Had a chat with an old timer at the lumber yard last week and he said his father built kitchens with nothing but a hand saw and a block plane.

It got me thinking about whether all these new jigs and power tools are actually making us better cabinetmakers or just faster at making the same mistakes.

2 comments

2 Comments

the_sean13d ago

Wow, a hand saw AND a block plane? That's insane. I can barely build a decent drawer box without a tracksaw and a router sled these days. I mean, I get that people back then had mad skills, but doing all your joinery and face frames with just those two tools sounds like pure torture. I'd probably end up with a pile of firewood and a lot of swearing.

claire95812d ago

So you really think it would be torture, huh... Have you ever actually tried to sharpen a block plane blade by hand, or do you just buy replacement ones every time it gets dull? I've seen guys at the flea market with old stanley planes that look like junk, but they can take a shaving off a piece of pine so thin you can almost read through it. It's not about having mad skills, it's about learning the one tool you've got really well instead of having ten tools you barely know how to use. Would you rather spend an hour setting up a tracksaw or fifteen minutes learning to read the grain with a hand saw?