It just occurred to me today that I’ve reached a tipping
point with concerns to power and hand tools. This afternoon I was replacing
some water damaged fascia board on the roof. I needed to cut a 5 foot section of
1x8 and cut a ½ inch dado about a ½ inch from the bottom. The old me would have taken the board to the
table saw and did it all there. The current me is somewhat lazy and uses his
table saw as an expensive storage devise.
So I would not need to spend time and effort cleaning
off the table saw, I grabbed my panel saw and plow plane and performed the job in
about 15 minutes. All joking aside it really made think about the fact that in
this case hand tools were way quicker than power tools.
I don’t see me getting rid of my power tools any
time soon, but I’m finding that I’m becoming a better woodworker by incorporating
hand tools and power tools. Another side effect of hand tool use is that the
more I use hand tools the better I get at using power tools. I think it has to
do with learning to work with the properties of wood which you really don’t get a
feel for with power tools.
