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I'm curious... pre-war, what did a power-driven shop look like in the typical working class basement or shed? hand tools I can picture, but were there good choices for wood and metal working using electricity? Was it the post-war phenomenon that led to the powered home shop or were they at all common during the new deal era?

enyoc wrote:I'm curious... pre-war, what did a power-driven shop look like in the typical working class basement or shed? hand tools I can picture, but were there good choices for wood and metal working using electricity? Was it the post-war phenomenon that led to the powered home shop or were they at all common during the new deal era?

I do not know, but they did not likely include jack-shafts!:D

I assume you were referring to WWII.

enyoc wrote:I'm curious... pre-war, what did a power-driven shop look like in the typical working class basement or shed? hand tools I can picture, but were there good choices for wood and metal working using electricity? Was it the post-war phenomenon that led to the powered home shop or were they at all common during the new deal era?

My dad had what we would today call a benchtop tablesaw. I think it was made by Craftsmen. Had a belt drive to a separate (you supply your own) motor. It was all cast iron, had extension wings open grate cast iron and a fence. No blade guard or at least ours never did. He used it from 1939 until 1992. Then due to a huge error in communications between him and my mother it was given to a friend of the family instead me getting it.

The motor also had two sharpening stones and pulley to drive the saw. So you could sharpen or saw. The motor was also used to drive the lathe and drill press which I mention below.

He also had a drill press and lathe but he sold them to good friend that needed them for a chair making factory in 1947. The guy that had the factory had a bandsaw, plane, jointer and blade sharpening equipment all pre war dated stuff that we were able to use because of the drill press and lathe.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's mostly a post-war phenomenon.

There've always been "gentlemen woodworkers," even 200 years with their spring-pole lathes. But, that was mainly for the rich. Pre-war, there were relatively few middle class guys with time to spare, and even professionals had a lot fewer power tools than they do today.

I've got no data to support my position, though. So maybe I'm completely wrong.

davebodner wrote:I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's mostly a post-war phenomenon.

There've always been "gentlemen woodworkers," even 200 years with their spring-pole lathes. But, that was mainly for the rich. Pre-war, there were relatively few middle class guys with time to spare, and even professionals had a lot fewer power tools than they do today.

I've got no data to support my position, though. So maybe I'm completely wrong.

Actually my father never did hobby woodworking. He help build our house and helped build my uncle's house, and he helped build neighbors houses. He also had to do all repairs as they had no money to pay to have it done.
He also helped the neighbor log out the woods behind our house so he got his wood real cheap. The saw was a necessity or so my dad felt. The lathe and drill press served to build the houses and wasn't needed so that is why he sold them.

They took a 20 year mortgage on $3,000 so you can tell they were rolling in it. Mortgage was paid in full 1959. In 1939 that bought 1 acre, 2 bedrooms, 2 story bungalow with full basement and full walk up attic which later became another bedroom and a sewing room. In 1959 it would probably cost $4000.

Then people started buying houses for "investments" (lol) and prices went nuts.

The only person I ever knew that did "quote" hobby woodworking was my neighbor. Which was after the war.

All pre war and most post woodworking to my knowledge was done to either repair or add something needed to live that they could not buy.

That changed in the late 50's early 60's when guys had time and money to build bird houses and gun cabinets.

davebodner wrote:I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's mostly a post-war phenomenon.

There've always been "gentlemen woodworkers," even 200 years with their spring-pole lathes. But, that was mainly for the rich. Pre-war, there were relatively few middle class guys with time to spare, and even professionals had a lot fewer power tools than they do today.

I've got no data to support my position, though. So maybe I'm completely wrong.

I would say that your thoughts are pretty close...
Shops (of sorts) were maybe more common among the poorer folks in the depression as they looked for ways to make a few bucks since they often didn't have regular jobs. Farmers did more woodworking I believe than the average Joe just because it was kind of part of farming and many of them did part time carpentry. Many picked up enough skills to move on into furniture from that.
Woodworking machinery was available then especially through Wards and Sears but not that many could afford it just as a hobby. If a guy had 4 pieces of machinery it was likely that he only had 1 good electric motor to run them with and he moved it from machine to machine.
In spite of a lot of complaining about how tough things were right up until WW-II my father was never able to explain to my satisfaction how that in 1936 he owned a 1935 Plymouth and a 1936 Plymouth and then bought a 1937 Willys sedan brand new.
About 1938 he designed and built a new house for his parents to replace one that had previously burned on a farm they had bought. He used a saw he designed and built that used an arbor assembly on a steel frame that ran on 4 new steel rollerskate wheels that ran captive in another steel frame. I still have that arbor assembly here somewhere. He didn't like swing saws at all, he knew a few guys that had gotten hurt using them and felt that his saw was safer. It was a bit more like using a RAS.
When WW-II started he tried to enlist but they wouldn't take him so he went to work at the then Allison Aircraft in Indy testing aircraft engines 12 hours a day 7 days a week (1942 to 1945) and was also farming (grain, hay, hogs, sheep and a small herd of milk cows. No time for woodworking or much of anything else.
About the only woodworking he did after the war was carpentry work until the middle 1950's. At that time few carpenters in this area used any power tools. It was about all done by hand. In those days new home sites here didn't have early power supplies like we do now.
I recall a few "home" shops from around 1950 or so and many only had either a very simple bench table saw or maybe only a jigsaw...
I think magazines like Popular Mechanics and Mechanics Illustrated and a few others had a lot to do with the growth of home shops...


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I find it interesting that Stanley Tool started selling tool cabinet sets for the home shop after WW I. 1922/23 seems to be when Stanley began selling these kits of hand tools in wall and bench cabinets of various sizes. Some of these kits are labled for boys. All are hand tools and many were pulled from the market during WWII. In a Sargent Tool Catalog for 1911' only two cabinet tool kits are offered for sale. In my library I also have the following: Turning for Amateurs, 1884; Exercises In Wood-Working, 1890; Bench Work in Wood, 1901; Tinkering With Tools, 1924; It's Fun To Build Things,1937; Getting the Most Out of Your Circular Saw and Jointer by Delta, 1937; Build It Yourself, 1943;

My grandfather was a mechanic for Cadillac in Aurora, I'll. In the 1920's he built a shop in the basement of his house in a suburb that was started on the family farmland in Aurora. Given the Stanley catalogs and other books it looks like the DIY market really took off in the 1920s with the rise of suburbs. High school and college classes in the Manuel arts also contributed to this. By the late 30's power tools were beginning to move into the market and really took off post-WWII.

I should add to my post that Stanley had 34 different kinds and sizes of cabinet kits for the home shop that they offered in 1922/23. That tells me they smelled a DIY home shop market. I have also seen Stanley ads from the 1920's that feature father and son in the basement shop building a project with the Stanley kit nearby. I will have to look for one of those.

Yes I think the major change in home woodworking took place shortly after the first world war and years before the second.

In fact most of the people that mentored me in Woodworking picked up their training in that period of time. When they started training me in late 50's most have been woodworking 20 years or more.

Again most of their skill was repair and building essentials. The design and more art -ish endeavors in the home shop seemed to pop in the years after the war. But there were always the masters in centuries past.