Woodworking With Hand Tools: Tools, Techniques ... ((LINK))

Synopsis: If you care more about how a thing is made than how quickly you can make it; if you enjoy the feeling of getting the blood flowing through some good labor; if you enjoy knowing that you can tackle anything thrown your way with just a handful of tools, you might just be a hand-tool woodworker.

Woodworking with Hand Tools: Tools, Techniques ...

There's little more meaningful in life than working with your hands. After all, creating with our hands is something we've been doing for centuries. For woodworkers, using hand tools is a source of pleasure, putting the emphasis on the process of woodworking rather than on the result. Yet hand tools are also essential to the highest level of craftsmanship, bringing a refinement to work that machines alone cannot produce.

In Woodworking with Hand Tools, an invaluable reference from the editors of Fine Woodworking, expert craftsmen explain how they choose, sharpen, and use every kind of hand tool. Whether you are a newcomer to the world of hand tool woodworking or have been enjoying the craft for years, Woodworking with Hand Tools will help you improve your hand tool skills all while you enjoy the satisfying relationship between tool and wood.

Our woodworking classes teach students the fundamentals of joinery using hand tool techniques. We feel these techniques offer the greatest benefit to students because students learn to work by feel. Once a student has mastered hand tools, they can then decide whether or not to add power tools to the mix. Our classes cover topics such as:

For me, handwork has always been the best part of woodworking. And I do everything to maximize my time at the bench. When I make a chair, the whole process takes 16 to 18 hours. Only one of those hours is on machines. The rest is at the bench.

Great post!The only hand tool purists I know are felling/limbing/re-sawing by hand, hooking up the draught horses, working in a lean-to by oil lamp and open fire. After hunting for food, milking the cows and forging tools.This woodworking stuff IS hard on a body.

And even though I have many (many, many) miles less than you on my woodworking odometer, though three years your senior, I alas already know to my cost that hand tool work is not necessarily kind to ones body. About a year ago, a ten-day period of very intensive conversion by hand of rough lumber into S4S stock for the legs of my workbench left me with a low-level but chronic inflammation in the joints of both hands. A couple of different treatments has gotten it to an acceptable level, where I can still use my hands fully and freely, including for playing an instrument, but it certainly brought home to me the importance in taking care of my body if I want to be able to go on using it for as long as possible (and I sure do want that!). 041b061a72