Advances in Woodworking

[Philly]

Hi All,
Thanks for your replies. It is a thought provoking topic isn't it? To summarise then, we have come up with these major league advances in woodworking:
1: Modern Glues.
2: Internet Forums ( :? )
3: Norm Abrams ( :shock: :shock: )

Not a lot then!

As a follow up thought recently Lie-Nielsen have introduced a range of hand saws. These have been much drooled over and applauded, and are owned by a fair few people on this very forum. Why do I mention this? The saws are copies of ones made in Sheffield in the 1830's.
So, we are lusting over tools that were made looong ago. Did woodworking peak a century or two ago?
Answers on a postcard (or you can just post on this forum :lol: )
Philly

 

[Alf]

I now fully expect Alf to post a 17th century engraving of a contraption using a pig's bladder and a pair of bellows.

I dunno, it's 18th century, but could that be an early model Vacupress near the window on the left...?

ÉBÉNISTERIE et MARQUETERIE, 18thC

Cheers, Alf :lol:

 

[mudman]

Trouble is that none of these are actually new, they have just evloved a bit. Maybe things have changed in the way they are done, eg. cutting joints by machine instead of by hand. Things have got a bit better at what they do, eg. glues, they have more holding power but still do the same job. But things still haven't really changed much since ancient times.

I mean, if you think about it, remove most of the modern ways of doing things and you can find an older way of doing things, probably just as good and gets the same results, just slower. For example, CAD stuff would have been drawing boards, pencil, paper and various drawing instruments that I remember from school TD lessons. Vacuum forming, isn't that just a neat way to avoid having to make a top former? Forums, how about meet up in the local pub, guildhall, club?

There have been new materials such as MDF. But, then again, I bet there's a parallel somewhere back in history.

I've been trying to think of something truly new, but I'm not sure that I can. I would say that really, the major change in the last 20 years is in the speed and cost that items can be produced as well as the accessibilty to woodworking for the amateur.

Does that sound depressing?
Surely there must be something that can be done now due to an advance in the last twenty years that couldn't be done before? :?

Cheers,
Barry

Edited due to school becoming a foot care specialist

 

[Adam]

The main reason for advance (or lack of it) is using new materials. We are using an age-old material and it is inevitable we are only refining what has gone before. If you want to see advances, you have to choose newer materials, and then you can see huge leaps in machines, techniques etc.

Just look at Plastic, Carbon Fibre, and Silicon Wafers, the machines, techniques etc are still evolving, and the newer the material, the faster the pace, everything eventually becomes well-documented and used, and companies stop investing large amounts into innovating.

Wood is too old to see lots of innovation.

Couple of things that come to mind though are spray guns, and microwaves for drying.

Adam

 

[mudman]

The main reason for advance (or lack of it) is using new materials. We are using an age-old material and it is inevitable we are only refining what has gone before. If you want to see advances, you have to choose newer materials, and then you can see huge leaps in machines, techniques etc.

Just look at Plastic, Carbon Fibre, and Silicon Wafers, the machines, techniques etc are still evolving, and the newer the material, the faster the pace, everything eventually becomes well-documented and used, and companies stop investing large amounts into innovating.

Wood is too old to see lots of innovation.

Couple of things that come to mind though are spray guns, and microwaves for drying.

Adam

Adam,

You are right about the new materials. Without the recent advances in those materials, we wouldn't be having this discussion in this way.

However, spray guns - there are cave paintings done by people spraying paint onto the wall.
Microwaves - just speeds up the drying process. Also, it is just a new way of making things hot which comes down to the same thing in the end. :wink:

Cheers,
Barry

 

[Adam]

Microwaves - just speeds up the drying process. Also, it is just a new way of making things hot which comes down to the same thing in the end. :wink:
Cheers,Barry

But is is a genuinely new "technique" from the last 20 years I'd say. (give or take a year). And that was the original question...... :lol:

Adam

 

[mudman]

Actually I suppose you could be right with that because microwaves will heat the water in the wood and not the wood itself (it is the hot water that will make the wood hot). It also heats the water right through the wood at the same time rather than the surface layers being heated and the heat transfering inwards via convection.
This should make the way the wood drys totally different to the way it drys if in a kiln. It should also produce different effects on the structure of the wood and the woods chemical makeup.

Hmm, you know, I think you are right and that microwave drying would be a new technique. It may even produce different results to what has gone before.
Another thing is that microwaves have only been available in this century.

Cheers,
Barry

 

[Newbie_Neil]

Hi barry

Another thing is that microwaves have only been available in this century.

I think you'll find that they were around in the last century. :wink:

Cheers
Neil

 

[Signal]

Nice one Neil, last milenia to :roll:

Signal

 

[Adam]

OK you two children you only had to mentally insert the word "oven" into that statement for it to make complete sense.... but did you???????

Besides, they have only easily, reliably and efficiently been able to concentrate them into a small area for drying purposes since the invention of the magnetron, and thats recent.

Adam

 

[Anonymous]

Philly

I strongly dispute the glue point.
I reckon the same glue is used by us as our dads (and mums??) used in the 60's - PVA and evostick.
Although glues have come on loads since the last century, i do not think that many advances have happend in the last 20 years.

Mudman, Norm evolving?? A strange thought.

I thought of a change - lasers. We cut wood with lasers at work and it is also sometimes done in industry for complex shapes. Definitely not around 20 years ago (I know lasers were around - I'm talking about using them to cut wood!!)

Cheers
Tony

 

[ike]

The magnetron's been around since about 1939.

 

[Signal]

he he only joshing Adam,

From the failing memory of my electronics degree magnetrons where a by product of the RADAR, and I think that was first patented in 1935

But on that I could be totaly wrong

The use of Microwave ovens for drying timber is a novel one though,
Ive done it on a small piece, more as an experiment really.

Gave up after the first bit went bang and made a nice big dent in the top of the oven, thankfully it was only an old one I had up the workshop :wink:

Signal

 

[Newbie_Neil]

Hi Adam

Another thing is that microwave ovens have only been available in this century.

Sorry, it still doesn't work for me. :lol:

Cheers
Neil

Still in joshing mode.

 

[Adam]

The magnetron's been around since about 1939.

I wasn't disclaiming the date of the invention of the magnetron as being recent, (as as I said, give or take a year or two), but the widescale use of microwaves for kilning is a new technique. Mass production of magnetrons for "domestic" use is still relatively recent.

Adam

 

[mudman]

I think you'll find that they were around in the last century. :wink:

Ah yes, of course, that would of course be the 20th century, not our current 21st one.

Ah well, people do tell me that I'm behind the times.

Just checked and was surprised to discover that magnetrons were invented back in the 1920s and further developed for radar in WWII. I also remember a college physics lecturer of mine back in the 80's telling us how he was involved in early microwave research. Apparently on a cold morning they would go out and warm their hands in front of the microwave transmitters. :shock: So maybe even microwave heating isn't as recent as we think. :roll:

Cheers,
Barry

 

[Philly]

Hi Tony,
Yeah, you might be right with the glue thing!

In my original brain teaser I was flicking through a book on how to make things from wood. It was writen in the 1900's, and everything it the (large) book was made with handtools. 100 years later, we've been to the moon, etc. and there has been no noticable advances made it this field EXCEPT to make life easier! Most of the ideas put forward are things from industry or mass production. For the "One Man in his Workshop" nothing has really changed, except maybe standards are lower? Most of the new woody tools and jigs coming to the market are to 1: make life easier (i.e. power planer) or 2: take away any need for skill (i.e. router jigs).

Any thoughts ?

regards
Philly

 

[Adam]

Thats puportedly how it was discovered for heating food wasn't it, it melted someones chocolate bar in the scientific staff (in their top pocket), and then they all used to warm their pasties in front of the transmitters.

From the Darwin awards....

Telephone relay company night watchman Edward Baker, 31, was killed early Christmas morning by excessive microwave radiation exposure. He was apparently attempting to keep warm next to a telecommunications feed-horn. Baker had been suspended on a safety violation once last year, according to Northern Manitoba Signal Relay spokesperson Tanya Cooke. She noted that Baker`s earlier infraction was for defeating a safety shut-off switch and entering a restricted maintenance catwalk in order to stand in front of the microwave dish. He had told coworkers that it was the only way he could stay warm during his twelve-hour shift at the station, where winter temperatures often dip to forty below zero. Microwaves can heat water molecules within human tissue in the same way that they heat food in microwave ovens. For his Christmas shift, Baker reportedly brought a twelve pack of beer and a plastic lawn chair, which he positioned directly in line with the strongest microwave beam. Baker had not been told about a tenfold boost in microwave power planned that night to handle the anticipated increase in holiday long-distance calling traffic. Baker`s body was discovered by the daytime watchman, John Burns, who was greeted by an odor he mistook for a Christmas roast he thought Baker must have prepared as a surprise. Burns also reported to NMSR company officials that Baker`s unfinished beers had exploded.

 

[ike]

Philly,

You have opened a can of worms haven't you! So, a genuine advancement has to be a completely novel, previously unthought of hand tool or shaping process?

h'mmm

ike

 

[Adam]

How about electronic braking, statistical analysis of accidents and that "saw-stop" invention in the states.

Adam