I noticed this phantastical machine-come-jig-come-woodrat-alternative today. It’s expensive! I wonder if it will live up to the hype?
Surely there is a well-orf machine-mad bloke out there in Knotsland who will be enamoured enough of this to buy one and give us all an unbiased report? (No, it’s not me). 😉
http://www.ultracut.co.uk/about.html
And a “test report” (or is it really just a gush):
http://www.woodworkersinstitute.com/page.asp?p=664
Lataxe, always fascinated by clever gizmos.
Replies
Lataxe,
I did a quick calculation on the cost of this thing delivered in the US and it's around $2000 with accessories for the free-standing model.
Nice piece of engineering. In a busy shop it would probably pay for itself quickly. For a well-heeled gentleman dabbling in furniture making it would look very nice next to some high-end Euro equipment.
It is a bit over the top. I've seen equivalent devices designed of wood. This takes the engineering and fit and finish much further. I love engineering. It's just a matter discretionary income whether one uses a few inexpensive hand tools to do the very same thing this machine makes easy, or any number of other devices in between at proportional cost up to this expensive and beautiful device.
Rich
Edited 2/26/2009 6:01 am ET by Rich14
Looks a good match to a Legacy Ornamental Mill
Dusty Mc
As in you think they are similar machines or you think they would compliment each other?
................................................
Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.~ Denis Diderot
I think they would complement each other, they have similar capabilities but each has their own specialties and what I can see of the RS8000 it may have an easier learning curve then the Legacy Mill.
<!----><!----> <!---->
Dusty Mc<!----><!---->
<!----> <!---->
<!----> <!---->
Do you have a Legacy?
................................................
Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.~ Denis Diderot
Yes.
Do you?
Yes, I'm having trouble picturing how you would go about making those joints with it.
The seem like very dissimilar tools to me.
................................................
Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.~ Denis Diderot
I’ve used my Legacy Mill to machine dovetail joints on pedestal tables and legs which means mortise and tenon joinery shouldn’t be a problem plus I’ve turned out table tops and ornamental turnings. The RS8000 I believe would do everything except the turnings only on a smaller scale and not take up so much shop space.
<!----><!----> <!---->
<!----> <!---->
<!----> <!---->
<!----> <!---->
The legacy seems particularly unsuited for mortise and tenon joinery and the RS8000 totally unable to do ornamental turnings.
About the only similarity I see is both utilize a router.
................................................
Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.~ Denis Diderot
Lataxe:
That looks quite the machine - think 4-axis router without the motor drives. It's an ingenious idea and should, in my view, be compared to the small CNC machines rather than the 'Rat and other jigs.
I am a sucker for this type of shiny object, but I'll resist temptation for now!
H
Looks like the router version of the Victorian Holzappel ornamental turning lathes.Perhaps the Master Router Guru with the plaid shirt arrives at your door to give personalized tuition on Saturday mornings,in the breakfast room of ones stately home!!! Typically Brit though, they love ingenuity and gizmos (before I am accused of Brit bashing I am one ) Personally with all the talk on this forum of 8000 grit stones,tablesaws flat to .002,planes tuned to 0.00001 one wonders how the cabinetmakers of old managed at all.But they did.Are we not becoming wood (product) machinists?
Edited 2/26/2009 10:17 am ET by jako17
Jako,
You ask, "Are we not becoming wood (product) machinists"?
I think there is a very dominant trend in high end British woodworking (can't speak for anywhere else) that is seeking, quite deliberately, to do that. Robert Ingham is the High Priest and often talks of wood engineering and precision. His work and that of his many fellow travellers reflects that attitude, as such work is very, very precisely made. "Crisp" is the term often applied.
If one looks in any of the Betty Norbury books, which contain much work by high-end contemporary British makers, you'll find the pieces are mostly dressed in the precision engineering aesthetic. And this is what sells to well-off clients and corporations. I think of it as the IKEA aesthetic with a lot of added class and quality.
But I find I like it less and less these days. I can appreciate the skills of working with wood mills like the gizmo I posted about. In fact, I still prefer the precision of a woodrat to the slightly wonky result of making DTs and M&Ts by hand - if what matters is only good construction. As soon as the joinery begins to be explicit, as in Arts & Craft, I want a less precise look and a little bit of wonk (just a little bit) as I've come to prefer that handmade look.
*****
Engineering solutions like that gizmo are not just clever and fascinating but also contribute to a high standard of furniture construction. If my hand tool efforts go beyond my wonk-parameters, the piece has entered the realm of "potential junk". So, for internal joinery I'm startingto turn away again from the handsaw and mortise chisel and back to a router strapped in an engineered jig. I believe that joints need to be made well - to an engineering standard if you like. But I don't want an engineered look.
I like the Art Carpenter approach of treating the construction basics separtely from the look. It's efficient and precise machines for the former, hand tools for the latter.
Lataxe, rambling away to hisself on a wet afternoon.
Groovy!
(Not that I would ever make a pun, of course.) ;-)
Shurly you have an article or two to publish and they can provide a complimentary test rig? Now, if in fact you were to be a wee bit tardy in returning the gizmo they should not mind. By then, perhaps they will give you a discount on the used one (see Sarge for advice in negotieatin dat)
Looks like the pufect machine for Making Hay Mortises...;>)
Morgan
-----------_o
---------_'-,>
-------(*)/ (*) http://www.EarthArtLandscape.com
Morgan,
The bloke that flogs that gizmo operates out of Ellesmere Port, which is just a one hour drive from the Galgate Shed. I have been wondering if he has a demo facility. But.....I'm not tempted at the moment as I purfekted my tekneeks for making splendidly precise common joints using a woodrat some years ago.
As to the hayrake M&T bonanza - I admit to looking over my shoulder with longing at the woodrat, as I spend yet another hour chopping holes at the bench with a great big chisel; and carefully paring bits off a sawn tenon with a shoulder plane. Whilst the hand tool route is satisfying in some slightly masochistic way (like a hard bike race, it's nice when it stops) and productive of the hand-made look, it gets rather tedious and easily goes wrong.
So, the hayrake is probably a watershed for me. I've now made a few hand tool-only pieces (after machine timber dimensioning at least) but following hayrake completion I think there will be a demarcation between machines for precision (especially in joints like M&T) and hand tools for finish/look; with the odd exception, just for variety.
*****
Perhaps the woodrat will fall off the wall and break, because of lack of use, so I'll have to get a-one o' those gizmos? Any excuse to buy a new tool, eh. :-)
Lataxe, gizmo-gawper.
Wow! That is for the price. I too like these kinds of toys but the prices of new woodworking (or wood machining) tools these days is just getting crazy. I know the cost reflects recouping the development costs but still it is an ouch. How much can aluminum extrusions cost? One has to wonder if manufacturers would sell more of this type of tool if the price were within reach of the average person.
Chuck
Looks like a woodrat on steroids.
unbiased report? Is there really such a thing. I believe the human brain does not allow!
But then again we have YOU that uses power tools AND those by hand!
Edited 2/27/2009 4:28 am by WillGeorge
Lataxe,
That looks like a short step down from a CNC. I guess the user provides the "robotic arms" and "brains".
Chris @ www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com
(soon to be www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Chris,
"A short step down from a CNC" is how I often think of the woodrat. The user provides the computer and it's basic control armature. After all, one cannot trust machine software as it doesn't usually do intelligent feedback very well. Nor does it think of new tricks.
That gizmo looks like it has a few more micrometric controls built in - the sort of gadgets that various woodrat users invent to improve the thang, as they don't come with the machine.
*****
Now, I was hoping that old argument (discussion rather) concerning skill, handtools and WW machines might pop up here. So far no luck really. So I will issue a goad:
Learning to use a gizmo like this one or a woodrat is probably more challenging than learning to use handtools, not least because all that the gizmo can do is not yet discovered. Also, the gizmo induces design thoughts whilst handtools confine one to old and even some moribund design traditions.
Or so I will posit, for the sake of argument. :-)
Lataxe
Only if you prefer rooting yourself in "old and even some moribund design traditions" surely?
Why do you suggest it is possible that a person who learns how to use a particular tool to execute a bit of joinery becomes, by default, a designer, but that others that don't learn how to use that tool, don't?
Surely creativity and a flair for design is not predicated solely on developing a bit of ability with a particular tool?
I guess your purpose was like that of someone poking a stick into a wasps' nest to see what happens. I've responded, but see no point in buzzing around angrily and doing a bit of stinging. Slainte.Richard Jones Furniture
Richard,
Shurely you would like a chance to draw that wee dagger and prick at summick? :-)
Gizmo tools often do, I believe, induce new design thoughts. Take the vacuum bag, which allows complex curved pieces to be made relatively easily; or the router (especially with jig-gizmos like the subject of this thread) which provide the means to make cuts and joints that are otherwise extremely difficult.
Would you not agree that such tools, especially the precision machine-tool variety that emerged throughout the C20th, are part of the new WW environment that have given rise to the evolution of a lot of contemporary furniture design? Would Robert Ingham or Mathew Burt, for example, make the kind of thing they do without having recourse to the precison and capabilities of such tools?
Lataxe, seeking a design discussion really.
I think it is true that a gizmo can make it possible for one person in today's Western economic model to produce more complex designs, or perhaps less complex designs, but produced more efficiently than is possible without the gizmo.
In essence I think the multitude of gizmos now available do tasks that once were undertaken by a large workforce. The gizmo, or perhaps new materials, may lead to design innovation, or they might not. What I'm driving at is that a new tool, material or technique doesn't necessarily make the person that adopts that innovation a designer or creative in the way it is used.
Take AutoCAD or SketchUp as examples. Some might argue that these tools can make it easier for creative people to get their good ideas out into the public domain. On the other hand these tools also allow uncreative people to get their poorly thought out ideas into the public domain.
Neither AutoCAD nor SketchUp makes someone a more creative person or designer than a piece of paper, pencils and Magic Markers do. People lacking design sensibilities simply turn out bad designs, whatever means they use to get their designs out of their head and in front of an audience. Slainte.Richard Jones Furniture
Richard:You hit the nail on the head. Automated tools can rapidly turn out attractive work, or leaden eyesores with the same uncaring speed.It is true in woodworking and design as it is true in graphic design, in book layout and typography, in architecture, in fact, in any art or trade that requires "eye." People either have "eye" or they do not. Perhaps it can be gotten through training, but I doubt it. More likely, a natural disposition can be enhanced through training, just as in music, but it cannot be created.I first throught seriously about this in a past life in the catalogue sales business. An executive bought an early PC based layout and design system so as to bring those functions "in house" and save the money being spent with the design firm. He had someone thoroughly trained to operate the software. The results were unattractive. The operator could not see that they were unattractive, and had no idea how to do things differently. She had no "eye."Joe
Edited 3/3/2009 8:34 pm ET by Joe Sullivan
People either have "eye" or they do not. Perhaps it can be gotten through training, but I doubt it. More likely, a natural disposition can be enhanced through training, just as in music, but it cannot be created.
Joe.. perfect thoughts and expressed well as I see things... Or try to do.
I love Math.. I can do math and get a correct answer if I work on it long enough. Do I understand what I did? NO!
I love wood, I love Art.. I cannot do ART period!. However, most of the time my woodworking comes out OK and I do not use plans. I sort of wing it....
Joe,
I'm always suspicious of the "people have it or don't" sentiment when talking about various human attributes. It may be true for objectively measurable things like the ability to detect musical tones but for the whole subject of design-related skills.....?
Not to say that such design skills don't come easier to some than to others. But I think many things can be learnt, including obtaining a "design eye". It'll just take some people a bit longer than others and perhaps the latter will also end up with"more" of the (vast) design skill set - i.e. a greater range of such skills.
Let's not forget, either, that one man's design is another man's hotchpodge. To some extent (golden mean and similar natural design parameters apart) its a matter of taste.
******
Also, just because a machine, jig or material doesn't of itself create new or improved designs doesn't mean that the new machine, material or jig doesn't provide the (only) opportunity for an imagined design to be actually realised. In fact, the opportunity of a new machine, jig or material may well prompt the imagining of the design, which couldn't really be imagined without those prompts and the associated physical opportunity to turn idea into object.
The machine, jig or material is a necessary but not sufficient condition for certain designs to emerge; just as a human with a design-eye is a necessary but not sufficient condition. It takes both conditions to be true for a range of designed things to be possible (I contend).
For example, could there be all that modern knife and sword stuff without mining, smelting, forging and other related material/tool stuff? I can't recall there being the range of design one finds in metal weapons within stone age stuff.....?
Lataxe, suspicious (albeit not entirely dismissive) of elitist claims for special talents.
Now Lataxe, you should not call people elitist when they are merely observers and reporters.I have taught photography to random groups of children for several years (volunteer program, slightly different group each year). Similarly, my wife has taught painting and drawing. Some pick up the skills quickly and joyfully and produce things of beauty, while others simply can't. Likewise, some people work and spend a great deal on home furnishings and have very pedestrian results. I have colleagues with advanced degrees who simply cannot write well, although they certainly know what they are writing about. Some of us are not athletes, while others soar.All of these reflect the human attributes that we usually call talents. The distribution of talents among people is uneven. It is that simple. "Eye," or a visual aesthetic sense, is a talent.Now I did note your side remark that "one man's design is another man's hotchpodge." That is a easy throwaway with a small element of truth but no more than that. Most people are able to appreciate good design for what it is,even if not to their personal taste or from a very alien aesthetic. For example, Tage Frid's work is not at all to my taste, but I appreciate both the design and the craftsmanship.Now as to the utility of machines, you and I have no argument. They can be used to accomplish many things as well and beautifully. One of my brothers is a senior commercial artist at a design firm (titled Creative Director here in the States). He rarely uses anything except computers and digital images. His work is very fine. If he had to use pencils and paints, his work would be as good, but there would be some things he could not do. I am not against machines, jigs or what have you. If you think I am, you mistake me, sir. I personally prefer hand tools for many functions, but I do own power tools as well.My point is that machines and jigs can not create good designs, They will only produce them if the mind of the user has the talent to do so. The machine will as uncaringly and unfeelingly create something ugly as something lovely.
Joe,
Hmmm, you imply that I be some kind off egalitarian fellow cutting of the feet of tall folk and putting short ones on a stool. But this is not my argument. Of course different people are....different; and one difference is in what we might call natural talents, as you say.
But I profoundly disagree that it's a case of they have it or don't. Talent is much more analogue than that and comes in degrees. Also, it can be inculcated, fostered, encouraged and otherwise maximised out of those who only start with a little natural talent for this or that.
If one takes your attitude to those who would learn there is a sudden-death procedure wherein those who don't meet some often arbitrary measure of talent are damned with the self-fulfilling prophesy, as in your words: "others simply can't" and "Some of us are not athletes".
If you believe a pupil can never learn something or that you yourself cannot increase your muscle-mass, sinew-strength, cardio-vascular system and co-ordination - well then you will never increase that child's talent & abilities; you will never get beyond the status of couch-potato or weeb.
Natural talent is real but so is the variety that can be encouraged, taught, learnt and acquired.
Lataxe, also suspicious of pidgeon-holing, especially of people and most especially of children.
Edited 3/5/2009 3:57 am ET by Lataxe
Actually, I agree with you, pretty much completely.However, the main point is that machines will not make up for the lack of a developed aesthetic sense. What they do quite well is supplement craft skills and time.Back to my youth classes -- I hope to leave all my students with a sense of the fun of photography, and enough basic skill to consistently take decent pictures and occasionally happen into a really good one. That can be done. It is less common for one to have the aesthetic sense to take these basic skills and turn out noteworthy work on purpose.FWIW, I am not athletically gifted but I have plenty of fun doing athletic things in my own mediocre way. I couldn't do that if I hadn't had training. I'm grateful that I was not pigeonholed and cut off at an early age.Joe
Well Said. There are plenty of people apparently with little talent but a lot of heart who excel at something they have a passion for.
I am an engineer by training. When I started my photography business, I analyzed everything. It works for the technical stuff, but not for creating and capturing a person in such a way that the viewer feels an emotion from that subject.
I had people tell me, you're a scientist not an artist. For a while I believed them because I hated art even in elementary school. But I met a few people who deprogrammed me. In a very short time, I learned that I had a creative artistic talent that I had never known before.
Everything can be learned.
As an aside, equipment is not everything, but better equipment made it easier to create my art.Greg
<!---->•••••••
Exo 35:30-35<!---->
Hot dang! Looks like an opportunity to learn a whole new trade!
I still spend a lot of time trying to figure out what a router is for when I can do the same work by hand in a quiet mostly dust free shop -- but then I'm working my way toward Ludism as I age.
Verne
If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to cut it up and make something with it . . . what a waste!
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled