4 ms·

50k worth of machinery? Maybe if you're getting really fancy, but for some basic furniture you shouldn't need more tools than a handheld circular saw, hammer or

• Kluny 8y ago
  Maybe it wasn't basic.
  • jimmaswell 8y ago
    Maybe. I'm curious what was made here. People certainly didn't need all that machinery when they made their own furniture in the wild west.
    • msbarnett 8y ago
      Perhaps he was aiming for a level of quality slightly higher than "some wild west two-by-fours nailed together"? The second you start looking at making aesthetically pleasing furniture you're looking at doing proper joinery (tenons, dovetails and the like) not hammering nails in. Likely at the very least you'll want either a table saw, a router, and a number of jigs, or quite a few different specialized hand saws and some high-quality chisels. Likely you'll want to resaw boards to correct thickness as well, so figure a Bandsaw or for larger pieces, a planer.
      • jimmaswell 8y ago
        Sure, I'm just pointing out you don't need that much investment to make your own serviceable furniture, assuming you have the room. Personally I like the basic wood look on furniture.
        • bonesjpone 8y ago
          Japanese furniture and temples were all built using only joints and advanced wood working techniques. Minimal tools were needed, and if they were needed.. they were built by hand all the same.
          • munk-a 8y ago
            And given a few rocks of particular mineral compositions you can build yourself an iPhone, it doesn't mean it's an efficient way to do it - in the case of the flexible japanese joints it might be that it needs to be done by hand to ensure the proper give, but I'd imagine a few modern tools would make it much easier to do. Same as this general thread - access to good tools makes things cheaper and easier to do.
        • grimjack00 8y ago
          Assuming you have the room _and the time_. That's really what much of the woodworking machines give you; they get a lot of rough work out of the way quickly. If you like the rough look, you're practically done. If not, you've gotten to the point of the fine finishing faster.
    • harimau777 8y ago
      I think the difference may be that they had access to specialized hand tools which would not necessarily be readily available today. In addition, accounting for the cost of receiving the specialist education necessary to produce good results without modern tools would likely offset the equipment's cost.
• bradford 8y ago
  You're right, you can make basic furniture with those tools and lumber bought from a home improvement store, and the furniture will still be better than what you can get in many department stores. That said, I wanted something with mortise/tenon joinery, and for that I needed a woodshop. There's a big gap between the tools you note and a 'woodshop'. Particular tools: workbenches, tablesaw, bandsaw, jointer, thickness planer, drill press, and a dust collection system to keep everything clean and safe. Of course, you can sacrifice powertools for handtools and still have a woodshop, but tradeoffs are obviously present.