5 ms·

As it happens, I left software a year and a half ago to pursue and education (and hopefully soon a career) in woodworking. My feelings on this are mixed. Let's

As it happens, I left software a year and a half ago to pursue and education (and hopefully soon a career) in woodworking. My feelings on this are mixed. Let's be clear right off the bat: this is not a production machine, and probably won't get any significant traction in the professional market. I checked out a local architectural millwork shop last year that does high end doors and windows. Once their rough lumber is milled 4-square, everything, and I mean everything gets cut on their 5 axis CNC router. Which has a roughly 8' x 24' bed. Cabinet shops that make a lot of drawers but aren't invested in CNC get a lot of mileage out of router jigs that cut pretty much foolproof dovetails once they're set the first time. So that leaves the hobbyists and truly custom folks. The truly custom folks are probably already jigged up to cut their joinery with a router, a Festool Domino, or other dedicated machines (mortisers, tenoners, cope and stick set-ups for a router or shaper, etc). At the very high end, or for one-offs, hand-cut joinery is either expected by the client, or still competitive with building jigs to cut the joinery by machine. Which leaves the hobbyists. If you're just doing woodworking to build stuff, I guess I can see the point of this. It (presumably) gets results fast. But, when you get right down to it, money can't buy skill. And if you're pursuing woodworking as a semi-serious hobby, surely you'd like to actually learn something along the way? The secret to good dovetails isn't a different saw, or a different dovetail guide, or the perfect chisel, or some other doodad you buy. It's practice. Ditto every other joint that this machine can cut, with the exception of a box joint [0]. Maybe I'm grossly misunderstanding the point of a hobby for most people, but I pursue mine to get better at something I'm not already doing, not to be a drone feeding a machine I don't understand. Raney Nelson put it thusly: "If you cannot already do the machine’s job by hand, the machine will outwit you" [1]. I won't start my own shop once I finish school. Just like software, there's things you learn in school, and things you learn doing the trade for money. I'd like to learn the things you learn doing it for money in an established shop. Eventually, I would like to have my own shop. At that point, I think it's an inevitability that I'll need to take jobs that don't pay enough to do all hand work. And I'll own a Leigh [2] dovetail jig, like most everybody else. And I'll probably own a Festool Domino [3] for loose tenon joinery, because that's basically the direction mortise and tenon joinery is headed at the middle of the market on down [4]. And god-of-your-choice help me, if I end up taking more than a handful of cabinet jobs, I'll own a couple sets of cope and stick router bits and a panel-raising bit for the doors. But I don't see owning a MatchSticks machine. Existing tools are faster. So as near as I can tell, the target market is hobbyists who aren't actually that serious about learning their hobby? Which I concede is perilously close to a no-true-Scotsman fallacy. At the end of the day, if they're going to take this commercial, is their target addressable market big enough to cover their R&D costs and the cost of actually building a production run? As a courtesy to anybody who replies: I'm heading to sleep (East Coast), but I'll check back tomorrow. And if you're curious what I do: I'm on instagram [5] and I've uploaded some higher-res (but still crummy) pictures to Google Drive [6] [0] I don't think anybody who wasn't selling something would seriously suggest cutting a box joint with anything other than a box-joint set on a tablesaw. Yes, you could do it with a router and Leigh sells a jig to do so [1], but a tablesaw is better in basically every way. And technically, you could do it by hand, but there would be a lot more fitting than for an equivalent dovetail joint with no actual benefit. If you aren't making box joints by the thousands, they're basically made to be cut on a tablesaw. [1] http://www.daedtoolworks.com/lounge-against-the-machine-daedlab-commandments-1-and-2/ http://www.daedtoolworks.com/lounge-against-the-machine-daed... [2] https://www.leighjigs.com/ https://www.leighjigs.com/ [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYW_9MgSp6Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYW_9MgSp6Q [4] I'm curious how Leigh feels about this development. I'm willing to bet they aren't thrilled; they make mortise and tenon jigs too. [5] https://instagram.com/teaandsawdust https://instagram.com/teaandsawdust [6] https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1wQKGxaqWfRzNoc-vevIhd3BkgnHpkgbb https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1wQKGxaqWfRzNoc-vevIh...

mauvehaus 8y ago
TL; DR: As I was brushing my teeth, I realized this is basically the bread machine of woodworking tools. If you're making commercial quantities of bread, you need a bigger machine. If you're making bread for the joy of making bread, why use a machine at all?
- rout39574 8y ago
  Speaking to your analogy, rather than the original point: We use a bread machine because you can set it and forget it, and come back three hours later to dough that is ready to finish. I suppose the analogy in woodworking is someone who's good enough to make a dovetailed drawer, but not consistent enough to make 11 of them the same. :) Come to think of it, that's me too.
- kiallmacinnes 8y ago
  If you're making bread for the joy of making bread, you're likely not using a machine. However, if you're making bread because you want fresh bread daily when you wake up, or you want to taste new+unique recipes, etc, then a bread machine is likely exactly what you want. Going back to this CNC, maybe you want some unique furniture or shelves or whatever, maybe you're wanting these not for the joy of making them, but for the joy is using them, seeing them, etc. There's a market for this, it's just obviously not for you :)
- roel_v 8y ago
  The fun in making bread is not in the kneading. Kneading is brainless work. Bread enthousiast forums are rife with talk about bread machines - both kneading machines and full bread making machines. I understand the picture you're trying to paint, but like so many cute analogies, when the fundamental premises don't even hold, what's the point?
  - mauvehaus 8y ago
    Your point is fair; I don't actually make my own bread. I was just going off of the large number of people I know who have bought a bread machine, made a single-digit number of loaves of bread, lost interest, and never used it again. The point here being that if you aren't engaging with the hobby enough to really learn it, there's not really enough in it to hold your interest long term. I think the difference between "normal people" and bread enthusiasts is how they approach the bread machine. Bread enthusiasts, I assume, come at it from the angle of having engaged with the hobby and are looking to reduce some of the drudgery. "Normal people" come at from the angle of "sweet, I can make bread!", realize that if all you want is a loaf of bread, you're better off just buying one, and lose interest. If you're a bread enthusiast, can you shed some light on this?

mauvehaus 8y ago

TL; DR: As I was brushing my teeth, I realized this is basically the bread machine of woodworking tools. If you're making commercial quantities of bread, you need a bigger machine. If you're making bread for the joy of making bread, why use a machine at all?

rout39574 8y ago
Speaking to your analogy, rather than the original point: We use a bread machine because you can set it and forget it, and come back three hours later to dough that is ready to finish. I suppose the analogy in woodworking is someone who's good enough to make a dovetailed drawer, but not consistent enough to make 11 of them the same. :) Come to think of it, that's me too.
kiallmacinnes 8y ago
If you're making bread for the joy of making bread, you're likely not using a machine. However, if you're making bread because you want fresh bread daily when you wake up, or you want to taste new+unique recipes, etc, then a bread machine is likely exactly what you want. Going back to this CNC, maybe you want some unique furniture or shelves or whatever, maybe you're wanting these not for the joy of making them, but for the joy is using them, seeing them, etc. There's a market for this, it's just obviously not for you :)
roel_v 8y ago
The fun in making bread is not in the kneading. Kneading is brainless work. Bread enthousiast forums are rife with talk about bread machines - both kneading machines and full bread making machines. I understand the picture you're trying to paint, but like so many cute analogies, when the fundamental premises don't even hold, what's the point?
- mauvehaus 8y ago
  Your point is fair; I don't actually make my own bread. I was just going off of the large number of people I know who have bought a bread machine, made a single-digit number of loaves of bread, lost interest, and never used it again. The point here being that if you aren't engaging with the hobby enough to really learn it, there's not really enough in it to hold your interest long term. I think the difference between "normal people" and bread enthusiasts is how they approach the bread machine. Bread enthusiasts, I assume, come at it from the angle of having engaged with the hobby and are looking to reduce some of the drudgery. "Normal people" come at from the angle of "sweet, I can make bread!", realize that if all you want is a loaf of bread, you're better off just buying one, and lose interest. If you're a bread enthusiast, can you shed some light on this?