Hand tools

In my last post I wrote about about the need to get rough cut lumber to a state called S4S, which essentially means straight, parallel, and square on all sides. No project will get very far without that happening first. But how do you get there? The two broad answers to this question are by hand, or by machine. This post is about hand tool woodworking.

I’m kind of a romantic. To me there are few things better than late afternoon summer sunlight hitting my bench while I flatten and joint a piece of wood with a sharp hand plane. There’s no dust forcing me to wear a mask. The only sound is blade on wood. The tight link between the wood, the plane, and my hand gives me instant feedback as to how things are going. By touch and sound, even before sight, I can tell if my attack relative to the grain is working, if the cup in the board is lessening, or if the blade is growing dull. This is where the smell of the wood, (good or bad), will most make itself known. (I’m leaving out the sweat and long breaks to catch my breath, but work with me here. I’m being romantic).

I love my hand tools. We think of machines in general as being faster and more precise than anything a person can do “by hand,” but the math isn’t that simple. I can correct a small flaw in a piece of wood with a block plane in a minute or two, even allowing for a quick honing of the blade, which is far less time than I might need to think about how to do a safe cut with a power tool. Precision? I can shave off 1/64th of an inch with a router plane far faster and more accurately than I can with a handheld electric router.

But yes, I do own that handheld electric router, and a band saw, and a table saw. Those guys will get their day in my next post. As much as I’d like to be a hand tool snob, in my shop what I strive for is being skilled with all my tools, and having the wisdom to know which one is the best choice for the job at hand. Sometimes that takes the form of a fancy modern marvel. At other times, I reach for a tool that hasn’t changed much in the last thousand years.