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.

I'm not entirely willing to argue with that. Living where I do, and doing
what I do, I am probably in a better position to indulge my somewhat purist
approach to restoration. And I don't really know, or need to know, a hell
of a lot about things like cutting edge masonry coatings (Though I plan to
learn a great deal at next November's  International Preservation Trades
Workshop). But in the areas that I do know something about, the
preservation and restoration of 18th and early 19th century wooden
structures, and furniture of the same period, I am often amazed how quick
to assume most tradesmen are that there is an advantage in cost and quality
to using modern technology. Not that there isn't a place for it. I've often
used or recommended use of epoxy fillers to recondition sections of rotted
structural timbers where replacement wasn't necessary. But, at least as far
as short run production of non-structural wooden elements of these
buildings is concerned, I have often taken the challenge, like John Henry,
to match myself and my low tech hand tools against machines and come out
the winner, or lagging so close behind that any benefit in time saved is
more than eaten up by factoring in the cost of the machinery. And few, I
think, would argue that the product has more affinity with its setting than
does that produced by machine.

>First of all we have owners out there.

snip...

>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.

Don't disagree- but I do have to ask if there aren't sometimes blind
assumptions being made about high-tech solutions meeting those criteria
more effectively? My experience tells me that there's a bit of brainwashing
involved that promotes a jaundiced eye toward even considering more
antediluvian solutions, when sometimes they turn out to be not only
qualitatively better, but cheaper.

>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.

I've got a good Amish story, but in the interest of staying on thread I'll
post it separately.

Its not a matter of "can survive". I survive because I have managed to
convince enough people that, for certain jobs, hiring me (actually us- its
a two man shop. And it even survived a while back as a six person shop,
until the headaches and the lack of bench time for myself caused me to see
the light) is cost-effective and more to the point qualitatively.

Bruce

Mike E.
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