I was working away on the weekend as mentioned, and something that came to mind was to do with the tools I was using. They were common tools, nails, hammer, rip saw, and they felt really unfamiliar in my hands.
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In a later conversation with my Uncle, it dawned on me that despite regularly working with wood, I rarely do use a carpenter’s tools despite it all being about the basic manipulation of wood. Struck home that there really is a difference between a woodworker, and a carpenter.
My shed projects rarely (if ever) involve screws or nails, and perhaps a bit sad to say, when I cut timber it is with a tablesaw or bandsaw, not any form of handsaw. There are plenty of woodworkers who will use handsaws especially the Japanese saws and perhaps one day that’ll be me, but I do enjoy electron murdering techniques too, and it is faster and for me, more accurate.
There is a common saying that the difference between a woodworker and a carpenter is 1/4″
You’d not worry about building a house with 1/2mm accuracy. Nor would you make a jewellery box with 3mm gaps in the seams (other than intentional!!)
Still, where it comes to my preference, I enjoy working irrespective, whether doing carpentry, or fine woodworking, but I do get the most satisfaction from realising the best from the timber itself, rather than only from the resulting construction.
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Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Bandsaw, Carpentry, Japanese saw, Table Saw, Woodworking |
Stu's Shed 
I spent most of my younger years working on a Feedlot where power tools were considered a waste of money. I never have, or ever will be able to cut a straight line with a hand saw and I have had over a decade of practice…. I don’ know if I was dropped as a child or what but I just can’t get anything remotely usable out of a hand saw. Tablesaw’s and chop saws were made for people like me. My father always laughs at me when I setup my chop saw for 1 cut, but recently while building a swing set he was heckling me in the back ground so I made 3 cuts with a hand saw and handed them over to him… 10 min later he came back with my 3 cuts and told me to setup the chop saw.
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