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Under Construction 5-14-08
"Today, sales of light power tools total more than 100 million dollars yearly, and more than 14 million persons have workshops in their homes."
Source: Edward L. Throm, ed, Fifty Years of Popular Mechanics, 1902-1952 New York: Simon and Schuster, 1951, page 233
Before World War II, the average square footage of American homes was
considerbly less than after, especially given the housing boom that
grew out of the economic engine that World War II produced. In new
homes, an area in the attached, two-car garage, freqeuntly is -- most
frequently -- the setting where areas for woodworking tools is
estanblished. But basement workshops are popular as well. See the graph for shifts in housing size in the 20th
century, decade by decade, on this page. A useful survey
of post WW II residences, "Selected Post-World War II Residential Architectural Styles
and Building Types",
issued by the Center for Historic Preservation Research, Office of
Archaeology and Historic Preservation, Colorado Historical Society,
2006 is the first of what I hope will be several accessible documents
on post war housing design. This 16 page pdf document -- illustrated
with numerous colored photos of house types -- give extensive
descriptions of the design attributes of each house type.
The increase in numbers of attached garages -- especially the two-car
garage -- presented more space, although it is space that must be
shared with automobiles. (Need to find out whether the post-WW II house
is more frequently built on a concrete slab, at ground level, or ir the
popularity of basements in homes continued.) All these issues arre
addressed in more detail in chapter 7:3.
The radial arm saw, and the Shopsmith combination tool, continue to be
prime choices as first purchases as major tools in homeworkshops. The
router, more and more, is viewed as a desirable tool in home workshops.
I will have more on this shortly.
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Conditions in Europe, especially West Germany, in Post
World War II
(I am indebted to Charlie Belden for this material on
woodworking technology in Europe, especially Germany, in the Post World
War II era.)
At the end of WWII much
of Europe lay in ruins. Industrial
capacity was either severely damaged or still geared to the War effort
(producing military
goods, i.e., products a civilian population couldn't buy and/or didntt
want or need).
The effect on males of working age was just as devastating --
causalities of the war -- leaving mainly males too young and too
inexperienced to
work in jobs that required much skill, or with experience and skill,
physically, or psychologically unable to work. There was a severe labor
shortage.
Add to that the impact of war on access to raw materials, the
transportation system
to get it to where it could be used and facilities to convert it to
useable civilian goods.
And all that was on the Supply Side. On the Demand Side, again,
focusing on woodworking, a desperate need existed to replace
housing, including kitchen cabinetry.
Thus Germany faced a high demand for traditional materials
(wood boards) in limited supply, and few workers available who
possessed craftsman skills and
tools needed to make traditional solid wood furniture.
BUT what existed in plentiful supply was plenty of wood debris --
the product of "carpet" bombing by the Allies in WW II
-- which German technology quickly learned to convert into
"manufactured wood products".
Not plywood, however -- plywood emerged out the 1920s -- but
composites like particle board and an early version of Medium
Density Fiberboard (MDF).
With a little paint, kitchen and bathroom cabinets made from these
materials serve the purposes traditional solid wood furniture
previously filled.
Moreover, "manufactured wood products" could be
made in very uniform thicknesses and sizes - AND - remain dimensionally
stable.
Stock in uniform dimensions and dimensionally stable was crucial to the
change that commercial woodworking would undergo after the WW II
in Europe.
With a limited, unskilled labor force, a severely damaged
infrastructure, a major shortage of traditional raw
materials, "workshop space" severely limited, but demand for cabinetry
extremely high, European woodworking was able to develop a solution to
this Supply and Demand challenge, and, through a convergence of
innovation and technology,
change woodworking. With the "sheet goods" now standardized another
German figured out a way, with a few specialized
hand held machines and special relatively small jigs, to get around the
need for workers with very specialized skills that took a long time to
develop.
Rather than individual skilled craftsmen using traditional hand tools,
or industrial factory workers operating capital intensive industrial
machines, a "system" was developed to (a) efficiently use
the initially limited availability sheet goods and (b) make it possible
for unskilled workers to convert sheet goods into cabinet carcases,
drawers, doors and shelves. The makers of cabinet hardware - hinges,
drawer pulls, drawer glides, etc., soon standardized key dimensions of
their products to this new standardized cabinet making system. That
system, with some variations, is the main method of making kitchen
cabinets today.
The Thirty-Two Millimeter (32-mm) System
It's called the thirty-two millimeter (32-mm) system. Perhaps the most
easily recognized hardware that goes with the 32-- mm system is the
Euro-Hinge, Blum being the most recognized manufacturer of these types
of hinges. As mentioned earlier, the tools and techniques for making
the 32-mm system cabinets are hand-held power tools, either power tools
already in use for other purposes, or specialized tools, jigs and
fixtures were developed specifically for the 32-mm System. The 32-mm
System also provided many advantages over traditional solid wood
cabinetry making. First, the parts could leave the shop "knocked down"
and assembled "on site". While the weight of the finished cabinet was
the same, the volume until final assembly was significantly less than
that of the assembled cabinet. That meant that the space needed to
store "on hand" and transport volume was greatly reduced as well.
Small regional shops with specialized tools and workers could make and
distribute the "knocked down" furniture and
a less well trained local could, with a minimum of tools or skills,
could assemble the cabinets "on site". (Can you say IKEA boys and
girls?)
The 32-mm system revolutionized Euro-cabinet making. No big factory,
filled with large capital investment tools and machines, no big
centralized warehouses, no big trucks needed to transport the goods to
customers - or distributors - required. A very efficient, cost
effective way to meet one of the challenges Europe faced at the end of
the war, and the next 10 plus years. Like any good innovation, it has,
for the most part, displaced what came before, traditional solid wood,
free standing furniture construction.
Now the interesting thing about this change in HOW cabinets are made,
WHAT they are made of, and all but the tools
developed in Europe for this method, is that while the Americans
adopted some of this new "system" we adapted it to
our "old" woodworking tools and machines - the American independent
streak, and ego, working against us.
Fifty years late, but more and more of the Euro hand-held power tools
and other parts of the 32-mm System cabinet making process are becoming
available to, and popular with, American amateur/hobbyist woodworkers -
often at what seems to be
a premium price. (My Elu router is an early example of this post-WWII
European technology.)
Festool woodworking products appear, initially, to be exorbitantly
expensive. But that's because we?re still thinking in terms of Bigger
Is Better and more expensive than smaller, lighter, easier to set up
and use, but just as effective, hand-held power tools and unfamiliar,
standardized benches, jigs, fixtures and guides that go with them as
part of a System. For much of woodworking's "Heavy Iron"
(big-footprint, awkward, heavy cast-iron machines), their days are
numbered. Elegant and efficient will replace the early to mid 20th
century American woodworking machines.
And that comes just in time. The Greening of the World will benefit
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