Thread: why?

Originally Posted by Tonyz

please I am curious as to why people do this fancy stuff on a scroll saw, when my laser cutter would do it in seconds.

Yes the laser does burn ends and they need to be cleaned.

If your making one offs for a friend then yes maybe its something you made, but if your looking for a marketable item then surely laser is the way to go.

Just interested in your thoughts....

Not everyone has a laser cuter or the knowledge to use one,
I also don’t like the burnt edge, tho I’m sure that can be sanded off.
Some people enjoy the journey not just the end result.

Cheers Matt

There's lots of woodie things I don't understand, scroll sawing and pen turning are just two.

But then again I aways keep in mind what Ivan the concretor said. Ivan laid the floor in my shed in two halves on two separate occasions about 12 months apart.

The first time he came over Ivan was laying the floor in the new part of the shed and needed a short piece of wood so we went into the old part of the shed and he looked around and asked me what I did in there. I showed him couple of hand made tools I'd made and he looked at me blankly and said, "why - haven't you heard of Bunnings?"

Hi,
For the same reason any one plays with any hand tool, when a machine and artificial intelligence could do abetter job, because they enjoy doing it.
It's even more fun using a hand held fret saw.
Regards

Why - because I have lots of time on my hands, I enjoy using the scroll saw, I have nowhere to put anything more substantial than a small scroll saw and what I do on the saw I do as a hobby not to make money.

Using the scroll saw is a lot like looking after my bonsai trees - very very relaxing

Fretsawing has been around for a couple of hundred years or so; and still has its adherents even after scrollsaws were invented in the 19th century. Treadle, then electrically powered scrollsaws became the “norm” but cost was the limiting factor. Jump ahead to the turn of this century and laser engraver/cutters are slowly being introduced into the small workshop; in only 20 years they have dropped in price to allow hobbyists to purchase them, mimicking the move from fretsaws to scrollsaws albeit in a much more condensed timeframe.

And yet despite the perceived superiority of both the scrollsaw and the laser cutter fretsaws are not only still being manufactured but developed; I refer of course to the engineering marvels that Kew Concepts manufacture. This is because people just like using hand tools.

I have a somewhat large collection of planes along with other hand and stationary power tools. If I was to sell the lot I think there’d be enough folding to build an electron eating workshop that could replicate everything I do; only faster and more accurately. This would also bore me to tears after a few days...

Originally Posted by Chief Tiff

I have a somewhat large collection of planes along with other hand and stationary power tools. If I was to sell the lot I think there’d be enough folding to build an electron eating workshop that could replicate everything I do; only faster and more accurately. This would also bore me to tears after a few days...

I understand where you are coming from Chief Tiff

I learned handtool woodworking with my grandfather as a teenager. I took up powertool woodworking when I decided to make my own furniture when I started a family. Good furniture was expensive and I could make a lot better than I could afford to buy. It was needs-driven.

Now, my woodworking is still needs-driven, but the needs are different. I am retired on a Veterans Affairs pension as a result of the "undesireable side effects" on the mind and body of a military career.

I have all the material things that I need to have. I will never be rich but I am not short of money either.

My current needs are to keep active, keep interested and to have a creative outlet and a sense of purpose and self-worth. I meet these needs now with an appropriate blend of handtool and machine woodworking with a healthy blend of metalworking and a smattering of other handcrafts, but mainly centred on woodworking.

I go out into the shed daily and keep active and creative. I have no shortage of projects to keep me interested. CNC mahine woodworking may look pretty and make cheap marketable products, but it will not fulfil any of the reasons I pursue my woodworking hobby. "Push the button and walk away" woodworking does not appeal.

If you have to ask you will never understand

Ok thanks all, never thought of it the way most of you discribed. appreciate your thoughts and no stabbing me gotta be happy with that

I have to agree with China even though mass production is possible with laser you can stack cut and do as many as you like by scroll saw with more satisfaction

‘Why’ is always a good question to ask. But don’t expect to be able to articulate easily a convincing case or a succinct one. I can understand but not fully, making by hand. I can understand but not fully, utilising the skill of machine use. I can understand but not fully, the way design is behind all making. I don’t understand how to resolve the paradoxes involved.

I like the quote attributed to Andy Warhol - “An artist is somebody who produces things that people don’t need to have, but he for some reason thinks they should have them.”

I like the Warhol quote.

I've three perspectives that guide me on this.


1 - I'm a HHUUGGEE IT fan.

I program in 6 languages, can physically repair absolutely any device, invent new ones and build scalable systems up the wazoo.... but it has no soul. I thought to get into woodworking, originally, to satisfy the underlying need to create and use my hands (look at the number of engineers and IT people that are woodworkers!).


2 - When I create, I like to think I make "one in a million, not a million of one".

I was a HHUUGGEE proponent of CNC, laser and additive processes (3D printing, SLA). It excited me, for the same reason that IT excited me, but I soon came to realise that owning the machine was a complete waste of time. There is always a better one, somewhere, and it was vastly better to simply come up with a design and "send it off". This also has no soul. Its like music, movies and games... its all digital, nothing to hold, no inherent ownership. Soulless.


3 - Art, I think, isn't the accuracy of the thing, but the infinite variability of creating.

CNC can make things of the hardest material perfectly (I like this dude!). It can make 1000 of them, all absolutely identical down to the micron.

3D print and SLA can make amazing models of the most intricate things.

Lasers can cut a pattern into 10mm plate steel as fast as lightning.

But they are all the same. Exactly the same. It isn't art. Its a product, manufactured, with the soul of a washing machine or refrigerator.

There is zero point to owning the machine, for once the design is done, it can be sent to a manufactory to be made.....

On sales price, it will simply boil down to who can make that thing cheaper, and that will never be "a dude with a printer".


Back to Warhol. Would one like to own a reproduction poster from Kmart printed in China as cheaply as possible, or an original hanging on the wall?

I think the answer is obvious.

Hence the fret/scroll saw.

I'm not a scroller, but as i mostly use hand tools for my woodwork projects this is similar to the power/ hand tool question.

For me, it's about the journey, not the destination. The joy (and frustration) of the build is why i do this hobby.

Both hand and power tool work requires skill, just different ones. The same would apply to cnc/laser vs scrolling.

I do agree with WP that making something unique, even if flawed, makes it special.

Regards,

Adam

Originally Posted by woodPixel

I like the Warhol quote.

I've three perspectives that guide me on this.


1 - I'm a HHUUGGEE IT fan.

I program in 6 languages, can physically repair absolutely any device, invent new ones and build scalable systems up the wazoo.... but it has no soul. I thought to get into woodworking, originally, to satisfy the underlying need to create and use my hands (look at the number of engineers and IT people that are woodworkers!).


2 - When I create, I like to think I make "one in a million, not a million of one".

I was a HHUUGGEE proponent of CNC, laser and additive processes (3D printing, SLA). It excited me, for the same reason that IT excited me, but I soon came to realise that owning the machine was a complete waste of time. There is always a better one, somewhere, and it was vastly better to simply come up with a design and "send it off". This also has no soul. Its like music, movies and games... its all digital, nothing to hold, no inherent ownership. Soulless.


3 - Art, I think, isn't the accuracy of the thing, but the infinite variability of creating.

CNC can make things of the hardest material perfectly (I like this dude!). It can make 1000 of them, all absolutely identical down to the micron.

3D print and SLA can make amazing models of the most intricate things.

Lasers can cut a pattern into 10mm plate steel as fast as lightning.

But they are all the same. Exactly the same. It isn't art. Its a product, manufactured, with the soul of a washing machine or refrigerator.

There is zero point to owning the machine, for once the design is done, it can be sent to a manufactory to be made.....

On sales price, it will simply boil down to who can make that thing cheaper, and that will never be "a dude with a printer".


Back to Warhol. Would one like to own a reproduction poster from Kmart printed in China as cheaply as possible, or an original hanging on the wall?

I think the answer is obvious.

Hence the fret/scroll saw.

This is a poetically beautiful response. Thanks for taking the time to compose your missive.

A "clever solution" to anything is still "clever" and can still be creative no matter how it's done.
So I seriously disagree that programming cannot be highly creative and that fancy machines cannot make really neat ,nice things even with a soul.

This 30m long all wooden bridge (including the Flower boxes)was made by a German CNC saw mill/joinery outfit operated by my Italian cousins in small village in Northern Italy.
It was made and assembled on the factory floor and then trucked to the location 15km away using a 10 wheeler carrying one end of the bridge and an 8 wheeled remotely controlled via wifi Jinker at the other end of the bridge. The move alone was a work of art as it had to pass through several very narrow village streets with cm to spare on either side of the streets.
It was then craned into place.

I'll defy anyone to say this (including the computer program that allows this to be done) is not a serious piece of craftsmanship with more than a hint of soul.

Bridge.jpgBridge2.jpgBridge3.jpgBridge4.jpgbridgedetail.jpgflowerBoxes.jpg

The main difference is that this (including the programming) took 3 blokes about a week compared to 30 blokes a year, if they were to do it by hand.

But it's not how big, or fast, or how many - its what you do with it that counts.

And what is really clever is the recycling system employed that generates hot water for 20 local factories.
More detail and lots more photos about this mazing automated mill here
Automated milling and joinery

BTW this business is not even my cousin's main job - he's a serious Alpine guide and his main hobby is winter mountain climbing.