Thread: Going hand tools.

Originally Posted by IanW

David, I think we are getting into concepts for which most of us just don't have the technical background to fully understand. We all go by personal experiences, which even for prolific woodworkers is very limited given the number of wood species & the often huge variability within species. It would take someone with a thorough background in both materials science & woodworking to really get to the nitty-gritty of what makes one wood more workable than another.

I happen to know someone who has those qualifications, I must ask her opinion on what she could contribute on the subject. Me, I look at all this stuff and my eyes glaze over.

Originally Posted by IanW

... It would take someone with a thorough background in both materials science & woodworking to really get to the nitty-gritty of what makes one wood more workable than another. ...

Originally Posted by Chris Parks

I happen to know someone who has those qualifications, I must ask her opinion on what she could contribute on the subject. Me, I look at all this stuff and my eyes glaze over.

I am not even convinced that would be enough. The timbers vary so much. Just look at the variability in hardness of Tasmanian blue gum (E globulus) by its source:

• Old growth - Janka = 12 kN,
• Regrowth - Janka = 10.5 kN,
• Plantation - Janka = 6.5 - 7 kN.

These work like three entirely different species.

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

Yeh. We raised the drawbridge and wouldn't let them across Bass Strait, so where else could they go when they abandoned ship?

Dont recall anyone abandoning ship in NSW?

Originally Posted by Lappa

Dont recall anyone abandoning ship in NSW?

Statistics.jpg

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

I am not even convinced that would be enough. The timbers vary so much. Just look at the variability in hardness of Tasmanian blue gum (E globulus) by its source:

• Old growth - Janka = 12 kN,
• Regrowth - Janka = 10.5 kN,
• Plantation - Janka = 6.5 - 7 kN.

These work like three entirely different species.

I agree our timbers do vary considerably in hardness

My reading suggests most Eucalypts vary by about 10% on the same tree and a further 10% between trees (especially those growing in different areas) so something with a nominal dry Janka hardness of 10kN could in practice have a hardness between 8 and 12. Or more likely it will be 11 +1/-3

Usually the quoted hardness values are for clear grain mature timber, not near heart or sapwood, with no defects. However, if it's a young tree, or readings are made near sap or heart wood it will be softer, and if it's near a highly compressed section of trunk just under a large branch is can be harder. One difference I've noted is the hardness difference between fast growing urban Spotted Gums, regularly watered by sprinklers, versus those that have had to deal with regular long summers with no rain for months and a dropping water table.

My next door neighbour departed this world aged 91. He had been a timber getter all his life. Still cut and split his own fire wood with an axe and maul right up to the end. Raced axes until he was 85. I asked him what was his best memory over all those years? "Meeting me Misses and getting me first chain saw. Not necessarily in that order."
I agree with Derek.

I've just been reading the memories in FWW magazine of many well-known woodworkers in the USA eulogising the late Phil Lowe, who was highly revered both as a teacher and for his high technical expertise as a furniture maker. He was a winner of the 2005 Cartouche Award, the highest honour given by the American Period Furniture Makers. A comment caught my eye, as it falls in line with my view point that Phil "exemplified a North Bennett Street catch-phrase that embraced 'using hand tools in concert with machinery'". His work certainly did not lack in any way for using both.





Regards from Perth

Derek

Originally Posted by rustynail

...... I asked him what was his best memory over all those years? "Meeting me Misses and getting me first chain saw. Not necessarily in that order."......

All I can say is it mustn't have been a Danarm "blue streak", which was the first chainsaw I met. I think it got the "streak" part of its name from folks chucking them over cliffs into the sea! It was heavy, it was a bear to start on a cold drizzly morning (and difficult at any time), and compared with even a 30-40cc saw of today, utterly gutless. It was followed a few years later by a "Solo", also blue, but a very different beast under the paint. It usually started on the first or second pull, weighed about half as much & had 4 times the power. That's when I started to like chainsaws.

Those were the days when the local show still had races between a chainsaw & a crosscut. The rules stipulated the saw had to be started after the starter's gun was fired, which meant the crosscut boys were often enough finished before the hapless chainsaw bloke made his first puff of smoke (remember the days of 15 to 1 fuel mixes, cough, cough?). All hail to the blokes what invented electronic ignition & synthetic oils!

I've just about finished milling the trunks of the two largest dead radiatas in the back yard (11 of them croaked in the dry, last summer!). I'm not as young & fit as I used to be, but even in my salad days I could not imagine sawing 750mm wide planks with a frame or pit saw! And I certainly wouldn't have been able to do the job on my own.

The handwork of making furniture from prepared materials is still fun for me, but the heavy work that comes before that point definitely belong in the realm of powered tools, I say!

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

All I can say is it mustn't have been a Danarm "blue streak", which was the first chainsaw I met. I think it got the "streak" part of its name from folks chucking them over cliffs into the sea! It was heavy, it was a bear to start on a cold drizzly morning (and difficult at any time), and compared with even a 30-40cc saw of today, utterly gutless. .....

But you chose the Danarm "blue streak" over a two-man cross cut saw??? There is a moral there.

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

But you chose the Danarm "blue streak" over a two-man cross cut saw??? There is a moral there.

Actually Graeme, it didn't replace either of our 2 or 3 potato-powered saws. It was bought because my father & uncle had a contract to supply firewood for the butter factory in Millaa-Millaa. The wood they cut was exclusively she-oak, which even on the 'good country' was rarely more than 350mm dbh, it was all regrowth after the area had been cut over extensively for timber & mine props & goodness knows what else before we went on the farm (1949). The Danarm was to replace axes, though they still used their axes a lot (& were damn-near as fast as the chainsaw!).

[Edit: It makes me realise what a POS that saw must have been. I've got a 38cc "Farm Boss", which is by no means a large saw, and I reckon even at my age & state of decrepitude I could cut 2-3 times as much of that sort of wood in a day with it as anyone wielding an axe... ]

Unfortunately (or so I thought at the time ) the "black snakes" still came out often, for felling & docking large trees, partly because the Danarm blade was way too short, partly because of conservatism, & no doubt a bit of fear on the part of the old pot. He had a very bad accident when felling scrub in 1960, working beside a bloke using a chainsaw. He was deafened by the noise & didn't hear Alf call out to move away as he was about to complete the cut. The falling tree, flicked a dead branch off an adjoining tree & he copped it square on the noggin. No sissy hard-hats then, it was nip & tuck if he'd survive & was out of action for about 6 months. That little experience gave him a lifelong distrust of chainsaws, it was many a year before he'd use one for felling a decent-sized tree.

Yet he loved his freakin' Hagan saw - a machine that killed or maimed many a man before it was banned. The only mishap he had with his was when it backfired one morning as he was cranking it up, throwing the crank handle off & knocking out a front tooth....

Go figure...
Cheers,

Thanks, Ian; really interesting, but scary stuff.

I knew nothing about Hagen saws so I googled and found this thread from 2005.
Careful with that circular saw!

Now there's a good argument for going to hand tools if there ever was one. The size and strength of the operator probably made a significant difference to your chances of getting to the end of the day without a visit to 'emergency'. At my size, weight and strength I suspect I'd make sure the thing was inoperable whenever I was asked to use it.

Originally Posted by Bucky

I am sick and tired of the dust and noise of using machinery and power tools. Am I crazy considering selling all the dust/noise makers and just using hand tools.

I'm really late to this party, but here's my experience. I work out of a shop that is about 10ft x 20ft (3m x 6m). I started twenty years ago by trying to teach myself hand tools. However, there were many fewer resources to learn at that point and I couldn't find anyone locally who used them. I got frustrated and I filled my shop with machines: band saw, jointer, compound miter saw, planer, drill press, router, dust collector. I really enjoyed figuring out how to build things.

When my son came along, I realized I wanted him to be in the shop with me, but everything was too loud and dangerous to have a toddler nearby, so I started trying hand tools again. Once I finally learned how to sharpen, the entire hand tool world opened up to me. Suddenly I realized I had a whole new set of things to figure out, so I dove completely into hand tools. I unplugged my machines, pushed them all aside, I tried to be 100% hand tool. That experience was so delightful that I wrote a children's book about it.

The first tool I sold was the 12" compound miter saw. That was easy because it was never that accurate and I discovered that crosscutting is really not difficult by hand.

Second tool I got rid of was my cordless drill because I discovered I really enjoyed the egg beater drill and brace and bit. The brace and bit is awesome at driving screws as long as you have 2 hands (or 1 hand and a chest) available.

Third tool I sold was my 6" jointer. Over time I found that I really enjoyed using a hand plane. The size boards the jointer handled well could be flattened relatively easily by hand.

Each time I got rid of a tool, I marveled at how much floor space was not available in the shop.

Then my son, now a teenager, bought me a cordless drill. My old model had NiCad batteries and of course the new one was lithium ion, which are significantly better. Wow, I didn't really realize how much faster a power drill could be, especially since it frees one hand.

That got me thinking about how I could get rid of some of the grunt work while still saving floor space. For example, I realized that to cut a dovetail, I need a pretty accurate end of the board. I'm not as accurate as I'd like with a saw, so that meant a lot of time at a shooting board. I got a hand miter saw and that helped some, but I stored it under my workbench and had to get it out each time. Then I hit a staple and man there are a lot of teeth to sharpen. Anyway, I ended up buying a 10" compound miter saw along with a well-made folding stand. That saw sits under my workbench and takes up about the same space as the hand miter saw. Until you have prepared the end of a board by hand, you really don't know how good you have it when that spinning carbide blade comes down and gives you a perfectly smooth, accurate cut. But I treat that saw as a second-class citizen and only use it when the hand method is too time consuming.

Anyway, I have discovered that for better or worse, part of what I enjoy about woodworking is figuring out how to do things and buying tools to do them. The best part about switching to hand tools is that there are so many tools you get to buy/find. For some of them it is a real hunt. Then you have to sharpen them, which is another whole set of tools.

So my recommendation would be: 1) do what you enjoy 2) try unplugging the machines and moving them aside and try work by hand 3) find some friends locally who use hand tools because it really helps to share in person.

Mark

People have been doing woodworking for long enough that the "Good choices" are pretty well known. It wouldn't surprise me to find the same with Aussie woods. I've built stuff out of black acacia, eucalyptus, and sheoak, and I haven't had any issues or complaints, except the difficulty in getting more. Lyptus, in particular, was extremely easy to work. It visually had very rowey grain, but it planed and chiseled beautifully in either direction. I would compare it to soft maple.

I've got some blue gum, jarrah, wandoo, and native olive on the shelf, and that stuff feels like it will be a bit more challenging.

I have a feeling that the bigger concern really stems from woodworking with locally milled "Found wood." It may be full of drying defects, rather than commercially available timber. It may also be horribly mixed stuff. For example, everything orangey goes in the Eucalyptus pile, everything white goes in another pile, and so forth, regardless of what it actually is... The trouble there is that you often have no idea what you have until you try to work it... And you find they mixed Blue Gum with mountain ash...

I saw that with some Sheoak milled in South Florida (USA). They didn't really know anything about it, and didn't mill it properly. It was full of cracks and checks, making most of the boards useless. It was a shame, as it was beautiful stuff and worked easily.