Popular Woodworking 2000-01 № 112, страница 6

powerless woodworker

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU

Popular Woodworking welcomes letters from readers with questions or comments about the magazine or woodworking in general.We try to respond to all correspondence. Published letters may be edited for length or style.All letters become the property of Popular Woodworking.

How to SendYour Letter:

• E-mail:Popwood@FWPubs.com

• Fax: (513) 531-0919

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Magazine Cover Now Truly a Work of Art

I wish to thank you for allowing me to paint the Garden Arbor Bench photo from the cover of your July 1998 issue. I had a great time painting it. I hope you like it.

Bob Schafer Palm Harbor, Florida

Bob wasn't the only reader spellbound by the cover. Several other readers called us to comment on the model's toe rings (some liked them, some didn't), or to ask if she's Lauren Hutton (she's not). If you want to see more of the model (and the great furniture she's sitting on) check out Danny Proulx's book "How to Build CIassic Garden Furniture" from Popular Woodworking Books). —Christopher Schwarz managing editor

I'm betting others would like it as well. I'm the first to admit that this is not for everyone, but I hasten to add that I think it's for more people than the high-powered advertisers of most wood magazines would lead us to believe. Having rambled on long enough (but not nearly as long as I could!), I'll just say again, thanks for the possibility of some traditional articles, and I cast my hearty vote for them.

Dale Lucas Cedar Rapids, Iowa

saved some money tool shopping and learned a few new things from web sites you've identified. What a great idea!

To put things in perspective; I am a 60-year-old hobbyist with a small but well-equipped shop, a graduate school education, a small software design business and the need for a constant infusion of woodworking knowledge. For your effort and dedication, I thank you.

Joel Shapiro Sparta, New Jersey

Letters

Power to the

One Reader Who Traded His Power Tools for Hand Tools

Thanks for your thoughts in the "One-handed editor" column in the September 1999 issue. I'm glad your one hand is open to the possibility of writing articles about some "impractical" ways of working wood with traditional joints and hand tools. I love to create things of wood using no power but my own, with tools refined by time, not technology. I know I'm in the minority of today's woodworkers, but I wanted you to know that there is at least one of us out here that enjoys doing things the "impractical" way.

I turn chair legs on a pole lathe that I made. I make other chair parts on a shave horse I made from a tree I chopped down. When I made cabinet doors for our entertainment center, I thickness planed the stock with hand planes and created the mortises, tenons and raised panels with hand saws, chisels and planes. You see, I make my living in a high-tech world, but I work in my shop with a passion for these low-tech traditions.

Every day at work I deal with learning tomorrow's technologies, but every trip to my shop I learn a little more of the techniques of the past. But enough about me.

The reason I'm writing is to say that I think there are a lot of amateur woodworkers who would love to work wood this way, but assume the only way to do anything is at the end of a high-voltage cord. When I started my hobby a few years ago I did what all new woodworkers do, I planned my high-powered shop. I drooled over all the high-powered tools, believing they were the only path to quality and pleasure.

Then I bought and restored my first old plane. I was hooked. My table saw has since become a table and the only thing that plugs into my 20-amp circuit is a coffee maker. Like most budding woodworkers, I believed that the non-power hand tool ways of working wood could only be learned by growing up learning from grandpa, and since I hadn't done that, I'd best get powered up. Well, that just isn't so. I've learned the ways of old in virtual isolation from any grandpa types and others can, too.

Free E-Mail Newsletter Can Save You Money

Many thanks for your new e-mail newsletter. In the short period of its existence, I've

Editor's note: Every two weeks we send out a brief but information-packed free e-mail newsletter filled with tool-buying information

Continued on page 10

32 Popular Woodworking January 2000