Noticed a weird trend with junior carpenters skipping hand tools

I was on a site in Denver last Tuesday and watched three guys in their twenties all reach for the same cordless trim router to cut a door jamb. Nobody even looked at the block plane sitting right there on the bench. It took me maybe 45 seconds to do that same job by hand a few years ago. Has anyone else seen this shift or am I just getting old?

3 comments

3 Comments

emma_baker612d ago

Honestly, that drives me crazy! I saw the same thing last week at a job in Austin, three young guys spent ten minutes fighting with a cordless drill driver to sink some screws when a simple hand brace would have done it faster. Ngl, it's like they think power tools are the only way to get anything done. Tbh I feel like some of them never even learned how to use a block plane or a chisel properly because they just grab the router for everything. I'm not even that old and I already feel like a dinosaur watching them work.

bailey.jennifer2d ago

Kinda feel like it's not that big of a deal though?

mason_reed471d ago

@bailey.jennifer it kind of is a big deal when you watch guys burn through batteries and waste twenty minutes setting up a tool that does the same job a block plane does in under a minute. Did any of those three kids even know how to sharpen a plane iron properly, or is the planer just gonna get tossed when it gets dull?