3 ms·

I am pretty sure that Mr. Crawford's words are an accurate reflection of his opinion. The two big points you are glossing over are equipment and labor costs. Ho

by dfc 12y ago

I am pretty sure that Mr. Crawford's words are an accurate reflection of his opinion. The two big points you are glossing over are equipment and labor costs. Hobbyists do not have planers, joiners, cabinet work sized table saws, a festool domino and workshop space. Most importantly labor cost is not zero. Quality craftsmanship takes time as well as an investment in education. How many hours have you spent honing your woodworking skills? As far as fingers go I really want a SawStop. If you compare the Workers Compensation tables to the cost of a sawstop it is a no brainer.

superuser2 12y ago
True, it takes a lot of money to buy tools. The difference between woodworking and other hobbies is that those tools last decades to lifetimes, and a shop can be built over similar timescales. My dad bought himself a table saw and used it to build a workbench, then a shelving unit. Huge table surface level with and pushed up against the table saw. Another workbench for the miter box saw. We get him pieces pretty much every Christmas and Father's Day - a hand plane, a new set of drillbits, a set of very high quality table saw blades, etc. (That was a fun one to get past the TSA.) He goes through periods of doing a big project for the house every couple of months. Each project needs a new tool, and requires some expense, but now he has that tool forever. He just goes one at a time. Often he'll just work on the shop itself. He rewired it himself and got a friendly electrician to sign off to appease the inspector. Replaced the dingy overhead lights with a powerful wash of fluorescents, etc. A little bit at a time, but over many, many years. When he gets a bug about wanting something, he trawls Craigslist. At one point he bought a really high-end Incra table saw fence from a cabinetmaker a couple of towns over who was upgrading. $1500+ value, spent around $250. It started to facilitate general homeowner repairs, and by the time he wanted to make make furniture, the incremental cost wasn't much. There were probably many thousands of dollars invested in the shop, but it never represented a significant financial hardship because the expenses were so spread out. Also, we've done a ton of work on the house and only ever hired electricians and plumbers. I'm pretty sure that whatever he sank into the shop was less than or close to what it would have cost to do those projects through a general contractor. He had pride in the thing. Probably more in the shop than anything he made in it. In the late 90s, he took carpentry classes at the local technical college. Now he watches YouTube.
- dfc 12y ago
  Your father sounds like my kind of person. I have a friend that always asks if I am looking for a drill press, drum sander, etc because he just saw a great deal on craigslist. Tell your Dad to check out askwoodman on youtube. He is my favorite youtuber by far.
VLM 12y ago
Equipment cost amortizes to basically zero. My dad's 60s drill press is still making holes a half century later. I have some of my grandfather's tools also. Its not like computer gaming where a $500 video card today is not even a decent paperweight in two years. It is true that modern Chinese junk is value engineered to fall apart quickly and profitably, but none the less I have a new-ish belt sander that refuses to break despite some pretty heavy use. As for space, all houses north of a certain latitude have basements and virtually all of them have some kind of shop area however humble it may be. Even my mother in law has a folding card table with a 5 gallon bucket of abused hand tools. The standard of living is lower in some areas, but alternatives may be possible. Even today, I'll do major sanding jobs outside in my back yard to keep the mess out of the house, and I always do finishing outdoors for obvious chemical reasons. Labor cost is less than zero in that I'm willing to spend money for recreation. Its a hobby, just like WoW or EVEonline or exotic cooking or ham radio or watching TV, its just that almost accidentally, some nice wooden projects escape the shop. That adds a grind game reward... if I had to burn absolutely everything produced in the fire pit as scrap, it wouldn't be as much fun. I have looked into the saw stop and it scares me because its an active safety crutch and expensive both capital and ongoing (internet gossip implies they supposedly fire randomly in use, not just when you touch them with a hand). I have multiple layers of relatively cheap passive safety measures which I couldn't afford if I spent the money on a single active sawstop. From a safety culture perspective reliance on one active gadget is very much like "Oh, no need to patch those servers, we have a magic firewall".
- jlewallen 12y ago
  Agree on the cost of equipment. It's especially evident in hand tool community where 150+ year old equipment is going strong after some minor TLC. I've recently gotten into woodworking as a hobby in a large way. Space is a luxury and if you're serious about woodworking you can find a way no matter what. I moved from a house with a three car garage completely devoted to woodworking into a downtown two bedroom apartment recently and went from a fairly complete power tool shop to a completely hand tool one that's behind my desk (I work from home) As far as saw stops firing randomly... I'm guessing it's got more to do with the moisture of the wood the user is using than a technical flaw. You can touch the wood to the blade prior to turning the saw on and there's an indicator that will tell you if the saw would trip. I do agree though on them not being a replacement for best practices. I would be surprised to see any kind of teaching institution w/o one though.

by dfc 12y ago

superuser2 12y ago

True, it takes a lot of money to buy tools. The difference between woodworking and other hobbies is that those tools last decades to lifetimes, and a shop can be built over similar timescales. My dad bought himself a table saw and used it to build a workbench, then a shelving unit. Huge table surface level with and pushed up against the table saw. Another workbench for the miter box saw. We get him pieces pretty much every Christmas and Father's Day - a hand plane, a new set of drillbits, a set of very high quality table saw blades, etc. (That was a fun one to get past the TSA.) He goes through periods of doing a big project for the house every couple of months. Each project needs a new tool, and requires some expense, but now he has that tool forever. He just goes one at a time. Often he'll just work on the shop itself. He rewired it himself and got a friendly electrician to sign off to appease the inspector. Replaced the dingy overhead lights with a powerful wash of fluorescents, etc. A little bit at a time, but over many, many years. When he gets a bug about wanting something, he trawls Craigslist. At one point he bought a really high-end Incra table saw fence from a cabinetmaker a couple of towns over who was upgrading. $1500+ value, spent around $250. It started to facilitate general homeowner repairs, and by the time he wanted to make make furniture, the incremental cost wasn't much. There were probably many thousands of dollars invested in the shop, but it never represented a significant financial hardship because the expenses were so spread out. Also, we've done a ton of work on the house and only ever hired electricians and plumbers. I'm pretty sure that whatever he sank into the shop was less than or close to what it would have cost to do those projects through a general contractor. He had pride in the thing. Probably more in the shop than anything he made in it. In the late 90s, he took carpentry classes at the local technical college. Now he watches YouTube.

dfc 12y ago
Your father sounds like my kind of person. I have a friend that always asks if I am looking for a drill press, drum sander, etc because he just saw a great deal on craigslist. Tell your Dad to check out askwoodman on youtube. He is my favorite youtuber by far.

VLM 12y ago

Equipment cost amortizes to basically zero. My dad's 60s drill press is still making holes a half century later. I have some of my grandfather's tools also. Its not like computer gaming where a $500 video card today is not even a decent paperweight in two years. It is true that modern Chinese junk is value engineered to fall apart quickly and profitably, but none the less I have a new-ish belt sander that refuses to break despite some pretty heavy use. As for space, all houses north of a certain latitude have basements and virtually all of them have some kind of shop area however humble it may be. Even my mother in law has a folding card table with a 5 gallon bucket of abused hand tools. The standard of living is lower in some areas, but alternatives may be possible. Even today, I'll do major sanding jobs outside in my back yard to keep the mess out of the house, and I always do finishing outdoors for obvious chemical reasons. Labor cost is less than zero in that I'm willing to spend money for recreation. Its a hobby, just like WoW or EVEonline or exotic cooking or ham radio or watching TV, its just that almost accidentally, some nice wooden projects escape the shop. That adds a grind game reward... if I had to burn absolutely everything produced in the fire pit as scrap, it wouldn't be as much fun. I have looked into the saw stop and it scares me because its an active safety crutch and expensive both capital and ongoing (internet gossip implies they supposedly fire randomly in use, not just when you touch them with a hand). I have multiple layers of relatively cheap passive safety measures which I couldn't afford if I spent the money on a single active sawstop. From a safety culture perspective reliance on one active gadget is very much like "Oh, no need to patch those servers, we have a magic firewall".

jlewallen 12y ago
Agree on the cost of equipment. It's especially evident in hand tool community where 150+ year old equipment is going strong after some minor TLC. I've recently gotten into woodworking as a hobby in a large way. Space is a luxury and if you're serious about woodworking you can find a way no matter what. I moved from a house with a three car garage completely devoted to woodworking into a downtown two bedroom apartment recently and went from a fairly complete power tool shop to a completely hand tool one that's behind my desk (I work from home) As far as saw stops firing randomly... I'm guessing it's got more to do with the moisture of the wood the user is using than a technical flaw. You can touch the wood to the blade prior to turning the saw on and there's an indicator that will tell you if the saw would trip. I do agree though on them not being a replacement for best practices. I would be surprised to see any kind of teaching institution w/o one though.