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Thread: Tool collecting vs actual woodworking

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
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    BOYCE, LOUISIANA
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    Tool collecting vs actual woodworking

    Am I mistaken, or do the tool posts out number the projects posts about 100 to one. Would we all rather just collect tools than actually build something?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
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    SF Bay Area, CA
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    15,332
    Sounds like you've been chatting with my wife!!

    Wood: a fickle medium....

    Did you know SMC is user supported? Please help.

  3. #3
    I've noticed that, too. I enjoy visiting both the projects forum and this forum. I've learned more about woodworking on this forum. Both are fun!
    Stephen Edwards
    Hilham, TN 38568

    "Build for the joy of it!"

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    Marquette MI
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    Without tools you can't build and once you start building you realize that you need more/better tools. Then you start building even better stuff and you realize that building better stuff requires better tools. It's all perfectly logical and reasonable.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Robert Chapman View Post
    It's all perfectly logical and reasonable.
    I agree with this. New project = new tool! It's a rule I live by.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Dec 2008
    Location
    Pensacola Florida
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    2,157
    From the amount of sawdust and lack of projects I must be a tool collector
    Dave

    IN GOD WE TRUST
    USN Retired

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Herbert Wallace View Post
    Am I mistaken, or do the tool posts out number the projects posts about 100 to one. Would we all rather just collect tools than actually build something?
    Herbert, you are walking on thin ice here, my man! We do not allow statements like this around our home. Some things are just best left unsaid - particularly within earshot of my wife

    I've never bought a tool I didn't need - that's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    In the foothills of the Sandia Mountains
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    Quote Originally Posted by Herbert Wallace View Post
    Am I mistaken, or do the tool posts out number the projects posts about 100 to one. Would we all rather just collect tools than actually build something?
    I'm missing your point....
    Please help support the Creek.


    "It's paradoxical that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn't appeal to anyone."
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  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Robert Chapman View Post
    Without tools you can't build and once you start building you realize that you need more/better tools. Then you start building even better stuff and you realize that building better stuff requires better tools. It's all perfectly logical and reasonable.
    I think that sums it up very well.

    But I don't post every project I build, if I did I wouldn't have to time to build anything.

    But then I wouldn't be building anything so I wouldn't need any tools.

    So if I posted every project, at some point would have to get out of woodworking because I didn't have any tools.

    It is just a big never ending circle....

    Now I just don't know what to do....

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
    Location
    Kelseyville in northern Calif (wine country)
    Posts
    79
    The analysis and procurement part of tool collection is fun, although a costly hobby. However this focus does minimize the issues with finding good affordable wood in today's world. Another version of the journey over the destination. Ed (guilty as charged)

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    Northwestern Connecticut
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    I love tools. Since an early age I've enjoyed picking up strange tools, trying to understand them, learning to use them or make sense of them. I'm a flea market tool junkie, and I like machines as well. I've taken days off from work just to walk around an industrial wood working machine expo just to see what is out there with no intention of making a purchase. Call it sheer curiosity. Its at least part of the fun for me. Ok, obsession might not be too strong a word to describe myself.

    I guess I'd expect there to be more traffic in the general wood working and power tools forum. It takes me weeks or months to build something at work, even longer working nights and weekends in my home shop. It takes me seconds to purchase a new tool or develop a question about one I already own. I rarely post pictures of anything I make because most of it is just not that interesting. Passage doors, windows, stair treads, moldings, cabinet doors. I like making it but who cares to see it? "Hey, here's 200LF of victorian brick mold I made...". And most of what I make at work is not my intellectual property to share, so that's out. I do enjoy cruising the project forum to see all the cool things other people are making.

    Anyway, with a few exceptions, personally all my tools and machines were purchased to do work, and they all do get used. In fact if my two year old were not sleeping right above my shop I'd probably be there working right now. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

  12. #12
    My wife also occasionally wonders when I'm going to start producing and stop collecting. At the moment, my tools take up most of the available space in my current shop.

    I'm going to have to build cabinets for the new shop starting soon, which will put some of the questions to rest. Having a larger, better organized, more comfortable place to work will help a lot tool.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    Central NC
    Posts
    100
    LOML says tools and wood go into the workshop and nothing ever comes out. It IS getting crowded in there!

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Mid Missouri (Brazito/Henley)
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    2,769
    Hello! My Name is Chip, and I am a TOOL ADDICT!

    I have a deep love for good tools! POWER tools, that is! I finally realized my *dream* of possessing a Powermatic 66 two years ago! Quite a journey from a POS Crapsman as my first TS back in 1974. Let me qualify that: I have an abiding romance with good tools at bargain prices. I have only one machine I bought new in 1992! A Delta 14" bandsaw! Its a Keeper!

    Perhaps there is more tool interest than project interest during the WINTER TIME!! Many garages and out buildings are just too chilly to conjur up much interest in spending long hours *creating*! Spring is coming, and so will new projects!

    My Tool Addiction is much less harmful than my former penchant for *over-drinking*! All that $$ spent is now literally *down the drain*! But, I can walk into the shop and see where all that $$ went! Tools keep me busy and accidentally make me some extra $$ from time to time!
    [/SIGPIC]Necessisity is the Mother of Invention, But If it Ain't Broke don't Fix It !!

  15. #15
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Location
    Colorado Springs
    Posts
    2,742
    I don't post my projects because there's typically nothing particularly unique about them. Inevitably, I'd get a few polite comments like, "Nice bandsaw box."

    I'm currently working on a small project which is somewhat unique. Maybe I'll post some pics when it's done. Or, maybe not. It's kind of intimidating being among projects by Mark Singer, Bill Wyko and Dewey Torres.

    So, just because I'm talking about tools doesn't mean I'm not building something.

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