Tam DL -> RE: New vs Old (Jan. 15 2011 17:52:34)
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I've done it all from the beginning, myself, except I never really thought of resawing. It's funny where one thinks the cutoff is. I have lumbered entirely by hand with my Great uncle, back in the 60s. And I have split and otherwise processed furniture wood by hand. Local environment wouldn't really serve up tone woods. There is some red spruce and maple, so one could make something, but it wouldn't be what we expect today. I think most people today have a hard time understanding what the working environment may have been. My Grandfather was a joiner and they only had one stationary tool, a foot mortiser. He was alive till the 50s. On the other hand, as early as the 1830s, the young cabinetmaker was being counseled to search out a motorized grinding wheel to see the real efficiency possible with modern machines. So by the time the classical guitar was in a form we recognize today, at least some regions were well automated in their production. That said, there is a significant slippery rope with power tools. Introduce any powerful tool into the shop, and there is a tendency to either adapt processes to that one tool, or to search out tools that are equally efficient for everything. Somewhere during my hand tool woodworking apprenticeship, I took a diversion through woodturning. I got the lathe, that meant the interesting part, creating the vessels, happened in the blink of an eye. So the actual day of turning would consisted of long boring bits involving hand sharpening tools, cutting out wood, and sweeping up chips, with a small bit of turning in there somewhere. Not much fun. So one buys a grinder, a bandsaw, a dust extractor, and a drill driver to mount blanks. Any part of a process that isn't automated becomes the part you spend all your time on, and the pressure to make some change is pretty solid. In accoustic guitar, small shop lutherie, this had led to a transformation of the small shop, and the guitars that come out of them. Classical makers seem to have resisted some of the trends, but they are creeping in. Most noticeable is the move to manufactured rosettes (long past, and possibly moving in the other direction), spherical plates, sprayed finishes, and modern finishes, etc... What effect, pro or con, any of this has is another mater.
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