I spent yesterday at the Brisbane Wood Show and I spent a lot of the time taking with and watching people who make things using old construction methods. The average age of these people seems to me to be mostly older. Not all of them but the younger men seemed to be fewer in number. But whatever the age distribution I was left wondering about the fate of the old skills.
We who love wood and the tools that shape it, we hold a heritage of skills which, apart from us would probably die out within a few generations, Indeed the old skills may yet die out. Within the next few years the majority of new dwellings constructed will be units and town houses. This trend is likely to continue as the cost of land and building forces young people onto ever smaller parcels of land. The backyard shed may be doomed to extinction. I hope not. The modern furniture factory doubtless produces cheap and useful products. But I wonder how many of the young cabinet makers who do their time have an appreciation of solid timber, tools and skills that are the domain of the weekend warrior. Some may, but the number can only be small. And once they do their time, how often do they get to use these old skills. Not often. I suppose that a modern cabinet maker would soon go broke if they tried to construct solid timber objects using the same construction methods as we might do on a Sunday afternoon. But surely the old skills have a value worth preserving. How this is to be done, I do not know.
There must be some hope however. Veritas and Lie Neilsen seem to be doing okay making replicas of old hand tools and the markets I go to seem to be doing alright in selling old tools too. But when the backyard shed is a memory for most people what will happen then?
We who love wood and the tools that shape it, we hold a heritage of skills which, apart from us would probably die out within a few generations, Indeed the old skills may yet die out. Within the next few years the majority of new dwellings constructed will be units and town houses. This trend is likely to continue as the cost of land and building forces young people onto ever smaller parcels of land. The backyard shed may be doomed to extinction. I hope not. The modern furniture factory doubtless produces cheap and useful products. But I wonder how many of the young cabinet makers who do their time have an appreciation of solid timber, tools and skills that are the domain of the weekend warrior. Some may, but the number can only be small. And once they do their time, how often do they get to use these old skills. Not often. I suppose that a modern cabinet maker would soon go broke if they tried to construct solid timber objects using the same construction methods as we might do on a Sunday afternoon. But surely the old skills have a value worth preserving. How this is to be done, I do not know.
There must be some hope however. Veritas and Lie Neilsen seem to be doing okay making replicas of old hand tools and the markets I go to seem to be doing alright in selling old tools too. But when the backyard shed is a memory for most people what will happen then?
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