Hand Tools

Hand tools certainly have their place in the custom woodworking shop. Power tools accomplish many tasks quickly and efficiently and are a boon to the woodworker, resulting in savings of time as well as saving your body from physical degradation. I want to produce work that I am satisfied making and that people can afford to buy. Besides, running those hand tools is really hard, time consuming work. There are however, many situations where hand tools provide the best and most accurate result. 

I enjoy using hand planes, chisels and saws but if I was restricted to hand tools I wouldn’t be able to get much done and I would have to start working out to develop the muscles and stamina to spend  8 hours a day running a hand saw or plane. I think there is a balance to be struck between one extreme and the other. It makes sense to me to do as much of the work as possible with power tools and to use hand tools where they provide the best solution to a problem. 

In general this means that sizing of timber is done on the bandsaw, flattening the face and squaring the edge are done on the jointer, and final dimensioning is accomplished with the planer and/or table saw. There are times however, when it is easier to plane an edge by hand or to cut and plane with hand tools, mainly on real ornery or very small pieces. This gets the material to a workable state in an efficient manner.

From this point I decide what tool to use based on efficiency versus accuracy, quality and esthetics. I use power tools to cut joinery within the parameters of quality I am trying to achieve, and then use hand tools for final fitting of the joint. I usually make mortise and tenon joints  by machine, then use chisel and plane for final fitting.

For dovetails, I often cut the tails partially on the table saw if layout allows. I then use a chisel to remove the waste. After laying out the pins from the tail board, I use a hand saw to cut them out and chisel to remove the waste. This procedure produces a nice fitting joint for me .

I have found that other joints, like tapered sliding dovetails and finger joints are best done with machines, jigs, and as much accuracy as you can possibly manage. Other joinery methods which find a use in my shop from time to time include plate joinery, dowels and slip tenons. I try to find the most efficient method for each task that will accomplish the structural, esthetic and economic goals I have set for the piece. This results in a project that, to me, achieves the quality I want to produce without breaking the budget for a piece.