What tool made you a better woodworker?

[bob cohen]

I admit, I love buying tools. I want something that is enjoyable to use and that makes certain steps faster or more reliable. In that regard, I like the vast majority I own. But which tool made me a better woodworker? I'm thinking something like my chisels, or calipers, but would like to hear your ideas about what tool made/makes you a better woodworker. I need an excuse to buy a new tool

[Tom M King]

Not "a" tool, but no question the first good sharpening stones I bought. I found a company called Smith's, in the Whole Earth catalog, and sat down and wrote them a letter-didn't want to pay for a long distance phone call. I opted to include the translucent Black in the order, and if it has to be a single thing, it was that stone.

[Susumu Mori]

Domino was revolutionary. That surely made my furniture look much better (and quicker) and now I can even make chairs!
Well, however, I am not sure if it made me a better "woodworker."

No more handsaws and chisels for tennons and mortises....

I'm not sure other people but I thought tennon was quite difficult to make perfectly with hand tools. More difficult than dovetails, at least for me. Now I completely stop working on it. Have a mixed feeling about quitting it before mastering it....

[Victor Robinson]

I'll echo Tom's sentiment re: good water stones. Once I got idiot-proof sharpening equipment (mainly Veritas honing guide and Japanese water stones), I actually started to be able to use handtools more effectively. Did it make me a better woodworker? Absolutely - it was like adding a whole new skill set to the arsenal.

[Yonak Hawkins]

I'm not sure if my answer follows the spirit of the thread but, far and away, the single tool the propelled me the furthest in woodworking is the computer, especially CAD.

[Ellery Becnel]

Being I am a machinist, it would have to be my precision measuring tools. Using hand or machine tools to perform woodworking tasks, a precision setup
always ensures repeatability. I can not just name one. it is all of my tools. Some bought, some shop made, I love them all!

Ellery Becnel

[Julie Moriarty]

No doubt, building guitars made me a better woodworker. But it was because my heart was really into it. When you love what you do, your skills will become the primary beneficiary.

[Mike Schuch]

I would say my first shaper allowed me to significantly advance my woodworking capabilities. I bought a used 1960's Davis & Wells 3hp geared head shaper for $200 specifically to make lock miter joints. Lock miter joints are now probably my favorite joint once I perfected them. This also led to the capability to do rails and style doors. I had a Porter Cable 690 router in a table at the time and it was not up to handling these big bits.

My first table saw, a Powermatic 65, was also a big leap in productivity and safety for ripping boards over ripping them on my RAS.

My first jointer was a small leap up which became a huge leap up when I picked up my first planer. Project quality and the flexibility to use just about any stock was a huge improvement over pre-surfaced boards once I had jointer / planer capabilities.

I am thinking my next huge leap forwards will probably be a CNC router... if you are looking for something to spend money on!

[pat warner]

Dummy? Maybe.
Took me >30 years to realize that jigs and fixtures are almost always rectangles fastened to rectangles.
Now if I could make them precisely and from Aluminum, Plastic, & Wood I could make most any ordinary woodworking fixture.
My rectangle maker does exactly that.
Expedited my effficiency x a factor of 5.
Not for sale.

[Robert Engel]

When I decided to start getting rid of my crummy tools and started acquiring better hand tools overall my ww'ing got better.

If I had to point to one tool, strange as it may seem, the first thing that comes to my mind is a marking knife.
Getting away from pencils and learning to scribe lines when laying out joinery improved my ww'ing more than any single thing I can think of.

But I really think its not so much the tools, but the methods of work that make a good ww'er.

So I go back to my first comment - trying to improve your ww'ing skills with inferior tools is not an easy thing.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Narrowed down to one single tool - - - it would be the cheap ($10 on sale) digital caliper I bought at Harbor Freight (Credit given to Glenn Bradley from this thread - http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...hlight=caliper for bringing it to my attention ).

Despite the fact that wood moves and trying to keep things to .001 being nearly impossible......

I found that trying to keep things as close to that .001 just made everything go together easier and look a whole lot better when I was done.

Learning to think in terms of being as precise as possible was a game changer for me.

In keeping with that idea, the other tool I'd credit with being a game changer would be my Festool track saw.
That tool showed me that - despite all the good intentions of measuring to the nearest .001 inch - you need a decent quality tool to make that happen.

[Prashun Patel]

Cop out answer alert: my bench. The ability to rely on a flat reference, and hold work comfortably and securely is where it all starts for me. Proper work holding gets short shrift in discussions about hand planing.

(Yonak, That's an interesting answer. I can totally relate. I wish I could get better at Sketchup. Like drywalling, for the life of me I can't get good at it. It completely slows me down. I'd trade my Domino in a day if it meant I could be a whiz @ some CAD program...)

[Jeff Bartley]

Pat, I feel sorry for your inbox! It must be overflowing with requests for you to sell this jig! Kudos to you for taking the time to make something so cool! Do you have any videos of it in action?

[Jeff Bartley]

And to answer the question, I'm gonna have to go with Prashun and say my bench too. Sometimes the simplest things make the biggest impact!

[glenn bradley]

There was no one silver bullet for me. My first high quality router was a leap from the things I was using before I saw the light. Building a bench that was designed for woodworking was another quantum leap. A "real" bandsaw, a jointer and planer to properly prepare stock, there's several moves that resulted in a quantifiable step toward where I am now.