Primitive Woodworking

25 Oct 2026 - Warren Mar

What to do if you need to restart woodworking technology when you have iron working technology? You need an axe to chop down a tree and split it into boards. You can use the axe to shape a mallet also. Next a saw would help breakdown the tree into boards more easily and more uniformly. Once you have a saw, you can make a chisel for some basic joinery. A plane blade is like a wide chisel, so you can use the chisel to help make the plane body.

With an axe, saw, chisel and hand plane you can make most pieces of furniture. Modern technology leads to specialized forms of each. Different sized and shaped axes. Saw for rip cutting and cross cutting. Chisels for different sizes. Chisels for mortising. Different length hand planes and speciality joinery planes.

Axe -> Saw -> Chisel -> Hand plane

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