Popular Woodworking 2000-01 № 112, страница 28

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and 12" disc sander, and even a peculiar little 6" thickness planer with no feed rollers. Stashed on shelves and in cupboards around the shop were an equal complement of portable electric tools. Dad's hand tools gathered dust on the pegboard above the workbench. I don't think I ever saw him use a bench plane.

Machine Age

If home workshops in the first half of the century were the province of hand tools, those of the second half belonged to the machine age. Woodworking machines had the same attraction to homeowners as to industry — they reduced the level of skill and the time required to build things. It can take weeks to learn to flatten a board and square its edges with a hand plane. The same tasks can be mastered on a jointer in about an hour. And in that hour you can flatten and edge-joint all the material for a chest of drawers; the work of a day or two for a skilled hand craftsman. As the electricity-supply grid spread across the country and electric motors became small and cheap, woodworking machines began to appear in home workshops.

The home-shop opportunities

that were evident to Stanley for Early R. L Carter Co. router (courtesy of the New Britain Industrial Museum).

The top-of-the-line Stanley 850 tool cabinet. Price, with tools, $95.

sales of hand tools don't seem to have been as clear to traditional machinery manufacturers, though some tested the waters. In 1935, responding to a reduction in sales of industrial machinery during the depression, Yates-American placed an ad in Popular Homecraft magazine introducing a line of woodworking machines for the home shop. But Yates, like other established machinery manufacturers, was unable to figure out the market, perhaps because of its distrust of smaller, lighter, less "serious" machines, perhaps because the company didn't understand less "serious"

WOODWORKING IN THE INFORMATION AGE

Of all the changes in the world of home-shop woodworking in the past 100 years, none is more dramatic than the explosion of information for home-shop woodworkers.When I set up my first shop in the early 1970s I searched the local library for instruction into the many mysteries of the craft — how to sharpen a hand plane and cut a dovetail, for instance.The selection was discouraging. Only a few well-thumbed books from thel940s and earlier concerned themselves with the traditional techniques that interested me. With few exceptions, the how-to texts were woefully incomplete, the drawings and photos were sparse or equally unenlightening. The few contemporary magazines that covered woodworking weren't much better.

Today we are deluged with information, both practical and inspirational. Books, magazines, videos, broadcast television, internet web sites. A simple search of amazon.com's web site yielded 1,028 titles having something to do with woodworking.

In addition to all these books, there are today perhaps a dozen national magazines devoted entirely to amateur and small-shop professional woodworking. In the past 25 years, these magazines have reshaped coverage of woodworking. Instructional articles are more detailed and clearly explained, with a wealth of drawings and photographs.They have expanded their horizons to include almost every woodworking interest, no matter how obscure. Magazines have nurtured the rediscovery of many traditional techniques and even entire crafts once headed for extinction.

Perhaps the most remarkable information innovation has been the instructional video. Now anyone with a VCR and a TV can learn by observation directly from a master craftsman, an experience once only for apprentices.

Video in the form of broadcast television has also brought woodworking to a vast audience.The best known TV woodworkers, Norm Abram and Roy Underhill, don't so much instruct as entertain and, mildly, proselytize. While largely devoted to their respective interests — contemporary machine woodworking and traditional hand woodworking — Norm and Roy introduce viewers to the wider world of woodworking, too.Viewers come away intrigued, perhaps inspired to try something new in the shop, perhaps inspired to set up a shop in the first place. Once they're hooked, they can start working their way through amazon.com's 1,028 titles....