3 ms·

Maybe it wasn't basic.

• jimmaswell 7y 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 7y 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 7y 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 7y 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 7y 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 7y 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 7y 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.