A Profound Revolution

From "The Village Carpenter" 1938Although the table saw and planer were invented in the early 19th century, it was only in the 20th century - with the invention of small electric motors and ubiquitous electricity - that professional shops, and later, amateurs, started using saws, planers and jointers on a mass scale. This development substantively changed the process of sourcing wood. If you're imagining woodworkers buying wood in rough thickness and then substantially planing it down by hand, think again. Woodworkers typically bought material, or had it custom sawn for a specific purpose at close to final thickness. In "The Village Carpenter Walter Rose describes having sawyers saw green wood to the right thickness from the get-go for drawers and carcasses and other uses. It was important that the wood was well selected so it was stable and didn't need a huge amount of hand planning to be flat. With the introduction of machines, that was not only unnecessary, but the selection and…