Shop Class as Soulcraft (2006)
thenewatlantis.com
thenewatlantis.com
"Hobbyists will tell you that making one’s own furniture is hard to justify economically"
He meant to write at the lowest levels of quality, like particle board, maybe with photographic veneer, or at most the lower levels of plywood.
There's a binary furniture market of $50 particle board that looks nice for about a month till it falls apart, and the four figure "if you have to ask, you can't afford it" market of somewhat decent stuff.
This is based on a couple decades of homeowner and wood butcher experience.
As subset of quality is I enjoy radical customization. I don't find a bookcase to fit an obscure corner, I make it to fit perfectly.
Its also extraordinarily cheap given the labor cost of zero. If I were not risking my digits on my table saw I'd likely be watching brainless TV or drinking or some other waste of time... this hobby provides something useful at a very low $$$ per hour cost.
I think cabinetry is one huge exception. I built a bowfront vanity for about $1100 instead of the $2200 it was in the store). There are certain tools and things you are just not going to amortize in the same way as a large factory (e.g., router bits with various edge profiles); and at least with me on the most interesting stuff I do there is some trial and error. I'm sure if I convince my wife to let me do the kitchen I would save many thousands of dollars.
Even if I am building something better than a $200-500 coffee table or desk, in terms of using solid wood instead of a mix of particle board, etc. the choice isn't between a custom made desk or my custom made piece; it is between my custom made piece and the thing I can get at Ikea or another furniture store selling stuff churned out of a Chinese factory. Its also worth it to realize, that at least for me, there are a lot of things that I'm not going to be able to do as well (e.g., things that deviate too much from straight lines or involve carving).
I still think it is worth it as a hobby, for a change of pace compared to programming. There is something deeply satisfying about using and enjoying something that you conceived of and made with your own hands (and for me lots of fun power toys^H^Hols.
True, yet if you amortize the cost of a single use router bit by hour, it is still a very cheap hobby compared to console/computer gaming or golf or other hobbies.
Before ebay, every carpenter had at least one router bit rolling around in the back of some cabinet that cost $50 and was only used once. After ebay, we still have that same bit rolling around in the cabinet, we just feel guilty we haven't gotten around to selling it on ebay yet.
A lot of people feel worse about selling something for 20% of purchase price than they would about buying something during a 20% sale which is an interesting aspect that crosses into all technical / capitalistic type hobbies. (capitalistic as in its all about investing money in tools to minimize labor costs to produce something, not a weird analogy with VC funds or derivatives markets)
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.
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".
As far as the sawstop strawman and FUD go, I have never heard anyone say "I don't need to drive safely and be aware of my surroundings and other drivers because I have a seat belt and and air bags." Similarly I have never heard anyone advocate working carelessly around a sawstop simply because there is a blade brake. People on the internet say a lot of things but all of the people that I have talked to that own a sawstop table love it and I have never heard them say that they have had any misfires.
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.
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.
Tell your Dad to check out askwoodman on youtube. He is my favorite youtuber by far.
Personally, I like it when authors demonstrate values like this through the story of the craft itself.
There are a number of books in this vein, including Clapton's Guitar: http://www.amazon.com/Claptons-Guitar-Watching-Henderson-Ins...
The Piano Shop on the Left Bank by Thad Carhart
House: A Memoir by Michael Ruhlman
I'm also going to throw in a few other books, mainly because I see Crawford's primary argument in a different light. I do believe it is essential to work with your hands. I spent the last few months doing just that and it is has been very instructive. Practical skills are so very important. However, I also think there is an essential human spirit to be enjoyed as well, something that is very present in the moment when engaged in such work. For that reason, I'm going to recommend a few other books:
Gentleman in the Parlour by W. Somerset Maugham
Twilight in Italy by D.H. Lawrence
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
Zen and the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel
In the Land of Pain by Alphonse Daudet (Julian Barnes translation)
Seven Years in Tibet by Heinrich Harrer
Crawford may well disagree with my thoughts here. He seems to be a pretty devout stoic, but I never met a stoic who didn't have the heart of the mystic beating deep inside. They just need a little push to bring it to the surface.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001P8M9FK/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_ttl?...
I haven't yet but it's been recommended by sources with enough credibility
http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/charlotte_a_wooden_boat...