DAEDlab commandment #1: NEVER let the machine do your job for you.
Your job is not hacksawing, or filing, or grinding, or sanding, or lapping. These are not occupations, they are operations. These are appropriate tasks for machines.
YOUR job is design, and the machines mustn’t interfere with it or they will take over the world. And they will make of it a digital cubicle of nothing but square components and the occasional perfect circle.
NEVER let the machines near the drawing pad.
DAEDlab commandment #2: NEVER purchase a machine until you do not NEED it.
If you cannot already do the machine’s job by hand, the machine will outwit you. If you cannot joint and plane boards by hand, the jointer will make you design projects with no boards wider than 6 or 8 inches. If you cannot saw a pleasing scroll by hand, the machine will turn your lovely curve into a simple half-circle.
The road to ugly is paved with small concessions to simplicity.
More on what the hell this is about soon. I promise.
Jamboree Jack says
Judgement Day is coming.
Julio Alonso Diaz says
Hi Mr
I love your commandments, keep it up !
Michael Rogen says
I’ve a confession; I’m a bad machine!
CraigD says
As they saying goes – all things in moderation, including moderation. At this moment, I have a partially machined part sitting on the notepad. It might be scrap, it might live but it lets me hold it, twist it, look at it from all angles and shines light on the path forward.
But, not the first thing to do.
BTW – do you post on Instagram? It is a great way to show quickie progress shots (eg check out Phillyplanes).
Brian Noel says
I think this should be posted on the shop wall. Those plugged in beasts are to be servants only and not masters.
TJIC says
“Lounge against the Machine” ? You’re not making a Richard Cheese reference there, are you?
Keep up the awesome shop pictures; I’ve been an addict for years.