Tool V Machine

I work with wood most days. Much of my work is with tools. I don’t mean machines. Americans in general call machines tools. It’s what gets the job done. The term has spilled over into other countries now and so the word needs redefining or reasserting. It’s dispiriting to call machines tools because the machine needs no skill and no energy from you. Your task is to feed the machine with wood.

The difference between a machine and a tool lies in one simple fact: A tool is the extension of a man’s hand. He provides the creative sphere into the multi dimensional world of working wood. He energizes the tool, gives it direction and momentum. He is the power that forces the tool and alters its course in response to his senses sensing the grain as he works the wood. He feeds the tool into the wood. A machine can never be a tool except as the brute is ignorant and insensitive. Here in is the contrast. With a machine the man feeds the wood into the machine’s cutting edges whereas, with hand tools, the hand feeds the cutting edge to the wood.

 

The bandsaw and the lathe are two exceptions in general. The man manipulates the wood into the bandsaw and creates shape by eye and on the lathe he uses the machine only to spin the wood as he manipulates the tool to effect the cut according to his will. These two machines are indeed still limited by one thing that controls all machines: They rely on a fixed-axis rotary cut. Unlike the human hand that work in any plane and changes direction moment by moment at the will of the head and hand controlling it.