Overheard an apprentice say 'why would I learn hand tools' and it bugged me all day

I was at a lumberyard in Denver yesterday grabbing cedar for a fence job and this kid maybe 22 years old told the guy behind the counter that chisels and hand planes are just for 'old heads.' Made me think about how much I learned by messing up with hand tools before I ever touched a router or a track saw. Do you guys think skipping hand tool basics makes someone a worse carpenter in the long run?

2 comments

2 Comments

miller.eva8d ago

Oh boy, that takes me back. I remember when my dad handed me a block plane and said "fix this door that's sticking" and I spent two hours taking off shavings the wrong way and made it worse. But figuring out why it went wrong taught me more than any YouTube video ever could. Hand tools force you to understand the wood itself, not just the machine that cuts it. That kid will learn the hard way when his battery dies and he's stuck with a crooked board and no way to fix it.

tyler_hernandez8d ago

Wait hold up, TWO HOURS taking off shavings the wrong way? That's brutal man, I would've given up after like twenty minutes and just blamed the door for being junk. But honestly that's exactly the kind of dumb mistake that sticks with you forever, I still remember ruining my first dovetail joint because I didn't pay attention to which way the grain was going and the whole thing just exploded on me. The battery thing is so true though, I see these kids with their cordless planers and drills and they have no backup plan when the juice runs out halfway through a cut. Nothing beats having a sharp hand tool and actually feeling what the wood wants to do, even if it takes a few busted boards to figure it out.