[The posts to oldtools this week have been very interesting.  I'm now
up to 46 posts lying in my inbox that I want to either reply to or at
least re-read.  So I've gotten a bit behind.]

Doug, talking about his mix of hand and power tool use, said :

>   As well, for some of the things I do, which consist of large numbers
>   of repetitive machine operations, a shaper is a genuine asset, and
>   allows me to spend more time on the _creative_ end of things - a
>   notion that methinks tends to get ignored here when we talk about
>   the "esthetic advantages" of hand tools.  

I've noticed that since I became almost entirely handtool-oriented 
the issue of creativity has almost disappeared from the picture.  I 
think that when I used power tools, since they did most of the work, 
creativity was important because that's where I felt personally 
involved, the only place to squeeze in some originality.

Using hand tools, just their use is original in itself, compared to
all the machined-made stuff out there.  Now I get much more pleasure
from making a very simple 4-piece bench entirely by hand than I got
making intellectually challenging designs by machine.

I now find it pretty well impossible to use a powered surfacing 
machine, be it jointer, planer or router.  The reason is that once
the machine has touched a piece of wood it is suddenly :too late: for
me to get involved.  The piece has had all emotional possibilities
wiped completely off its surface.  Trying to 'put back' some of that
by going back over the surface with a handtool doesn't make any sense
to me.

I find that there is a very definite look to a piece of wood that has
gone from rough to smooth through the various stages of surface 
preparation using hand tools.  There's something soft and deep about
such a surface.  Quite different from a surface that has been power
planed, even if it was then smoothed by hand.

Paul

Montreal (Quebec)