On Mon, Dec 03, 2007 at 09:59:52AM -0800, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: > Interesting. I view it more like this: sudo and grep (find, sort, etc > etc etc) are ubiquitous. I'm surprised they made the list at all. I > consider it equivalent to asking woodworkers what their favorite tool > is and being surprised that you don't get "sandpaper" in the > list. They all use sandpaper, they couldn't imagine a shop without it, > but its just assumed. The discussion will center around things like > routers versus shapers versus custom profiled handplanes. Chisels and > saws versus dove-tail jigs and routers. Biscuit joiners vs > pocket-screw jigs versus mortise-and-tenon tools. etc. Of course > they're all going to use sandpaper at the end, its not a choice. Just > a thought on the psychology of these sorts of polls.
For pure woodworking (as opposed to, say, surface prep prior to repainting something on the house), I don't use sandpaper at all. My shop doesn't have it. I use scrapers if I need or, or leave a true planed surface. My favorite chisel is one give me by my step-grandfather (pattern maker). Is a 1/4" wide, about 16" long overall, hand made by some Swiss master in the late 1800's. It holds an edge seemingly forever. I lap it on the granite surface plate occasionally (more frequently if I'm carving something hard on tools). Goes through most woods as if they were butter. By the time you buy a router and either buy or build a good solid router table, you could have bought a 2 HP shaper. The only advantage to the router route :) is to have a portable router or if you are in an apartment where plunking a 500# machine down in the spare bedroom would go over like, well, a 500# shop tool. While we're at it, I'm not a fan of the table saw either. They only come into their own with sheet stock; I never use sheet stock. For solid stock, I used the bandsaw then cleaned it up on the jointer or shaper, back when I had a full shop. Now I just do it by hand. Doug. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
