From "The Village Carpenter" 1938
Although 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 seasoning of the wood was no longer critical. With the elimination of finicky steps, processing wood became much less expensive. The savings associated with using machines was huge. No need for labor just to plane things flat. And sawing accurately entailed far less mandatory skill.
The first companies to have these machines were lumber yards. "Sam, an East-End cabinet-maker: the pocket-book memoir of Sam Clarke, 1907-1979," includes Clark's description of laying out material for a bedroom set and taking it by cart (no cars) to a nearby lumber yard to be planed. This was London in the early 1930s.
By the 1950s, the revolution was complete. With the gains came losses. The most obvious losses were the growing use of less stable wood and the steep reduction in the range of sizes of materials. If the wood was going to warp anyway, you needed extra material to flatten the board in your shop, so instead of stable material nearly the thickness you wanted, you bought material in 1/4 increments and planned away 1/8" or so. Easy by machine, but not so easy by hand. The machines also allowed a new generation of hobbyists, ones without years of training, to be able to build work in a reasonable time.
This change represented a massive revolution in the way woodworking was done from ancient times to the 19th century. We can argue the pluses and minuses, but the massive changes in the way furniture is made are here to stay.
We are now on the cusp of another profound revolution. Or revolutions. Additive manufacturer (3d printing) is becoming better and better and more shops are using it for a variety of work. Jigs and fixtures to speed up assembly are a typical use of 3D printing, and 3D printed hardware is becoming more and more common. Some designers are experimenting with totally new forms of furniture, some of which is totally 3D printed. In another area, AI tools, which are filling the headlines these days, are helping designers quickly prototype designs to show clients. More importantly, AI tools have the potential to increase the efficiency of the office work of any shop. How these new tools are changing our work - for better and worse - is an important story I will save for another day.
From "The Village Carpenter" 1938 From "The Bench Saw Jointer and Shaper" The WALKER-TURNER CO 1934
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05/20/2026 Jack Haefner
Thanks, Joel. It takes several days for me to recover from reducing rough boards by 1/4" even with a good scorp...but still not giving that up.
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