Amish pneumatic woodworking shop

**Jon** · Aug 28, 2016, 10:31 AM

Yesterday we looked at a video of a steam-powered machine shop complete with 100+ year old machines.

The Amish are not a single unified group; different Amish people have different practices pertaining to the use of electricity. Nevertheless, air power is frequently preferred over electrical power, and electrically-powered tools are often converted to air power.

Here's an Amish air-powered woodworking shop tour from Pennsylvania:

**PJs** · Sep 19, 2016, 01:46 PM

Curious how they manufactured the compressed air for that tank? Didn't see anything in the video about that. ~PJ

**Paul Jones** · Sep 19, 2016, 06:40 PM

Jon,

Thank you for the Amish shop tour. The shop seems to have less machine noises than an electric motor drive shop. One of my all-time favorite wood shop tours are the cabinetmakers shop in Colonial Williamsburg where everything is done by hand and light is provide by large windows with northern exposures. They say they do some work by candlelight but the candles cost the operation so they just get up very early and depend upon the daylight. Most of the hardwood is walnut which was common in Virginia 200 years ago and far less expensive than imported mahogany.

Thank you, Paul

**PJs** · Sep 20, 2016, 10:24 AM

Great story Paul! I agree about the noise issues because my wife and I had the opportunity to visit a Mennonite community up in Canada a few years ago. What I enjoyed was not only the craftsmanship/artisan qualities of all the things they did, down to bread making, but the quiet calm of the environments that produced these wonderful things. Their woodworking shop did have some electric/battery operated tools and some pneumatic, but most of it was done with simple hand tools and wonderful choices of wood and old school, hand fit joinery.

My comment above for clarification was because of the title of the video (off grid woodworking). Not to knock the thread or post.

A little quality comment can make a world of difference...Thanks! ~PJ

**Jon** · Sep 20, 2016, 01:13 PM

PJ - That's a good point about the compressed air! I also didn't get how they commented that there was perhaps only one electrical cord, etc. I did love the shots of the horse buggy dashboard around 3:35.

Paul - your mention of the Colonial Williamsburg cabinetmaking shop tours sent me off to YouTube this morning. New shop tour video post incoming...