Have any of you read Chris Schwarz's and Joel Moskowitz's new book, The Joiner and Cabinet Maker? The sort version is that it's a recounting of an apprenticeship, but what's relevant to this discussion is that it shows that relatively few tools are needed to be able to make projects. Here's a list of the tools that are used in the book, and to put things in perspective, the last project that the apprentice makes is a chest of drawers.
- Marking & Measuring Tools
- Try square
- Chalk line
- 2' Folding rule
- Marking gauge
- Panel gauge
- Wooden straightedge
- Marking knife
- Saws
- Handsaw
- Sash saw
- Dovetail saw
- Bowsaw
- Planes
- Jack plane
- Trying plane
- Smoothing plane
- Rabbet plane
- Plow plane
- Other Tools
- Bench chisels
- 1/4" Mortising chisel
- Mallet
- Hammer
- Nailset
- Bradawl
- Brace and bits
- Turnscrew
- File
- Steel plate (for clinching and straightening nails)
You also need a sharpening system of some sort.
Now, of the tools on this list, one could argue that the only ones you need to be LN/LV quality are the trying plane (jointer), smoothing plane, rabbet plane, and plow plane. For the planes, that's a total of $1325 for the Lie-Nielsen #4, #7, and #10-1/4, plus the Lee Valley Veritas small plow plane. You could add sash saw and dovetail saw onto the high end tool list if you're not clever enough to start with an inexpensive Japanese saw. Add in a Wenzloff dovetail and tenon saw for those who insist on using western saws, and that's another $310, for a grand total of $1635 in quality out of the box tools. If you wanted some quality chisels, that might be another $300, which still brings the total to under $2000 in high-falutin' tools. Everything else on the list you can get at the borg, and be fine with it.
Now consider our friends who use electron burning tools. I don't think anyone would argue that a typical power tool setup would look much different than this:
- Table saw
- Bandsaw
- Jointer
- Planer
- Drill press
- Router
- Random orbital sander
If you're shopping for this list of tools, you can easily hit the $2000 mark, even with budget versions of these tools from the Grizzly catalog. No one ever seems to balk at the idea that spending $2000 on low end power tools is an outrageous sum of money, yet there seems to be this consistent feeling that a similar price for a collection of high end hand tools is out of line. I'm not sure why that is.