Real cost of hand tool woodworking

[cody michael]

have a couple jack planes, a bigger 14 inhabitants plane, a jointer plane and 2 block planes with a few other random ones thrown in, I'm have barely used any of them yet but with sandpaper for scary sharp sharpening and a guide I have less then 100$ invested, with the couple tools I bought at a garage sale and later sold I think I'm ahead of the game in my plane collecting, garage sales are awesome! My to best deals were a nice no 7 jointer 2$ a Disston 12 saw 2$ I think I sold that for around 100$ and a no 8 jointer 4$ which I traded for 2 nice block planes

[Paul Sidener]

One of the things my Grandfather instilled in me was there is almost always more than one way to do something. The first time I saw someone cut a dado by hand, it was my Grandfather. I couldn't understand why he would do it that way. He had a radial arm saw and a dado stack. Yet in about five minutes, his dado was cut. Then he explained to me, he just saved about a half hour setting the whole thing up on the radial arm saw to make one cut.

I was reminded of my grandfather, the first time I saw Paul Sellers video on the poor mans router. I prefer my router plane, but Mr. Sellers was showing another way. Both ways work well. You don't need a router plane, but it does make life easy.

James, you ask about "the real costs" of hand tool work, I prefer to look at the savings of hand tool work. When I make something, it is a one of. So on most projects, I just make the piece I need. No test cuts on scrap to make sure something fits right, or check the angle. Don't get me wrong, I have power tools. I will make rough cuts on my table saw, or band saw. After that I use hand tools. I have a surface planer and jointer, I'll use them on longer boards. But I do enjoy using bench planes, and I can hear the radio. I don't think you can really look any form of woodworking as more or less expensive than another. There is just a different way to do something. Either you have a garage full of tools, or a really cool tool chest full. It's a personal choice. Find the way that suits you the best.

My Grandfather would be happy, I did pay attention and I get it.

[Stanley Covington]

Please make sure you include all critical factors in your cost-benefit analysis of woodworking as a hobby.

While many of us buy and make tools far in excess of what we practically need, that is not mandatory to enjoying woodworking. I can remember a time as a college student when all my tools would fit into a baseball-bat bag (with lots of holes worn in it). Most of those tools were obtained second hand for very little money, bought at flea markets and pawn shops. Not only did they feed my family as I worked as a cabinetmaker during the school months and as a carpenter on construction jobsites in Las Vegas during the breaks and holidays, but they gave me great pleasure as I made furniture for our little household and toys for our children. I still own most all of those tools.

As others have pointed out, you may have overlooked the useful lifetime of quality handtools. With some TLC, most will last your lifetime, and children's lifetimes, and even survive to become beloved heirlooms in your grandchildren's hands. There are other hobbies with the same long-lasting "stuff" but not many.

The same is more difficult to assert in the case of golf clubs, motorcycles, stamps, basketballs, baseballs, snow skis, fishing gear, binoculars, or cameras.

My point is that the tools necessary to have a lot of fun woodworking can be few and relatively inexpensive. On the other hand, the collecting of tools can easily become the focus of one's efforts, but at that point, for many the hobby has shifted from primarily woodworking to primarily tool collecting. Nothing wrong with either or both. But please recognize that obtaining a lot of expensive tools is a matter of choice and preference, and is not mandatory to enjoying woodworking as a hobby.

As a hobby, I believe woodworking can be relatively inexpensive. If you calculate the actual costs of many other hobbies, and depreciate the cost of those tools over their actual useful lifetime, and consider that, unlike many hobbies such as computers, video games, motorsports, videography, etc., the handtools necessary to woodworking will not become obsolete for many generations, I suspect the balance sheet will favor woodworking above most hobbys.

Stan

[Allan Speers]

....If you buy a tool new or used you need to be able to maintain that tool. So you buy a jack plane to flatten rough lumber. Then you buy coarse medium and fine water stones (seems to be the consensus here). Then you buy a couple of diamond stones to maintain the water stones. If you buy a used plane you need to buy tools for rehab work also. If you buy a new good quality plane you should be good to go. So for five hundred to one thousand dollars you are ready to flatten the face of a board. This is sharpening by hand, no guide, and using the edge of the plane for a straight edge. If you want to do more than that you are off again to purchase more tools. So I think this is an expensive hobby. I'm not against it just my opinion. What do you think?
Jim

Have you priced 20" jointers and planers lately?

Woodworking with hand tools is incredibly inexpensive, by comparison.

(Also less noise, less dust, and better exercise.)

[Daniel Rode]

I've been slowly adding hand tools over the last couple of years. I'm frugal. I don't by many things I don't need and I try to buy good quality tools that will last. I have a mix of new and vintage tools. I started with sandpaper on glass to sharpen but soon switched to diamond plates with a waterstone to finish.

I don't have everything I need to do basic prep work and joinery but I'm fairly close. It's mostly specialized tools like shoulder planes that I'm missing. Even so, I rarely need to consider using a power router. I could probably stand to acquire a #7 or #8, but I use a power jointer and thickness planer, so I don't really need one.

Counting every hand tool and supply I've bought, I have not yet spent $1000. Every tool works well and none have required more than a couple of dollars to rehab.

One can spend a lot on premium boutique tools but it's not necessary.

[Robert Engel]

Yes, wwin'g IS an expensive hobby and because of that, a lot of talented people don't get into it.
But like lots of hobbies, it is as expensive as whatever quality tools the craftsman requires/desires.

Its especially difficult for a young guy to get into any kind of ww'ing without a major outlay of $$.
I remember when I started it was with machines were really underpowered, dangerous pieces of junk but somehow I managed to build projects with them. Over the years I've been fortunate to have the financial ability to acquire some decent machines and without them I doubt I would still be into the hobby because of the constant frustration level with poorly made machines.

But it doesn't have to be. Many tools like hand planes can actually be made. Once upon a time there was no Stanley or LN or LV and the ww'ers of old made their own.

[Brian Holcombe]

Despite the cost of living, it still remains popular

[Pat Barry]

Because of some recent posts I started thinking about the real costs involved with hand tool work. This is just a scenario for discussion. If you buy a tool new or used you need to be able to maintain that tool. So you buy a jack plane to flatten rough lumber. Then you buy coarse medium and fine water stones (seems to be the consensus here). Then you buy a couple of diamond stones to maintain the water stones. If you buy a used plane you need to buy tools for rehab work also. If you buy a new good quality plane you should be good to go. So for five hundred to one thousand dollars you are ready to flatten the face of a board. This is sharpening by hand, no guide, and using the edge of the plane for a straight edge. If you want to do more than that you are off again to purchase more tools. So I think this is an expensive hobby. I'm not against it just my opinion. What do you think?
Jim

To quote Geddy Lee and Rush - "you can't get something for nothing, you can't have freedom for free, you won't get wise with the sleep still in your eyes no matter what your dreams might be"

[Kees Heiden]

NO! Woodworking does not need to be expensive.

IMG_5699_zps4b1d2740.jpg

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Because of some recent posts I started thinking about the real costs involved with hand tool work. This is just a scenario for discussion. If you buy a tool new or used you need to be able to maintain that tool. So you buy a jack plane to flatten rough lumber. Then you buy coarse medium and fine water stones (seems to be the consensus here). Then you buy a couple of diamond stones to maintain the water stones. If you buy a used plane you need to buy tools for rehab work also. If you buy a new good quality plane you should be good to go. So for five hundred to one thousand dollars you are ready to flatten the face of a board. This is sharpening by hand, no guide, and using the edge of the plane for a straight edge. If you want to do more than that you are off again to purchase more tools. So I think this is an expensive hobby. I'm not against it just my opinion. What do you think?
Jim

Before I started woodworking, I knew that I needed (wanted) a hand-plane because I had to trim a bit off an old door so that it would close. I then started my research to see what kind of hand plane I needed. I went to the forums and saw all the things you need to do to make a plane usable; because the claim was that a cheap stanly would not work out of the box. I had no idea what to do but the consensus seemed to be that a Lie Nielsen would work out of the box, so I called them and they helped me purchase my first hand plane that I could just use for this one task without learning a bunch of new skills and buying that $1000 worth of equipment.

When I finally decided to get into wood working so that I could build a box I could lock to hold some bullets, I started sharpening on sand paper using a cheap eclipse guide.

Of course along the way, when I had to tune-up a whole mess of chisels, I started purchasing more stuff like a Work Sharp something or other that I gave to a friend since I had some trouble with it (he LOVES IT), a Tormek that I LOVE, and a bunch of stones.

I have finally decided that for the rough stuff for flattening a back, not much seems to beat sand paper. I use a grinder for serious removal, a Tormek to establish the bevel, and water stones to keep them sharp until I need to take them back to the Tormek.

[Christopher Charles]

As much as I love tools and have been known to obsess about the next addition or upgrade, i was recently sorting photos and noted that I recall all of the projects with much more clarity than the tool I used to make them. In fact I hardly recognize some of the tools I used.

C

[Simon MacGowen]

Most hobby woodworkers I know spend a lot of money on their hobby -- tools, lumber and mistakes. To deny that woodworking can be expensive is self-serving if you don't have a strong will. At the Handworks show this year, I saw people leaving with lots of goodies and they weren't cheap. One guy bought or ordered from an Australian vendor some marking tools and that alone I guess would probably rack up a $500 bill, not to mention a few other items he carried around.

A hobby is a hobby and the real cost of it is as much as you would love to spend. Do you prefer to woodwork or refurnish or build tools? Do you like modern brand name tools or garage sales/vintage makes? That makes a lot of difference.

Simon

ps So is a $5000 tablesaw expensive? Compared to a $3500 handplane, nah.

[Steve Voigt]

Because of some recent posts I started thinking about the real costs involved with hand tool work…
Jim

I bet I know which posts those were. I often find myself frustrated when people seem to suggest that the solution to every problem is to run out an buy another newer, better, more expensive tool. I worry that newbies will get the impression that a fortune has to be spent to get started, and your post suggests to me that I'm not wrong to worry about that.

It may seem weird for a guy who makes expensive tools to think like that, and obviously I'm not opposed to people spending as much money as that want, but no one should ever feel like they have to spend a lot to do good work. Money can't buy you skill. I read that Mike Siemsen teaches a class where he cuts dovetails with a hacksaw and a sharpened screwdriver. That's awesome. Recently on Chris Schwarz's blog, Mike wrote:

Build a good solid foundation of skills rather than a tool box full of tools you don’t know how to use, you cannot buy your way in.

On the other hand, I don't think anyone should get the impression that it's a piece of cake to get started with absolute bargain basement tools. It's an arduous road to refurbish a bunch of basket case planes and chisels and saws when you are just starting out and don't know what you are doing. When I see a guy with thirty planes that cost $5 each, I wish he would have spent that money on two good planes instead. When I look around at woodworkers who are both productive and proficient, what I most often see is a relatively small kit of high-quality tools.

Getting back to your specific case for a moment, if I were in your situation, I would get a WWII or earlier Stanley no.5, in great shape, from a reputable seller. I'm thinking that would cost $50 to $80, but I haven't priced Stanleys in a long time, so I could be off. I'd get a second blade, so I could have one heavily cambered iron for roughing, and another for finishing. I would get a medium or fine India stone, less than $20, and a hard black ark. You mentioned freehand sharpening, so you could use a 2 x 6 stone, which would cost less than $50. For periodic flattening of the stones, get a pound of 60-80 loose silicon carbide grit off ebay, $10 shipped, and a piece of glass from a local glass shop, $5 or less (mine was free). Add some wd40 and you're set. This isn't for just flattening a board; it will cover virtually all your bench plane needs until you're ready to diversify a little. I calculate $150-200 for the whole setup. Of course you could go cheaper, but this is an easy way to be in business right away, with virtually no time spent fettling or refurbishing. That's not so bad!

[Jim Koepke]

So is a $5000 tablesaw expensive? Compared to a $3500 handplane, nah.

Yes, people can spend as much as they desire on woodworking. That is the reason my coin collecting was abandoned. Coin collecting just keeps costing more and more. Not much one can do with coins other than look at them.

My most expensive plane was about a tenth of the price you mention. It and two other planes were the total of my premium plane buying. Premium planes were bought because the equivalent in vintage planes would have cost more or not be as usable.

Over the years my total cost for tools accumulated may reach $5,000 or a little more. Over the years some of my projects have sold to recapture some of the expense.

Some folks here take a much different approach than me. They opt for a minimalist set of tools. A few planes, a set of chisels, a few saws, squares, marking gauges and many a woodworker has all they need to make nice furnishings for their homes and their friends' homes.

Some of us buy a lot more tools than we need. These can be fixed up then resold to help pay for our tools. A person who is good at this can end up with a shop full of virtually free tools. Yes my time was taken up, but there wasn't anyone giving me money for not fixing up old tools.

So yes, it can be expensive if you let it. There is nothing wrong with setting up a shop with brand new tools. Many "premium" tools will hold their value through years of use and there may be a small loss in value if they have to be sold.

Many of my tools were not bought out of need as much as they were often found at "offer that can not be refused" prices. My tools will likely return their initial investment or more if they ever need to be sold.

There are many paths on the journey to joinery. It is easy to become tempted by a $3,500 plane or other special woodworking trinkets. Some of us take the rusty path. It is kind of special pushing around a plane that was old before my father was born. Especially the one which only set me back $10 and a bit of elbow grease. Other than new or what may be considered a collector plane, my most expensive bench plane was $50. It is a #8. It takes a lot of patience and time to fill a shop with deals, but my good deals have surely made up for the bad deals. Even the bad deals can be turned around at times.

jtk

[Frederick Skelly]

ps So is a $5000 tablesaw expensive? Compared to a $3500 handplane, nah.

Ummm, Simon? I take your point, but I'm not buying $3500 handplanes either.
Fred