Traditional wooden furniture making. A large part of the appeal to me is that while power tools can make the work go faster, you can accomplish an immense amoun

Traditional wooden furniture making. A large part of the appeal to me is that while power tools can make the work go faster, you can accomplish an immense amount using only a relatively small set of hand tools and time. For example, I built a pole lathe[0] (almost) entirely by hand in September. I bought 4x4 posts at Home Depot, milled them square with bench planes, chopped the mortises by hand, and cut the tenons with a hand saw. To make the dead centers, I chucked a big lag screw in my drill press and ground the head into a point with an angle grinder. Now I'm (slowly) trying to teach myself the basics of how to turn.