What’s In your tool box?
By: Kelly Sandman
WBT Board Chair
Carpenter/Woodworker/Metal Roofer
Anyone can work with wood.
Anyone can learn.
Tools have become so specialized, but there
are so many creative ways to adapt tools for your specific project needs. Brian Lazarus of
Opus One, who generously donated his time, energy, lumber, and shop space to We Built This
for the Introduction to Joinery: Sliding Dovetail workshop in February, loves tools. He loves high
tech digital gadgets and tools that do one thing and do it flawlessly. His shop is full of wonders,
and many exquisite things are made there. One of the real beauties of hosting workshops there
is demonstrating to participants that they can show up at a professional woodworking studio
and be productive quickly.
It doesn’t take years of being at your grandmother’s elbow while she
made furniture to gain the skills needed to be a contributor at a shop like Brian’s.
And no
matter how high tech they become, tools will never eliminate the skill and knowledge of
woodworking principles: how wood moves and how to mitigate it over the years in made
pieces, knowing what steps are worth investing in early to minimize work later, and knowing
how to adjust when your process or project goes sideways, as it probably will at some point.
Can I do woodworking without all the tools in a modern woodworking shop?
Can I make beautiful stuff without a huge jointer, table saw, planer, and drum sander?
YES! Many craftspeople today are still making things with hand tools:
Elia Bizzarri in North Carolina makes gorgeous Windsor chairs and also teaches his craft, mostly using hand tools, to earn his living.
Angela and Kenneth Kortmeier of The Maine Coast Craft School near Bristol, Maine use mostly hand tools to make things, and teach others how to do the same, including making their own tools. At their school they teach carving, chair making, bucket making/coopering, timber framing, and all sorts of other magical things without the benefit of electricity.
The Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Rockport, Maine has classes where you can learn how to program a CNC router, and they’ll teach you how to safely and effectively use their shop tools including planers, jointers, table, saws, and they will also teach you how to plane a board using winding sticks and hand planes.
Some woodworkers will avoid using power tools completely. They like
the time it takes them to do things, and do them remarkably, by hand. It doesn’t take them a lot
longer to use their hand tools to plane boards, cut dovetails, and joint edges than it does for
folks accustomed to using powers tools. They love the quiet of their work, the larger wood
shavings (instead of the very fine wood dust that power tools create), and the process itself,
getting to know each piece of wood as they work it.
In The Anarchist’s Tool Chest by Jonathan Schwarz, Schwarz shares that about forty tools were used for joinery in the centuries prior to the industrial revolution. Things changed after that. Tools with singular purpose became commonplace and we started believing that we needed power and mechanized tools for every individual process. Now there are countless specialized tools.
The forty essential (and versatile) tools from before the industrial revolution included hand planes, marking and measuring tools, cutting tools, striking and fastening tools, saws, sharpening tools, appliances like bench hooks, saw benches, chisels, knives, vises, etc.
While it would be incredibly expensive to outfit a woodworking shop with all of the specialized equipment on the market, I want to remind you that one doesn’t need a huge industrialized space, gargantuan electrical service, or state of the art equipment to make things.
“Curiosity, creativity, ingenuity, and desire may be the most important things to have.”
Only have a circular saw? You can make gorgeous things. Only have a band saw? A drill
press?
Yes, you can make beautiful things.
There are many books out there about how to do
everything with a table saw, a drill press, a router table, and band saw. You could do many of
those things with hand saws and chisels too! Ask ten woodworkers what tool they couldn’t live
without and you’ll get eleven different answers. So look around, see what you have access to,
and then make your own adventure.
I reach for my trusty little block plane to shape spindles, straighten an edge, cope trim, chamfer flooring or a cutting board, and trim dovetails among other things. I also love my Japanese pull saws, both for cross cuts and ripping. They are so satisfying to use. I have a few other bigger hand planes that I use to make a straight edge before ripping boards to width. The shavings that they create are things of beauty in their own right. And they make fantastic fire starter for my wood stove.
An old friend of mine once told me that you don’t own your house, your house owns you.
That resonates with me. I feel this way about all of my possessions.
Another friend says that he doesn’t feel that he owns things, but that they are “in his care.”
What a nice way to think of it. I try to avoid accumulating things just to have them. I have been told by many people that I “need” this tool or a big truck, or a tool trailer, or a [fill in the blank]. I think, maybe it would be nice to have that thing, but where will I store it when I’m not using it? How will I pay for it? How will I maintain it? Do I want to have it in my care? Do I want to foster a relationship with it?
“If you are interested in getting into woodworking or building, keep it simple. You don’t need a lot of fancy things. Let your tools dictate what you make and how you make it. You can make so many things with just a few tools. You only need the gumption to get started.”
Resources for the intrepid wood worker:
Jonathan Schwarz, The Anarchist’s Tool Chest: Until the industrial revolution, joiners (folks who made mostly rectangular things out of wood like chests of drawers, boxes, cabinets, and houses) had about 40 tools that they carried around in a tool chest. These tools consisted of measuring tools, cutting tools, saws, sharpening tools, appliances, and striking and fastening tools. That’s it. They didn’t have warehouses full of power tools for every function of milling wood. Johnathan Schwarz lists all of these 40-ish tools, describes them and their function, and tells you what to look for if you are seeking to add them to your tool chest.
Morgan Grey, A History of Women in the Trades: A book about women in the trades from all around the world in different times. There’s proof of women plumbers in ancient Rome, metal workers in ancient Greece. In short, women have been doing everything for ever. “Women’s work” and “men’s work” depend more on the time and culture than any physiological of intrinsic reasons. Read about many of the ways that women have contributed to the trades in many cultures.
Peter Korn, A Woodworker’s Guide to Hand Tools: A detailed description of the hand tools most useful for woodworking, their functions, how to tune them up for top performance, and how to use them most efficiently.
