Message text written by "BP - His DNA is this long."
Bruce wrote:
>I'm a good deal happier if I can go a year,
as I often do, without turning on either my table saw or planer. I think
that you have to distinguish between those tradesmen who outgrow their
romantic notions and those who, like me, never do. And, yes, it is possible
to earn a living while remaining one of the latter.
<

Bruce, I understand how these things make sense from your perspective, but
the economy of this industry, by and large, just doesn't work that way.

First of all we have owners out there. 

Owners may be Governments who have schools, courthouses, office buildings,
museums, recreational facilities, historic sites, police stations,
monuments and statuary. They can't wait for one guy with a hand saw to
maintain all that property.

Owners also include tens of thousands of churches, synagogues, mosques and
other religious places, each of whom has a diocese or Board of trustees or
House Committee which is responsible for making sure that these buildings
remain inspiring, functional, usable places for their communities. They
have limited budgets. They want the lowest (hopefully qualified) bid. Then
they want it fixed NOW.

We have hospitals, universities, corporations, associations, private owners
and a few other categories I've probably neglected to include.

Next we have architects and preservation consultants out there. They know
their clients aren't made of money, will never spend as much as they
should, and they spend a good portion of their time figuring out what to
defer, what to omit, what to do less completely or generally, how to bring
costs down so that owners get the maximum value for the limited restoration
dollar. If they're good, they manage to solve the critical problems that
allow these buildings to maintain some significant portion of their
historic integrity.

Then we have contractors. The contractor has to make everything happen
according to plan, even if there are numerous factors obstructing him in
doing so. We all know the stories of the sometimes incomprehensible project
documents, the pressures to produce low bid and still make a profit, the
challenge of finding and keeping qualified craftspeople, the workers who
won't read instructions or learn anything that takes longer to learn than
it takes to smoke a cigarette, etc.,etc., etc.

All of these things are the realities of the restoration industry today.
And unless our petroleum-based world economy collapses into a heap (a
distinct possibility I won't address here), the demands are that we all use
the most efficient tools and techniques we can find to get the job done at
reasonable quality, within cost and close to schedule.

A one-man hand-tool-based specialty shop or an Amish community can survive
in the 20th century, and can be an inspiration to some of us,  but only if
all the rest of us aren't Amish.

Mike E.