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  1. #16
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    Apr 2001
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    Perth
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    Hi Ian

    I think that we are talking at cross purposes. You use terms such as "trade schools". To whom are you referring to, that is, what day job will these individuals do? Fine furniture building? In a workshop or on site where one wants to reduce the number of tools carried? I am referring to those making furniture, in a workshop, and specifically doing so with hand tools almost exclusively. None of the professional furniture makers I know would use a #5, #5 1/2 or #6. The bench planes they use are a #7 (to tidy edges) and a #4 (to do a final smoothing). Coarse work is left to machines.

    I did made earlier reference to David Charlesworth's "glorifying" (that is not the best word for this - I have the greatest respect for David, with whom I converse every now-and-then) the #5 1/2 as a Super Smoother. But that is just about all he does with the plane - all his other coarse and medium work is done with a machine.

    And please understand, I did not state that the #5 could not be used as a smoother - just that it is not optimal as one (it is too long and will remove more surface than desired). A #6 would be even more the case ... unless you do as David Charlesworth does and plane near perfectly flat boards.

    We will have to agree to disagree. I have no problem with that - if we did not have different ideas and opinions then there would be no forum!

    Regards from Perth

    Derek
    Visit www.inthewoodshop.com for tutorials on constructing handtools, handtool reviews, and my trials and tribulations with furniture builds.

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  3. #17
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
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    Brisbane (western suburbs)
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    Quote Originally Posted by derekcohen View Post
    .... We will have to agree to disagree. I have no problem with that - if we did not have different ideas and opinions then there would be no forum!
    I agree to both, propositions, Derek.

    I guess the last couple of posts have made me realise another of the reasons I do things my own way - most of my stock is prepared by machine, too, so it's usually close to dead flat, (though not always defect-free!). In this scenario I prefer to use longer bed planes for removing any minor blemishes, as it keeps things flat more esily, and usually, there isn't a lot of material that has to be removed, so it's not a big deal.

    And yep, I'm sticking to my sissy woods for furniture, at least! A while ago, I had a rush of blood to the head & decided, just for fun, I was going to make a new bench, entirely of wood (i.e. all vise parts, all fixings), and entirely by hand, from rough slabs to the polished end-point. But after working with Luke on his new bench, I came to my senses & realised it wouldn't be fun, just a lot of hard yakka. So I'm still going to make the bench, but machinery is going to play a prominent part in the stock preparation process.......

    Cheers,
    IW

  4. #18
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    Apr 2001
    Location
    Perth
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    in the context of my time at TAFE
    Hi Ian

    I most definitely have come across hard-nosed in this thread. I apologise if this got up yours - and anyone elses - nose.

    The discussion has echoed in my head and, while it may be trivial for some, there are differences among us that say much about the training or experiences we have taken on board over years, and that there are fundamental differences in approach. What can we learn from this?

    I would love to hear more about your training at TAFE, and what this was intended to prepare you to do. I would also like to hear from others here who went through training or apprenticeship in furniture making, such as the course in Hobart.

    How would this training differ from the training 150 years ago? Would there be differences be in the way handplanes are used (I expect so)?

    Regards from Perth

    Derek
    Visit www.inthewoodshop.com for tutorials on constructing handtools, handtool reviews, and my trials and tribulations with furniture builds.

  5. #19
    Join Date
    May 2004
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    Sth. Island, Oz.
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    64
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    754

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    I taught (construction) at TAFE casually for a while. VET kids from surrounding high schools. Just the basics: the really important stuff like measuring, marking & tool skills.

    Frankly, today's kids think a plane is something you travel to Bali in. Despite my best efforts, unless you can plug a cord or battery into a tool, they wouldn't know what it's used for.
    Sycophant to nobody!

  6. #20
    Join Date
    Mar 2010
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    US
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    Quote Originally Posted by derekcohen View Post
    Hi Ian

    I most definitely have come across hard-nosed in this thread. I apologise if this got up yours - and anyone elses - nose.

    The discussion has echoed in my head and, while it may be trivial for some, there are differences among us that say much about the training or experiences we have taken on board over years, and that there are fundamental differences in approach. What can we learn from this?

    I would love to hear more about your training at TAFE, and what this was intended to prepare you to do. I would also like to hear from others here who went through training or apprenticeship in furniture making, such as the course in Hobart.

    How would this training differ from the training 150 years ago? Would there be differences be in the way handplanes are used (I expect so)?

    Regards from Perth

    Derek
    One thing I don't know anything about is how people are trained to use planes. How's that for a start?

    I think if anyone starts to use planes from rough board (with saw marks) to finished project, they're going to end up landing on what people were using 200 years ago or a little less, and maybe the one exception where that's not the case is the smoother (a stanley 4 is a work of art, often not thought of being such a thing because it's common and cheap, but it is a device if genius that a tiny sliver of users would know enough about to appreciate just how fine it is).

    When most of the work is done by machines, then long planes become smoothers and short planes sometimes even get discarded. I don't have a power jointer, so my setup looks more like 200 years ago than 50 years ago, and my choice of woods leans more like 200 years ago than 50 years ago (I wish it was closer to 200 years ago, but some things just aren't available).

    I've never watched anyone's published works on dimensioning a board, mostly because most of the tutorials are done by people who don't actually use hand planes to dimension wood. So I'll summarize my thoughts about this whole topic as this:

    * anyone who wants to learn to work from rough to finish will learn nothing from a professional who doesn't actually do it, and especially not an amateur
    * anyone who wants to just trim joints and remove planer chatter will not learn much from someone like me who tells them there's really only one way to go. They'll think the person who learns the first bullet point and gets very set in their ways about a certain routine is just either pig headed or inflexible.

    As a member of bullet point #1 (there's no great reason to learn dimensioning wood from anyone, you get there out of laziness - the easiest way to do it points back to the old ways), I think there's a lot of virtue in learning to sharpen quickly and setting up planes in their specifically defined roles.

    There is a handful of people in every bunch who would like to dimension by hand, but they're put off by the initial effort, and I think often misled by people who don't intend to mislead by too open "your mileage may vary" or "we can all be correct with different opinions" type stuff.

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