Hand Tool vs. Power Tool

The hand tool versus power tool discussion is something that comes up frequently at work (at least where I work these days). Prior to 2007, however, I didn’t even know it existed. In August of that year I decided to open a woodworking school and began writing for Popular Woodworking Magazine. Prior to that I was building furniture every day and had no idea there were wars raging in the woodworking community at large. In fact, I didn’t even realize there was a woodworking community at large.

As a full-time maker, there wasn’t usually time to read magazines or frequent forums. Honestly, I didn’t know there were that many of either out there. And to find out that people were trying to decide whether hand tools were better than power tools (or vice versa) was a concept that was totally foreign to me.

Having worked my entire adult life in the fine custom furniture business, the only woodworkers I knew were making furniture pretty much the same as me. Sure, there were the furniture makers who leaned heavier in one direction than another, but everyone was pretty much blended (or what the magazine often refers to as “hybrid”). Let’s face it, customers willing to pay for handmade furniture actually want some of it to be touched by the maker with hand tools.

Because we were all making furniture for a living, we had to use power equipment to some degree or another. It’s not easy making a living building furniture today and it’s twice as hard if you plan to do it 100 percent by hand. For me it wasn’t a philosophical choice – it’s just what everyone did.

One area of woodworking where being blended helps tremendously is making chairs. Sure, 18th-century chairs were made entirely with hand tools, but we don’t live in the 18th century. Having made hundreds of chairs, I can tell you there’s no substitute for machine repeatability when it comes to joinery – but no matter how much I do with power tools, there are always joints that need to be fit precisely by  hand – not to mention and all that decorative carving.

One of the greatest benefits of blended woodworking is that you can create projects of a higher skill level and quality in less time. Using the most efficient tools for the job means you can concentrate on learning and perfecting the skills that make the project different from something made in a factory. Working in this manner has allowed me to concentrate on my joinery and carving skills. To my mind, those are the things that have always separated my pieces from what others build. I see them as extensions of my own creativity and expression.

Chairs are like no other type of furniture – they are both sculptural and functional. They need to be made in such a way as to be sturdy enough to be dragged across a floor while bearing the full weight of a person. A good chair is not only structurally sound but is designed to be light in physical and visual weight, whether it’s plain or heavily adorned. Either way, chairs are the perfect place to blend power- and hand-tool work.

If you take pleasure from doing everything by hand or machine, I’m not knocking your choice. Woodworking for me isn’t about exclusion – it’s about inclusion. Approach it any way you like, but you may want to give the blended approach a try; you might get more done and have fun doing it.

—Chuck Bender

For more on blended, or hybrid, woodworking you might check out Marc Spagnuolo’s book by clicking here.