Craftsmanship, Making, Technology and Things

[General Zod]

Of course, there's a question to be asked-- in some cases, isn't the "grunt work" actually part of the experience that one's looking for?

To put it in another fashion: It's better to know how to do things the 'hard' way in order to appreciate the 'easy' way all the more. If you always do things the easy way, you never push your boundaries and improve your understanding of what you're doing. If you start out the hard way, you know better what you can do and give yourself more options.

Take dovetails, an interlocking joint between two boards to form a carcase, such as cabinets and boxes. One of the most common ways to do this today is with a jig and a router bit. Ten minutes to stick the board in the jig, move around the bits of the jig until you have the right spacing, hit it with the router. Put the other board in, change to a different bit, repeat, and you're done.

But that way you're confined to the jig. You can't do boards of a different size without more jiggery-pokery or a larger jig (if you have a board larger than your current jig fits). You risk tearing up your board or screwing yourself up at 30,000 rpm with a razor-sharp bit. If you have an extra-deluxe jig, you can do various configurations-- but it'll cost.

The 'hard' way? Take a pair of dividers, play with them for a few minutes until you have the right dimensions, and lay 'em out. Take a gauge, knife in the necessary lines, fine saw down the lines. Use a coping saw to get out the waste, clean up with a chisel if necessary (and if you don't have a coping saw, you can just chisel the whole thing out). Use what you just cut to lay out the corresponding joint on the other board. Repeat, and you're good. This works for any board of any size and thickness. This does take a bit longer-- but remember, with a router, you still have to get everything lined up, so that's part of the process too, and with practice comes speed.

Speed is certainly a virtue of its own, and I absolutely won't disagree with that. For all that, though, I believe that there is something gained by knowing how to do things the "old fashioned", "hard" way. If a person only learns how to do it the "modern", "faster" way, I think that they're the poorer for it. Does it work? Sure, it wouldn't be a method if it didn't. Is it the best way? That's an argument that could go on ad nausem. What's important is what it does for the individual, and whether it deserves preservation or not.

And honestly speaking-- I fear that what we make today isn't worth preserving for the future, for the most part. Not because the future won't need it-- people will be people even 100 years ahead of us-- but because what we (this generation-ish) are leaving behind us was made by people who did not care, for people who don't care and can't tell.

I think that if you can do a job that gives you the same quality with technology while making it easier, then the technology wins out. As an example, is there any legitimate reason to paint a wall with a hand-brush instead of a roller?

[Elheru Aran]

I think that if you can do a job that gives you the same quality with technology while making it easier, then the technology wins out. As an example, is there any legitimate reason to paint a wall with a hand-brush instead of a roller?

Sure.

Say you're looking for a specific texture. There are some that you have to apply with a brush because brush-marks are part of the texture itself. A roller would leave too uniform of a surface.

The wall itself may be heavily textured (say, stucco), which can be hell with a roller; a brush goes past the material and hits it top to bottom, although this depends somewhat upon your technique.

Or you may simply not like how rollers tend to splatter when you're using them.

Maybe you're doing a mural or other kind of picture on the wall. (hey, you didn't say *how* the wall was to be painted...)

Lots of windows or architectural details such as moulding might necessitate brush-work to avoid painting areas you don't want paint upon because they're going to be a different colour.

I think a roller is the wrong tool for you to use in your example, though, as it's still sort of a "hand tool". You want something like a paint-sprayer kit.

[Broomstick]

Of course, there's a question to be asked-- in some cases, isn't the "grunt work" actually part of the experience that one's looking for?

Some types are, some aren't.

Let's take soap-making, for example. These days, there are two approached to making hand-made and scented soaps. The more common one is to take already manufactured soap, like castille soap, melt it down and add the scents and additives you desire. Nothing wrong with that, it can be a lot of fun.

The other way is to actually do the saponification chemistry yourself. These days, a rubber apron, protective gloves, and eye protection are seen as minimum requirements. Why? Because lye is fucking caustic and it can burn or blind you. One reason soap wasn't extremely common until the industrial age was because of the dangers in making it. People did get blinded and maimed in the past. You had to be very, very careful and usually made small batches. Technology in the form of safety gear has vastly improved this aspect of the craft. That's a good thing.

Take dovetails, an interlocking joint between two boards to form a carcase, such as cabinets and boxes. One of the most common ways to do this today is with a jig and a router bit. Ten minutes to stick the board in the jig, move around the bits of the jig until you have the right spacing, hit it with the router. Put the other board in, change to a different bit, repeat, and you're done.

But that way you're confined to the jig. You can't do boards of a different size without more jiggery-pokery or a larger jig (if you have a board larger than your current jig fits). You risk tearing up your board or screwing yourself up at 30,000 rpm with a razor-sharp bit. If you have an extra-deluxe jig, you can do various configurations-- but it'll cost.

The 'hard' way? Take a pair of dividers, play with them for a few minutes until you have the right dimensions, and lay 'em out. Take a gauge, knife in the necessary lines, fine saw down the lines. Use a coping saw to get out the waste, clean up with a chisel if necessary (and if you don't have a coping saw, you can just chisel the whole thing out). Use what you just cut to lay out the corresponding joint on the other board. Repeat, and you're good. This works for any board of any size and thickness. This does take a bit longer-- but remember, with a router, you still have to get everything lined up, so that's part of the process too, and with practice comes speed.

The funny thing is I owe a computer-controlled router that can accommodate any board up to 4 feet by 8 feet (1.22m by 2.44m). Of course, you still have to tell it what to do, which conceptually isn't that different from using dividers and a pencil on a real board. Still have to do finishing work on the result, too. It's more creative than using a pre-made jig because you aren't using someone else's template, you have to still make the decisions yourself. Of course, there's also the difference between using a pre-made pattern and actually designing something entirely yourself.

I use electric sanders, too. I just don't see the virtue in spending hours and hours sanding by hand. Especially with aging joints and a partner with a history of wrist problems and carpel tunnel syndrome. That's another thing technology does – it removes limitations that come with age. Things like arthritis don't have to prematurely end and artisan's career these days.

Technology doesn't have to result in an inferior product. In the old days of apprentices and journeymen and masters there was a LOT of substandard crap made by the lower echelons as they learned their trade. No doubt those items were sold cheaply, and when they broke down were either discarded or recycled into something else. Don't forget that our sample of prior works is slanted because we are only seeing what was built well enough to survive time and wear. We talk about the Ulfberht swords, which were masterpieces, but not about the piece of crap turned out by a journeymen blacksmith that shattered on its first encounter with an Ulfberht. Most swords weren't as good as Ulfberhts.

I think there's enough people these days still learning the old way and the hand way of doing things to keep the knowledge alive, and a lot of people will do things like vegetable dyeing fibers or grinding paint pigments by hand just to see what it's like but the fact is commercial production of a lot of things results in more consistency and in many ways a better product.

[His Divine Shadow]

I wasn't commenting as much on craftmanship with my earlier post, those products I showed are quite industrially mass produced. It's just done to a higher quality and better tolerances with heavier materials more suited to the job.

The same German company is still making the same model (small changes) it and there I think is part of the answer as to why we're buying so much cheap crap instead, the new model now costs €7500! Who would pay that, it's as much as a car, many months salary for most of us.

Though it also makes me wonder, maybe we could have afforded it, if we like back then, where still having a strong manufacturing economy with well paid jobs for the masses, instead of this more service-oriented economy which has seen no real growth for the middle class since the 70s and we're only pulling by now because both parents are working in the typical household.

[salm]

You can bracket exposure on film too (less convenient and more expensive, sure) - it's also quite hard to get natural-looking tone mappings in situations more complex than "bright sky dark landscape".

Yeah, we kind of did that in the job I mentioned above some times. Back then I had never heard of HDRI but the Photographer would sometimes bring two or three exposures of an image to scan and then layer on top of each other. The classic example is an interior dayshot where you can see the outside through a window and the outside blows out.
Besides having to scan several images you also have to correct distortions caused by the scanner. I guess this can be taken care of with modern adjusting software.
The real inconvenience is the lack of cheap storage. If you want to shoot series of 7 or 9 exposures this gets expensive pretty fast.

I find that good cellphone cameras are entirely adequate with perfect light, else the combination of limited controls and small photosites results in blown highlights, excessive noise, etc.

I've found the cell phone to be completely inadequate if I want to add certain special effects, work with long exposures or use it in poor lighting without a flash, but I probably don't fit the average camera user. Oh, and you can't zoom for crap on a cell phone and still maintain crisp images beyond a certain point the way you can with a 500mm telephoto. But I fully agree about bringing the prices down.

Yeah, but then blown highlights are the smalles problem in most images. The thing that makes most pictures bad is that most people don´t know anything about composition, color theory and have no understanding or feeling for good photos.
It doesn´t matter if the average person shoots with an iPhone or a D7. The image is most likely going to suck.
There are exceptions. Some people just have talent and sometimes I´m amazed how some people make great photos without any kind of theoretical knowledge. They just snap away intuitively and the results are great.

[Broomstick]

There is also simple luck - sometimes you snap at just the right moment.

The other thing is taking lots of pictures. Back in the days of film that could get expensive, but with digital cameras and modern storage it's easy to take thousands of pictures then sift through them and just save the decent ones.

[General Zod]

Yeah, but then blown highlights are the smalles problem in most images. The thing that makes most pictures bad is that most people don´t know anything about composition, color theory and have no understanding or feeling for good photos.
It doesn´t matter if the average person shoots with an iPhone or a D7. The image is most likely going to suck.

I've found most people really don't have a clue about lighting. So they end up getting pictures with too many shadows, not enough shadows or pictures that have the flash on when they really shouldn't. The amount of tourists I see trying to take a picture of something 100 feet away with their flash on is mind-boggling.

There are exceptions. Some people just have talent and sometimes I´m amazed how some people make great photos without any kind of theoretical knowledge. They just snap away intuitively and the results are great.

I've heard some people use postcards for benchmarks when they're taking pictures. So they might not realize exactly what all goes into making a good photo, but they figure if they can make it look as good as a post-card that's going to be good enough.

[Elheru Aran]

Though it also makes me wonder, maybe we could have afforded it, if we like back then, where still having a strong manufacturing economy with well paid jobs for the masses, instead of this more service-oriented economy which has seen no real growth for the middle class since the 70s and we're only pulling by now because both parents are working in the typical household.

This is an excellent point.

High quality hand tools always have cost a lot of money. The modern versions of same have actually not increased all that much in price. Consider a Stanley Bedrock plane. Modern versions made by Lie-Nielsen are $200 and upward.
http://www.lie-nielsen.com/standard-bench-planes/

If you consider inflation, that's probably about the same as they cost back in the day! $20 in 1934 is approximately $353, which is about what a standard #5 jack plane costs if you include shipping and tax.

(This is a highly useful site, btw: http://www.dollartimes.com/inflation/inflation.php?)

What's changed?

Overseas manufacturing, for the most part. Lie-Nielsen planes are made in the US. You can buy a modern Stanley (not a Bedrock type) made in England for around $100. It'll be serviceable enough, but not terribly impressive compared to the L-N. You can buy Indian- or Chinese-made clones of Stanley planes for prices ranging from $80 all the way down to $20; quality will very obviously vary.

So what happened to Western (mostly America but to a lesser extent Europe) economies was that starting around the 60s and carrying on to now, you see that lovely lower-middle-class bracket of manufacturing jobs, stuff that paid, oh, say $10 a hour (in 1960s dollars, that's around 75ish bucks. Maybe 10 is a bit much) blowing away to other countries, leaving a nice big gap between flipping burgers and shuffling papers.

And I believe it is absolutely no coincidence that you see the decline in quality tools start around then. Not only are people not making them in the country they use them in anymore (apart from niche guys like Lie-Nielsen and such), they can't afford to buy them. Unfortunately this is not something that you're going to see change much until the economic paradigm changes.

[General Zod]

What's changed?

Overseas manufacturing, for the most part. Lie-Nielsen planes are made in the US. You can buy a modern Stanley (not a Bedrock type) made in England for around $100. It'll be serviceable enough, but not terribly impressive compared to the L-N. You can buy Indian- or Chinese-made clones of Stanley planes for prices ranging from $80 all the way down to $20; quality will very obviously vary.

So what happened to Western (mostly America but to a lesser extent Europe) economies was that starting around the 60s and carrying on to now, you see that lovely lower-middle-class bracket of manufacturing jobs, stuff that paid, oh, say $10 a hour (in 1960s dollars, that's around 75ish bucks. Maybe 10 is a bit much) blowing away to other countries, leaving a nice big gap between flipping burgers and shuffling papers.

And I believe it is absolutely no coincidence that you see the decline in quality tools start around then. Not only are people not making them in the country they use them in anymore (apart from niche guys like Lie-Nielsen and such), they can't afford to buy them. Unfortunately this is not something that you're going to see change much until the economic paradigm changes.

Economy of scale thanks to modern manufacturing. Once you make back the initial set up fees for the machinery to push the first few batches of product out the door, you can afford to lower the prices and make them more affordable to the average customer. You can also spend time figuring out which parts of the process you can refine or get rid of to make the same product for less time and raw materials, and lower prices even more.

[Elheru Aran]

Economy of scale thanks to modern manufacturing. Once you make back the initial set up fees for the machinery to push the first few batches of product out the door, you can afford to lower the prices and make them more affordable to the average customer. You can also spend time figuring out which parts of the process you can refine or get rid of to make the same product for less time and raw materials, and lower prices even more.

Sounds good. However, I am not sure I see the point you're making (how it applies to what I was talking about)?

[General Zod]

Economy of scale thanks to modern manufacturing. Once you make back the initial set up fees for the machinery to push the first few batches of product out the door, you can afford to lower the prices and make them more affordable to the average customer. You can also spend time figuring out which parts of the process you can refine or get rid of to make the same product for less time and raw materials, and lower prices even more.

Sounds good. However, I am not sure I see the point you're making (how it applies to what I was talking about)?

On second thought I'm not entirely sure either. I blame not being awake yet.

[Melchior]

I guess this can be taken care of with modern adjusting software.

You need to do it by hand in photoshop or similar programs - it could be automated with profiles for various models, but for some reasons scanning software is always terrible.

Craftsmanship in the camera market (a bit like the situation of clothing) survives only in the absolute high end, where you can buy an Alpa, affix your medium format back and helicoid-mounted Rodenstock HR Digaron-S lens and go hike in the mountains with a small house's worth of gear in your backpack.

[salm]

I guess this can be taken care of with modern adjusting software.

You need to do it by hand in photoshop or similar programs - it could be automated with profiles for various models, but for some reasons scanning software is always terrible.

There is software that does this kind of thing for you. You scan all your exposures and then let a programm (for example PTGui and I´m sure there´s some add on for PS for this as well) layer them on top of each other and do the blending. Creating 360 degree HDRI panoramas would be a nightmare without software like that.

Craftsmanship in the camera market (a bit like the situation of clothing) survives only in the absolute high end, where you can buy an Alpa, affix your medium format back and helicoid-mounted Rodenstock HR Digaron-S lens and go hike in the mountains with a small house's worth of gear in your backpack.

Yeah, the panorama photographers are quite crafty when it comes to automatically rotating pano heads controlled via smart phone and things like that. Personally I never liked the idea of having to carry around extra weight just so I don´t have to rotate the camera a couple of times by hand but I guess it comes in handy when you have to shoot difficult to reach locations.

[Melchior]

There is software that does this kind of thing for you. You scan all your exposures and then let a programm (for example PTGui and I´m sure there´s some add on for PS for this as well) layer them on top of each other and do the blending. Creating 360 degree HDRI panoramas would be a nightmare without software like that.

Sorry, I was a bit vague; auto-stitching and assistend-stitching programs work pretty well - it's digital correction of optical flaws in raw scanned output that isn't very advanced compared to digital correction of optical flaws in raw files from cameras in packages like DxO optics (or in the camera itself).