So what are power tools?

Working wood for 47 years has left its impression on me. My hands work differently than other people's hands and my mind wrestles through critical issues others never have to contend with. Had I never worked with my hands I could only present you with one perspective and that would be that power tools replaced hand methods because hand methods were archaic and we replaced them with something better because we are superior beings than men and women of old, right? Wrong.

If I tell you that I like machines and the functions they perform help me in my work I would be telling the truth. If I told you that machines were highly dangerous and that the woodworking group are recognized universally as the most dangers group of power machines used in any area of woodworking that would also be true. At one time we referred to machines only as machines. There was no other term used to describe them. Something shifted in the US and manufacturers of deadly machines changed the term machine to, you guessed it, Power Tools. Power tools are what get the job done and get it done yesterday. Faster, more efficient, easier, accurate are all terms used to describe this modern-day phenomenon. We never use other terms like dirty, dusty, invasive, non-creative, loud, damaging, unsafe, harmful and dozens more that equally inform us of truths we should know about the power tools.

Most woodworkers relying on this category of so-called tools fail to realise that this type of tool, which is nothing more than a glorified machine, not only dumbs down woodworking, but eliminates children from the workshop. So, I conclude that power tool woodworking and the New Yankee Workshop has served only to disempower children. Children find no place in the machine-only workshop and therefor to call them power tools serves only the cause of mass-machine makers and not the cause of getting the next generation of woodworkers into the woodshop.

Love your kids? Spend time with the real power tools. Sharp hand tools really work, and guess what? With the right supervision, children too can use sharp tools. Pass it on!