, and it's generally quieter, although chopping out mortices with mallet and chisel is definitely not quiet. I prefer making tools, mainly wooden planes, rather than household objects.

Nigel.

 

[novocaine]

Even on site a block plane is a tool to have handy as a joiner. From knicking the aris of the edge of a door to quickly rounding over a window board having something that doesnt take a plug is a time saver. It also takes up nearly no room and can be left in your tote as you work round a property.

Beats having a router set upwith a round over bit and another with a bullnose.

 

[Doug B]

Hi all

Well nearly all my tools have one thing in common and that is a power cable,

& that cable is becoming old hat now, the only power tool in my van is a paddle mixer everything else is cordless, chop saw, track saw, router etc, & judging by the noises the paddle mixer is making these days it won’t be long before that gets changed to cordless

 

[Ozi]

I spent yesterday chopping out mortise joints, not to the standard of some on here but better and quicker than I could do a few months ago, I'm sure there are quicker ways of joining timber and if it was my living I'd need to use them but as a hobby it's very satisfying.

Some time ago I was watching a video of a man carving a large intricate panel sorry I don't remember his name, he was hand finishing but using power tools to quickly remove larger volumes and that to me seems the best approach make the best use of all the options available. Wish I'd kept a link to that video it was stunning work.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

One advantage to hand planes is their longevity. Once you've bought and set up a plane, that's pretty much it for life - no batteries to charge daily or to fail to hold charge, no brushes to wear out, no trailing cables to trip over or accidentally sever.

You don't need many to be versatile; a jack, a try and a smoother, a rebate plane, hand router and plough, maybe a block and a shoulder plane, few moulding planes if you want to do fancy work, and you're fixed for life to do pretty much anything in hardwoods and softwoods. They don't take up much space to store in a box or chest, and maintenance is just an occasional clean and oil, and regular sharpening. If you use a couple a lot, you might have to buy a new blade every decade or so - most will last for your lifetime and beyond.

There's a learning curve, but there's buckets of info about, becoming proficient with the techniques of using them efficiently is a matter of some research and some practice.

Downsides? They don't really get on with sheet goods, and high-volume repitition work is better done by machine methods.

I'll let the pro's discuss the ins and outs of making a living on the tools, but for the amateur doing home joinery and cabinet work mostly in 'real' wood, they have a lot going for them.

 

[Adam W.]

All of my framing and repair joints are scribed to fit, so need to be cut by hand including big tenons, lap dovetails and all manner of scarf joints. Framing mortices are dealt with by a chain morticer, however. Upside down mortices in an existing beam are the work of the high torque slow speed drill with a long handle. As it has no clutch and keeps on turning no matter what I make sure my thumbs are clear, as they'll get broken if it binds on something.

Milling framing beams and posts is done on a logosol chainsaw mill with a Stihl 880 as the saw unit (It's very noisy and is like starting a motocross bike with your hand and not your foot, ouch!).

For carving and historic finish work, it's by hand work throughout, including joinery and planing.

So I mix and match to save time on the really big stuff and to save wearing myself out.

 

[Garden Shed Projects]

Hand planes definitely have a place in modern woodworking.
I spent many years on site where production was priority and power tools were essential.
I have been off the tools for a few years and have recently started woodworking as a hobby and my planes are my favourite tools to use. I still use power for a lot of the work but find planing and chiselling by hand very rewarding.
I bought Stanley no6 off of eBay recently for £25 and after a bit of fettling it is my favourite tool in the garage.

 

[pe2dave]

Compare two days in the workshop. One with ear defenders on half / most of the day, dust extraction etc. One with peace and quiet
and more satisfaction (if it goes right).
Personally, the hand router sold me on hand tools. Sneaking that last thou off a dado, knowing it couldn't go wrong. Pwr router, one slip and pass me another piece of oak please.

 

[johnnyb]

practicality practicality practicality
are the watchwords.
100 years ago most woodworking was done by machine in the US and UK. 200 years ago most was hand done. with so many alternatives why restrict yourself to one path. making what I call traditional Windows using spindles tenoners etc is becoming old hat. they have been superceded with window tooling .trad doors are the same.cnc ditto I would even say joinery is a thing of the middle class. the money I've earned from normal houses wouldn't feed a church mouse tbh. I love to use hand tools and making big mouldings is a great example where its an improvement on a huge cutter on a spindle. but I think I would be a cripple if I had to do everything by sweat. seriously

 

[Spectric]

Well that has certainly opened up a whole new line of thought, but does look like they can still deliver something even in the age of power tools and produce items that are not clones, have found that with people using the same tools then the output tends to become more the same, ie power tools can restrict dimensions and the proportions of an item wheras handtools give total freedom if you have the skills and muscle to use them.

This topic made me think back to when I visited the Chatham historic dockyard and that is a place worth visiting to see traditional woodworking, you realise that our ships at trafalgar were built with a lot of sweat and hard graft!

 

[jcassidy]

For me personally the critical part is what Adam said about wearing yourself out. I'd love to cut all my sheet goods by hand with my lovely Spears & Jackson panel saw, but I'd be so knackered by the end... So out comes the circular saw and a straight edge.

I also don't see the point dulling my favorite saws cutting framing timbers for inbuilt closets and kitchen stuff. My sliding mitre saw does a great job. I do my rebates with a Stanley plane, but when I had to rebate several hundred boards for my shed cladding, out came the router and circular saw.

I also used a power plane on those boards, and properly dinged the blade with a hidden nail. €8 later on Amazon and I have a new cutter. Trying that with my vintage Stanley #4 and I'd be cursing up and down the garden, worrying about grinding a proper bevel and overheating the steel and all that. No thanks.

On the other hand, hand tools are much nicer to use in the workshop. Less noise and airborne dust, and I don't need the shop vac running. There's a certain pleasure to a well cut mitre or a properly sharp chisel.