"Eli the Bearded" wrote in message ...

I read _Craeft_ (Cræft) by Alexander Langlands last year. He attributes
the death / dying of true craft to the availability of power tools (not
just electron power, but anything more than human hand). Power removes
the connection between human and the material. He doesn't deny that
things can be made faster or well with power tools, but he does argue
that there is a loss of understanding of material that comes from the
mediating effect of just being able to apply more force faster.

I got thinking about this a bit and I'd have to say that discovering the
utility of the the card scraper is way up on the list of game changers for
me. Card scrapers are amazing tools... not only for smoothing difficult
grain but for tweaking surfaces at flush joints, removing finish, tweaking
the fitting of tool handles to heads, tweaking the faces of tenons, tweaking
surfaces that were created with spoke shaves, smoothing finishes, etc.... A
very simple tool that has a lot of utility.