Fellow Members :

At last month's meeting I started to think about how we work not just with width, length and thickness but also with time. Maybe not quite at the speed of light in an Einsteinish way, but we live with constant change.

Yeung Chan gave his presentation on the making of an exact copy on a Ming Dynasty table. (Ming period, 1368-1644). The table was an exact copy in every way except that Yeung used power tools to mill and do most of the shaping of the wood. There are no disadvantages in using power tools, it probably requires no less skill. If you ignored the obvious differences in the age of the wood and compared an original Ming table to Yeung's copy it would be very difficult to tell which was made totally by hand and which used power tools. The handmade table probably has more slight errors such as the legs may not be perfectly the same. The advantage of changing to use power tools is time. It is many times faster. No disadvantages.

At the meeting we also had a first at our Show and Tell. A member showed an iPhone App (i.e.; A software application program written to run on the iPhone). It allows users to calculate board feet by entering the size of the wood plus the thickness in 4ths. This will become yet another change in the way we work. There are no disadvantages over the older methods but it has many advantages including ease of use and convenience. The following day I was with some building engineers who use their iPhone as a level. Another App that could help woodworkers?

Also at the meeting I picked up a copy of Fine Woodworking from 1993. Reading it later that evening I came across the heading "Made in North America - Still. – How Delta, Powermatic and General dealt with the Taiwanese challenge." That was only 17 years ago!

Since then there have probably been similar articles in Taiwanese magazines saying how they were fighting to keep their manufacturing from going to China. Today there are probably articles appearing in China talking about the challenges of stopping their manufacturing from going to Vietnam. Are all these changes over time a bad thing for us? There are often comments about American engineering being the best, yet manufacturing is being moved overseas. However these changes bring advantage to us as individuals. The power tools I have today are mostly made in China. They are good quality, accurate, – and I can afford to own them. I am not sure I could have afforded so many machine tools 20 years ago, before they were made in China.

As woodworkers we still need all the skills of earlier generations but by embracing the changes we can work on more projects in less time.

Enjoy your woodworking, both now, and in the future (even though it will be in some way different).