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dylan
 Post subject: hand tool users unite!
PostPosted: Wed Jul 10, 2013 12:19 am 
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I'd like to learn how many luthiers out there use only hand tools from start to finish. By hand tools I generally mean tools that don't make use of electricity. Or steam.

I ask because I'm genuinely curious how many of you are out there. But I'd also appreciate hearing why you choose to work that way, what parts of the building process you find most frustrating or rewarding, and how you think the end product is affected by the method.

Lastly, I'd be particularly interested to hear from professional luthiers. How do you explain/market your method to your customers?

Thanks,

Dylan
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Michael.N.
PostPosted: Wed Jul 10, 2013 3:22 am 
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Occasionally I use a Bandsaw. Virtually exclusively for making inlays. The rest is all hand tools. If you choose your methods wisely it doesn't take that much longer than an equivalent user of power tools.
I think you might find that makers who are totally electron free a bit thin on the ground. Most of the makers that I know who consider themselves 'hand tool makers' do in fact use a bandsaw! Curious but true.
I don't 'market' the hand tool use. It doesn't make any difference to the sales anyway. People don't buy your Guitars just because it has been made electron free. Look at all the big name makers. Virtually every single one of them use thickness sanders, Bandsaws, table saws and routers. Hasn't done them a tiny bit of harm. If anything, it has done them some good! Actually the truth is that Players aren't all that interested in how a maker constructs. They just want a very good sounding, playable Guitar. That's it, nothing more nothing less. I use hand tools because I prefer the 'feel' of them and I don't miss the noise/dust of the power tools. I have a tiny workshop as well.
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B. Howard
PostPosted: Wed Jul 10, 2013 4:27 am 
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I use a lot of hand tools, far more than most. But i also use my power equipment quite a bit too. Its about using the right tool for the task at hand.

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weslewis
PostPosted: Wed Jul 10, 2013 7:20 am 
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Yea!!! what he said.... :? :? :? :? :? beehive

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Mike Baker
PostPosted: Wed Jul 10, 2013 7:52 am 
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Todd Stock wrote:
Unlike general woodworking, where there is a hard division division between Neanders and Normites which extends to the magazines they read and the fora on which they participate, nearly all luthiers I am familiar with tend to be a little more enlightened and a lot more pragmatic about using whatever tool is a) going to work, and b) available or at hand.

As to marketing, I have seen a very few luthiers use the 'hand made' appellation to explain away poor craftsmanship (versus a badge of excellence...and generating a locked thread or two in the process), which I find embarrassing...mostly on behalf of those builders. The other extreme was Bob Taylor's 'Robot' ads, which seemed to me to suggest that machines produce soulless, blister-pak'd instruments in 10-count cartons - although I doubt that's exactly where he was going with that ad campaign.

Neither approach seems to recognize that the most used machine in the shop is electrical to it's core, using low voltage signals to drive actuators and to provide feedback from the range of sensors (optical/acoustic/olfactory/pressure/proprioceptive and sometimes taste).

While I am sure the title of the post was meant in jest, I would hate to see luthiery go the way of general woodworking, with it's hand tool aficionados puttering around their candlelit shops in white vestments and offering dispensations for band saw use (it's almost a hand tool...), while making disparaging comments about their fellow craftsmen Normites spend 30 minutes creating a jig to do what can be done in a few seconds with a sharp block plane. We are as a community not well served by parsing goodness by how we get to our completed instruments, but rather by the artifact itself.

Pretty much +1 to all of that, especially the part about using your brain. I use a lot of hand tools and methods that are unique to the way I build with them. I use them for a couple of reasons. Firstly, cost. I can't afford some of the power tools yet. Also, I enjoy using them. Many of them I would choose over a power tool any day.
But you'd have to pry some power tools, like my router, from my "cold, dead hands".
One of the great things about building guitars is that each of us can choose individually the way we approach each step of the build to suit our needs and the results we want. I'm not saying the OP was saying this, but if the day ever comes that guitar builders focus more on the popularity of a tool or approach to building as opposed to the results, I'm not sure I'd want to be a part of that community.

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JSDenvir
PostPosted: Wed Jul 10, 2013 8:49 am 
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Todd Stock wrote:
Unlike general woodworking, where there is a hard division division between Neanders and Normites which extends to the magazines they read and the fora on which they participate, nearly all luthiers I am familiar with tend to be a little more enlightened and a lot more pragmatic about using whatever tool is a) going to work, and b) available or at hand.

As to marketing, I have seen a very few luthiers use the 'hand made' appellation to explain away poor craftsmanship (versus a badge of excellence...and generating a locked thread or two in the process), which I find embarrassing...mostly on behalf of those builders. The other extreme was Bob Taylor's 'Robot' ads, which seemed to me to suggest that machines produce soulless, blister-pak'd instruments in 10-count cartons - although I doubt that's exactly where he was going with that ad campaign.

Neither approach seems to recognize that the most used machine in the shop is electrical to it's core, using low voltage signals to drive actuators and to provide feedback from the range of sensors (optical/acoustic/olfactory/pressure/proprioceptive and sometimes taste).

While I am sure the title of the post was meant in jest, I would hate to see luthiery go the way of general woodworking, with it's hand tool aficionados puttering around their candlelit shops in white vestments and offering dispensations for band saw use (it's almost a hand tool...), while making disparaging comments about their fellow craftsmen Normites spend 30 minutes creating a jig to do what can be done in a few seconds with a sharp block plane. We are as a community not well served by parsing goodness by how we get to our completed instruments, but rather by the artifact itself.

Would someone who uses both hand and power tools be a Normaphrodite? :-)

Steve
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dylan
PostPosted: Wed Jul 10, 2013 10:13 am 
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Thanks for all the responses. I suppose I knew when I created the thread that most of the responses would be admonishments for the practice of sole hand tool use. And that's ok. It does seem to be a sensitive issue, though I don't see why it needs to be.

Michael, it's interesting to hear that you don't market your hand tool use to your customers. My father made his living as a furniture maker using only hand tools, and it was certainly an important selling point for his customers, though it was a niche market to be sure. Perhaps the guitar market is different.

Anyway, I have to go. It's time to don my vestments, and I haven't even lit all my shop candles yet.
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Stuart Gort
PostPosted: Wed Jul 10, 2013 11:12 am 
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I use technology to build guitars because I had it fairly well mastered before I built my first instrument. I don't care how the instrument is made. The craftsmanship is either in the instrument...or it's not. Guitars aren't much fun if they're not made well.

Personally, it's difficult to fully understand the value often placed on "hand made" instruments. It suggests an idealism that romanticizes the world that has gone before. But the word continues to turn and technology will not be uninvented. It will only proliferate. We can certainly learn from the past and there is no reason not to build a guitar exactly as you please...but to place TOO much of a premium on ANY technology can apply an element of mysticism to guitar building that I can do without..

So...I can imagine the rewarding feeling of a hand carved neck that turned out well...and then I wonder if that same feeling doesn't exist when I watch a well conceived plan executed on a cnc machine. When a neck comes off the machine I look it over with the same critical eye, the same love, and the same level of enthusiasm as any other craftsman.

I do enjoy this subject. There's a fascinating sociology attending the passage of time, the advance of technology, and resistance to change. People DO love security and predictability and to them...change is mostly a tyrant. :)

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Pmaj7
PostPosted: Wed Jul 10, 2013 11:53 am 
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Exercises in limited tooling could be fun. Like making a whole instrument with just A Swiss army knife. Or, assembling a machined guitar kit with only sharp edged stone tools and string.

I have a friend who built a whole guitar with only half of a knife while he was in a Vietnamese re-education camp. He even made the strings using old electrical wires.

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the Padma
PostPosted: Wed Jul 10, 2013 6:58 pm 
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What difference does it make...the ears don't know the difference.

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Nick Royle
PostPosted: Wed Jul 10, 2013 7:12 pm 
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The only power tool I've used for my first two builds has been a router but I plan to build a thickness sander before I start the third.

Quote:
Exercises in limited tooling could be fun. Like making a whole instrument with just A Swiss army knife. Or, assembling a machined guitar kit with only sharp edged stone tools and string.
I do sometimes imagine a "desert island guitar" scenario. If Crusoe were a guitar-maker! :)
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ernie
PostPosted: Wed Jul 10, 2013 7:31 pm 
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Back a while a go, a curmudgeon welsh chairmaker john brown wrote a long and detailed article in FWW about the glories and virtues of using hand tools, I think he had access to a bandsaw to cut up the bows of his chairs. He made quite a valiant argument in favour of hand tools and the lone craftsman working alone, and all that good stuff. I luv hand tools and have many of them , but after 2back surgeries and 1 hernia operation, I got a rid of all my log splitting tools, and chainsaw.and a bunch of other wood butcher tools. If you want to go the hand tool route no worries more power to ya .(pun intended) .I for one hug my huge thickness sander every day , it takes the drudgery out of thicknessing stock , even though I have a large arsenal of planes.
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Nick Royle
PostPosted: Wed Jul 10, 2013 7:42 pm 
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Quote:
I for one hug my huge thickness sander every day , it takes the drudgery out of thicknessing stock , even though I have a large arsenal of planes.
I can't wait till I can say the same, frankly! Got all the parts now, just need to put it together. Thicknessing stock has been the least enjoyable part of the process for me.
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jeff crisp
PostPosted: Wed Jul 10, 2013 8:10 pm 
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Whats all this talk of tools. Surely a good Swiss Army Knife is all one needs.
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jeff crisp
PostPosted: Wed Jul 10, 2013 8:38 pm 
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Todd Stock wrote:
The steel in a Swiss Army knife is made for corrosion resistance versus keeping an edge...the Boker whittler pattern has good steel and is affordable if you shop around...and it's Wayne's fav...


I stand corrected. Thanks Todd.
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WilliamS
PostPosted: Wed Jul 10, 2013 8:42 pm 
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I wonder if Wayne's getting any endorsement money from those guys yet. I think every time I've heard Boker in the last eight years it's been in the same sentence as Wayne Henderson.
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WilliamS
PostPosted: Wed Jul 10, 2013 10:37 pm 
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I wasn't trying to imply that they're not good knives, just an observation that Wayne and Boker get mentioned together a lot.
Agreed that the Queen knives are solid, too but definitely more pricey. I feel like you're paying a little more for fit and finish with those-don't know if the steel is any better (as opposed to Boker, that is).
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Goodin
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I'm trying to use hand tools more often for a few reasons...to keep the electric bill low, and keep the dust to a minimum in the shop. Also I like the quietness of working with hand tools and it's much more satisfying. That said though, I wouldn't give up my thickness sander or band saw for nothin'.
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cphanna
PostPosted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 9:14 am 
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I've always preferred hand tools for many tasks. I use power tools for accuracy (example: drill press) and for repeatability (example: template and router). Other than things like that, I'd rather make shavings than dust. Think of it as "hand fitting".
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dylan
PostPosted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 9:48 am 
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Well it looks like my original call to hear from hand tool luthiers has been pretty well lost. Maybe there just aren't that many out there. Or perhaps an online forum is the wrong place to go looking for fellow luddites. The debate between hand tool and machine tool enthusiasts is an old one, and I'm not sure I want to step too deep into that one.

There is one point I would like to take up though. A number of the posts here have made the general argument that what matters is the final product, not the method by which it is made. This seems wrong to me, or at least it oversimplifies a much more complex relationship between an artifact and its history. It seems to me that the value of a guitar, like any object, has a great deal to do with the stories we tell about it. And how a guitar is made is certainly a significant part of that story.
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Michael.N.
PostPosted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 10:48 am 
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Perhaps but I can't help feeling that you are looking at this from an over romanticised notion. I'm sorry to say (and repeat) but Players don't choose a Guitar on how or with what tools it has been made. They don't or at least very, very, few of them do. I should know, I've been making for near on 35 years and (Bandsaw the exception) use all hand tools. Let me tell you: I don't have a very long waiting list. That either means I'm a crap maker or people aren't that bothered. Maybe it's both!
If you really wish I can point you to makers who are power tooled up to the eyeball and who have a waiting list stretching years.
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jfmckenna
PostPosted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 11:27 am 
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I always thought that show with the dude that makes furniture with nothing but hand tools was pretty cool. I think it would be cool to make a guitar with no electricity as well strictly from a historic viewpoint. Cutting down the tree would be fun but then quarter sawing it and resawing the planks would be a terrible experience I'm sure.
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dylan
PostPosted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 11:39 am 
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Thanks for your responses Michael and Todd. I think you're right to say I heavily romanticize the process. I suppose I wouldn't be so puritanical about my hand tool use if I didn't. I love old things, and knowing how things were made centuries ago, though certainly not everyone shares that interest.

But I guess I hold out hope that a subset of guitar players do care about owning a guitar that feels personal and human in an age when we are so often alienated from the manufacturing process that brings our objects to us.

McKenna: I think you're referring to Roy Underhill's show on PBS, which is still running by the way. I made my workbench from a maple tree I cut down, split and sawed by hand. It was a rewarding and yes, exhausting experience.
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George L
PostPosted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 12:01 pm 
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This was an interesting thread.

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Last edited by George L on Thu Jul 11, 2013 6:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Tony_in_NYC
PostPosted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 12:41 pm 
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Todd Stock wrote:
As to marketing, I have seen a very few luthiers use the 'hand made' appellation to explain away poor craftsmanship (versus a badge of excellence...and generating a locked thread or two in the process)


Who you gonna call? Goat Busters!!
Image

Goat pics have been known to get a thread locked as well. Well...one specific goat pic anyway.

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