I agree with you 1000%
My two passions in life are woodworking and photography.
Photography has been ruined by technology. The industry now wants you
to buy buy buy to keep up. If you go to a photo club meeting its all
about computers and programs not about photography
I also see it coming to woodwork. Its becoming about the tools not the
work. Look at the woodworking magazines they spend more time reviewing
tools than writing about woodworking. Look at Lee valley's catalougue
20 different high priced items that do the same thing, when most of the
time you can build a shop jig out of scrap to do the same.

I think we have ourselves to blame though. Most of us would rather have
the shiny tools to show off than the homemade jigs.
And as for the argument about the enviroment. I don't see how a sheet
of toxic chemicals and sawdust is any better for the earth that cutting
down a tree and sawing it into lumber
Oh well that's just my opinion and I'm sure I'll get flamed for it
See ya in the past


Peter
daclark wrote:
The future of woodworking is in the past.
I'm just telling you what I know. I was the architectural designer
for a union store fixture manufacturer in 1967. I saw the first bunk
of particle board arrive. The men in the shop were outraged, and a
rebellion nearly resulted in closing the shop.
Plastic laminate only came in a few colors. The year before they were
still sticking it down with wood glue and clamping it until it had
dried. There were only a half-dozen bits for the router, made of
brittle carbon steel; and they didn't put roller bearings on the bits
until five years later. I was living on the threshold of technology.
I've seen a lot of change. And as a manufacturer, I have been
responsible for advocating the use of new methods and new materials,
and not just to give the customers what they wanted. Even today, I
advocate for new technology...but when the price of value-added
products exceeds the cost of the real thing, I can see the writing on
the wall.
Value-added products are a bill of goods, and industry has become
persuaded to accept materials and hardware that are untrue, even
undesirable. Why would I want to pay $35 for a pair of drawer slides,
when a two-dollar webframe will do? Why would I buy a sheet of plywood
with a veneer so thin it cannot hide the substrate? And, why should I
ruin my health working in a cloud of poly-resins when I can work real
wood?
Look at it from the bottom line. Two good men can produce $500,000
worth of product in a single year. With the cost of technology and the
price of value-added materials, can they expect to clear twenty
percent? But the same two men working with standard machines and a
pile of sticks can produce $500,000 worth of boxes and clear up to
fifty percent. I'm just telling you what I know.
You never have to edge-band a piece of oak. Modern machines require
modern materials, but the first principles of working wood-to cut, to
shape, to fasten-are the same as they have always been...
daclark