Thread: What came first? The tools or the skill?

That's a good question. I don't think my skills are up to the standard of my tools yet, and I don't have the fanciest tools by any means. If I ever get to the stage where I feel my tools are limiting my results I'll upgrade them - but I think that could be a way off...

For me I think you have to built up the skills before the tools. One of the first thing that I made after leaving school was a shoe rack. I had the most simplest tools, hand drill, spade bit, glue, hand saw, a brush and some clear finish. It was functional and that was the main purpose of making it. Over the years I have made about half a dozen shoe racks, based on the same design. The tools have changed a little if I were to make one today, I will use a drill press, forstner bit and the Triton work center.

I will be a lot quicker making one now then I was with the first one and I put it down to experience in knowing the steps to making one.

If I was to make one with the tools that I had used in the pass knowing what I now know how would I go? I think I would be fine as I would incorporate the knowledge that I had acquired over time.

I'll offer two thoughts:

1. Indeed you can make intricate things with tools most of us wouldn't even bother to pick up if you saw it on a fleamarket table. I've watched carvers & cabinetmakers at work in Asia. Their tool kits looked pretty crude by any measure, but they managed to remove plenty of wood with them, & turn out objects of amazing quality, amazingly quickly. And they were working with woods like Rosewood, which isn't a bad wood to work, but not especially easy.

2. Most of us started out with little skill, modest tools, and very modest expectations. Among the first lessons I learnt was that I needed to acquire skill in fettling what few tools I did have. Comparing chisels or plane blades sharpened by me, with any done by my father was a bit disheartening, at first, but at least I had something to aim for. But as the years rolled by, I got a little better, and managed to make some stuff with very few tools that I can still live with.

All the time, my expectations of what is acceptable work has increased steadily, and my tool kit is no longer quite so modest (but certainly not lavish). I do have one or two shiny arisocrats, but the majority of my tools are either from humble stock, or made by me. They are all fettled as well as I'm currently capable of getting them (still plenty of room for improvement, I'm sure!). They all work better than when I first acquired them, maybe because they are more fit for purpose, but certainly because I'm a little better at using them. And it all took lots of time.....

For me the equation is: Good work = Perseverance squared + (Skill x 2) + (tools/2).

Cheers,

Whenever I get a hankering for a new wood working tool I remind myself of this photo.
The left hand side set is the set that belonged to the late James Krenov.
Apparently this is all you need to do good work.

Depends on the tool. You don't need a $100 mallet to belt a chisel, but you want a reasonable quality chisel so that the blade will hold an edge.

There is a lot of inferior stuff out there which would give disappointing results. Even the most skilful hands might have difficulty. In particular, blades need to be from decent steel so that you can hone a sharp edge and not have to re-sharpen it after every cut.

I find that with hand tools, mid-price range stuff or good old tools are fine. You don't need to buy Lie Nielsen or Bridge City. They cater to a specific market of people who have the money and want the best. I have a few Veritas tools, which I think represent good value for money. But most of my hand tools are either old things like Stanley planes, or new mid-priced like a set of Two Cherries chisels. I actually don't think the Two Cherries are that much better than the set of yellow handled Stanleys I have.

Where I find quality is really important is in machinery. Because I can't afford to spend thousands, I have some cheaper Chinese-made stuff. If it is difficult to set them up and keep them accurate, it affects your results. If a fence is slightly out, you can end up with imperfect adjacent faces. Things like that. It just means more work in fitting.

For example my jointer has a stop on the fence for 90 degrees. It does not matter how accurately I set it, I cannot rely on it to lock the fence at exactly 90 degrees. So I don't use it, which means I have to set it manually and check it every time I use it. If I forget, I can end up with an edge that is not perfectly perpendicular, and then that has all sorts of knock on effects later on.

I just noticed the name of the forum! I will wash my mouth out for using the 'M' word

There is an old saying that goes something like “A poor tradesman always blames his tools.” But if we turn this on its head then there is also some truth in the saying that “A poor tool sometimes blames the Tradesman”.
You see, I have read, even in this thread, the idea that at some point a person’s skill might reach a point where they outgrow the inadequacies of their tools. At that time they will need better quality equipment. In my view, the reverse is much more likely to be the case. In the hands of an experienced and expert craftsman, even poor tools may be able to produce good work, Their experience and skill, compensating for the inedequacies of the equipment. I, on the other hand, need all the assistance I can get. It is the novice that needs to best tools. Now there are often good reasons why young men, just starting out in the craft do not always have these quality tools. Lack of funds (which equals young children), lack of experience in knowing what to buy and where are often issues. Also one of the things you learn as you progress is to recognise the inadequacies of tools. Many people grow up with the idea that Stanley=quality and assume that the tool branded Stanley that they purchased from Bunnings is a first rate item. The novice slowly learns to distinguish between a good saw and a poor saw. The scope of their projects increases and so does the demand on their tools. Lastly, when a man (or woman) is in the initial stages of the diseaase they may not know if they will continue on or if making sawdust is to be just a passing phase. Thus they are cautious in their purchases.

I began cutting timber before the internet (there was such a time). In those days information about tools was not easy to find. You could go to a library or buy a magazine or as I did work with more skilled men and learn from them. But now we live in wood working heaven. Want to know something? Two clicks and twirl and you have it, video, text, pictures, blogs and forums. But in years gone by such information was hard to obtain. And until you have mastered some basic skills tuning up old tools is a bit of a black art. I have some good planes. One cost me a lot of money, the others I got from garage sales and Sunday markets. They work beatifully, but they took some time to get that way. The novice, starting out, will either not know that his tools are not working as they ought, having no previous standard with which to compare them or will not have the skill to prepapre them satisfactorily. Thanks to the net such information is nw much more freely obtainable. But until such time as the novice can tune his tools, he is going to struggle with inferior results.

But for all that, an ideally, a person starting out would to far better to purchase quality items from Veritas than stuff from the Mitre 10 bargain basement bin.

There is a further problem with poor tools. Poor tools encourage poor habits. I encountered this when I got my hands on my first decent rip saw. I thought their was something wrong with it. But what was was wrong was my technique. The poorly made equipment I had used had not taught me any proper style.

The question I asked was “What came first? The tool or the skill?” Having considered the question over the last few days I am still not sure, but I think that the question was wrongly put. It is rather like asking which half of the blades on a pair of scissors is the most important. You need both. Tools and skill and a complemantary set. A craftsman understands and uses his tools with skill and the tools respond to the skill to produce good work. The greater the level of skill that he possesses, the great will be the response from his tools. Some tradesmen will reach a level of skill that will compensate for inadequacies in the tools to an extent that will astound onlookers.

The key thing here is quality. I have a set of Veritas saws, rip, cross cut and two dovetail saws. They are not cheap but they are by no means the most expensive you can geet. But they work really well. Same with chisels. After much research I got a set of Narex bench chisels and some mortising chisels. Again not expensive but they hold an edge and cut really well. There are good tools about at reasonable prices, if you spend the time to look. Compared to when I was a younger man the range and value is much better.

Yes that is what I was trying to say. There is a minimum level (I believe) of quality below which even a skilled person will have trouble getting good results. Some of the cheap rubbish you find in the hardware stores these days is simply not fit for the job. I'm sure we all have examples. If you buy stuff that is of a reasonable quality, then you will have a much better chance of producing good results, even if you're new at it.

So I think that the skill comes in spite of the tools. I think that a skilled person might marginally improve their results, and probably increase their level of satisfaction by buying top shelf tools, but a beginner is not going to be able to 'buy their way' into becoming a better woodworker. There is no substitute for experience.

I liken it golfers. I know some who spend thousands buying new drivers and putters trying to 'fix' aspects of their game. They get frustrated when nothing happens, so they blame the stick and order a new one. It never works. What they really need to do is to spend time on the driving range or actually playing golf. A good driver may make many metres difference in the right hands, but if you don't know how to swing one, you'll probably shank it into the trees. A good golfer will hit a reasonable shot with a cheap club, but a poor golfer will not do a thousand dollar driver justice.

This is much akin to wood carving. Good to very good tools allow for your skills to grow.
The precision of adjustments, the quality of the tool steel, the manufactured shape of the tool body.
These things don't hinder what you attempt to do. Dang if it didn't work out just fine!!!!!

Many brands of wood carving tools, for all that they attempt to be, just don't hold an edge
for even 30 minutes (like the very best) and they are a bugger to hold carving sharp.

I will say that some tools, $50 spoke shaves, are crap when compared with $15 spokeshaves. After nearly 2km
in hardwood, Stanley are no better than fishing weights.

So, there's a little bit of a "crap-shoot element" in that you might well find some economical tools that are a real bargain for their performance. But, don't bet on it.

I guess another question would be whats your background?. I remember hanging around my fathers shed as a kid playing with his planers, chisels etc (and I have the scars to prove it) which maybe gave me some of the knowledge I have now. I will not say I am any sort of expert, but I do believe it did help.

I'll make a change to the equation: Good work = Perseverance squared + (Skill x 2) + (tools/2) + (tools fettled and maintained well) + appropriate materials.

Originally Posted by chook

The question I asked was “What came first? The tool or the skill?” Having considered the question over the last few days I am still not sure, but I think that the question was wrongly put. It is rather like asking which half of the blades on a pair of scissors is the most important. You need both. Tools and skill and a complemantary set. A craftsman understands and uses his tools with skill and the tools respond to the skill to produce good work. The greater the level of skill that he possesses, the great will be the response from his tools. Some tradesmen will reach a level of skill that will compensate for inadequacies in the tools to an extent that will astound onlookers.

The key thing here is quality. I have a set of Veritas saws, rip, cross cut and two dovetail saws. They are not cheap but they are by no means the most expensive you can geet. But they work really well. Same with chisels. After much research I got a set of Narex bench chisels and some mortising chisels. Again not expensive but they hold an edge and cut really well. There are good tools about at reasonable prices, if you spend the time to look. Compared to when I was a younger man the range and value is much better.

Not so long ago I read a piece by someone who had either attended or taught at the North Bennett Street School in Boston (look it up). What stuck in my mind was a comment about sharpening -- students who started with LN Chisels made with O1 steel left the school knowing how to use a chisel and how to sharpen, while those who used LN A2 chisels left not knowing how to sharpen because the A2 needed sharpening much less frequently than the O1.
Make of this what you will, but it does suggest that tool quality of itself is not a determinate -- user skill is equally important.

to my mind the answer to your question is that its a symbiotic relationship. As skills develop, knowledge of what needs to change to make the toll work at its best grows. Also as your skills and range of work grows you can appreciate how a #9 (for example) is a better shooting plane than a #5

Originally Posted by Clinton1

I'll make a change to the equation: Good work = Perseverance squared + (Skill x 2) + (tools/2) + (tools fettled and maintained well) + appropriate materials.

Fair enough Clinton, one could add all sorts of refinements, but I was just trying to emphasis that nothing comes without a good deal of effort, unless you are one of those fortunate (& rare!) folk who can do anything with a tool the instant you pick it up. I certainly remember struggling to do things I now do without thinking, like sawing precise, square cuts for tenons & dovetails. But it took me quite a few years to arrive at this happy state. There's no doubt my tools have improved quite a bit since I began, & not because they are the best money can buy (some are, as I said, pretty humble fare), but because I've learnt how to get more out of them.

Ian - I have to wonder if the person making the claim about A2 vs O1 wasn't exaggerating just a little, to make his point? A2 is not that much better at holding an edge that you wouldn't still get a good deal of sharpening practice over a course of a year or two! And because it is a bit more difficult, they should have gotten better at it. However, perhaps having less-keen tools was simply because, being more of a PITA to sharpen, they constantly used them past the 'best-by point, to avoid going to the stones as long as possible.

Cheers,

Yes give them a set of 'Medalist' yellow handles from the $2 bin at Bunnings and see how they get on.