Hand Planes vs. Power Planes

I am seeing many posts about electricity and Amish and planers versus planes.  I can't help thinking I had some part in this with my list of reasons hand planes were better than planers.

I was reading some posts a while back and one was about a class for Normites about hand planes. It asked for wow factors for the demo.  Well I read it wrong and thought it asked for reasons that hand planes were better.  So I made up my list.

Now there are all these posts about using electricity and how a modern shop has hand and power tools etc.  There are a lot of Amish people up where I live, I pass their farms everyday, see them at Wal*Mart etc.  One nice Amish Gentleman told another shopper if he was short of cash he would pay for the entire cart of groceries.  A lot of Amish people have appliances, fridges, stoves etc.  They mostly run on kerosene.  I saw an article from an old Fine Woodworking about an Amish shop.  A gas powered motor ran all of the normal Norm type power tools using a system of belts and pulleys.  Ingenious.

Amish people are well known for fine woodworking.  And yes they don't use most modern convinces, electricity, insurance, cars, phones, TV, computers, etc.

I use only hand tools because I like them. I've had bad power tool experiences.  Ever have a circular saw shoot backwards cutting up the bathroom floor?  How about a router table shooting a drawer guide across the room?  I couldn't afford quality power tools either. I am danger prone, I gave up power tools before  I got really hurt.  Some people use power tools for their entire life and never get hurt, that is great.

There is nothing wrong with how any person chooses to do their woodwork.

Hand, power, both.  It's up to you.  Some parts of hand tool working take longer than a power tool would, some don't.  There should not be any need for someone to feel bad for using whatever they use.  Our list is for old tools and usually that means hand tools.  Not that we are elitists or snobs or anything. We just like using hand tools.  Like St Roy said "You can look at this approach [Hand tools only] as conceit, as a discipline...

Let's face it: choosing to work with muscle-powered hand tools makes you a little bit stronger and healthier every time you do it, and it does a bit less damage to the only planet we've got."  I also know that St Roy uses a computer and has used chainsaws before too.

Bad Andy