Dumb things that you regret: buying, making, or fixing tools

[Matt Lau]

Dear Sawmill creak neanderpeople,

After a caffeine induced manic email (that I regret already) to Stan, I was reflecting on the many dumb things that I've done on this woodworking journey. After trolling the archives, I realized that there's no posts on dumb things to avoid!


On my end, here's a few:
1. Buying used, worn out Japanese planes as a "bargain."
Most of mine were completely unusable, with the exception of a block plane and small sized one.

2. Buying a Grizzly plane set and assuming that it'd work out of the box.
It cut like butter--a stick of butter against ebony, and the sole was warped in 3 ways.

3. Buying a Stanley plane iron from BORG to replace the Grizzly plane iron.
It cut like cheese--Parmesan against ebony. Not too effective at all.

4. Trying to build a Hauser guitar out of flamed rock maple and ebony using a butter knife, razorsaw, and said Grizzly plane set. This was an exercise in futility, and where I first learned the value of good tools. The maple ended up going to Kathy Matsushita to hopefully make an instrument.

5. Buying a 26" 1870's Marple try plane, and trying to flatten it on a scrounged up 28" long piece of glass and 18 micron sandpaper. I ended up giving it to a luthier friend.


Also, dumb things that I've been talked out of doing (thankfully):
1. Making a frankenplane using a Japanese Iron, Krenov attachment, and fancy woods.
2. Splitting my own lumber from a log using a broad hatchet.
Dentist + broad hatchet + workholding using other hand= career loss waiting to happen.
3. Building my own bandsaw.
4. Building my own planer.
5. Cutting down a 40 year old air dried, laminated 3" x 22" x 70" maple slab for banjo parts.
6. Making tools and heat treating them in the kitchen.

Thankfully, most of my other purchases/projects have been pretty satisfactory thanks to the advice of people like George, Stan, David, Harry. I've kept my fingers largely thanks to the kind people here.


Would you care to share your experiences of dumb things not to do/buy/start?

[Patrick Chase]

Dear Sawmill creak neanderpeople,

After a caffeine induced manic email (that I regret already) to Stan, I was reflecting on the many dumb things that I've done on this woodworking journey. After trolling the archives, I realized that there's no posts on dumb things to avoid

With one glaring exception those all actually sound like "constructive stupidity", by which I mean things that are clearly not optimal but that you also obviously learned a lot from without losing much in the process.

The exception is of course the abortive hatchet experiment. I hope the person who talked you out of that was richly rewarded.

My biggest doozy is sinking a stupid amount of money into every sharpening approach under the sun, and then discovering that what I needed all along was practice.

[Tom McMahon]

"My biggest doozy is sinking a stupid amount of money into every sharpening approach under the sun, and then discovering that what I needed all along was practice."[/QUOTE]

Everyone should take special note of this.

[Luke Dupont]

Cheap tools of all kinds from Lowes, Home Depot, and Harbor Freight. Especially Harbor Freight. I didn't really know any better when I first started woodworking, and kind of assumed that anything sold as a "saw" "chisel" "plane" or "file" were indeed good quality items representative of those labels. I was nearly turned off from hand tools until I discovered that there are much better tools to be found, which make life far more enjoyable. Oh, and sharpening does that for one as well.

So, using dull, poor quality tools would be my answer.

Oh! Also, work holding devices. For the longest time, I didn't know much of anything regarding how to hold my work, and just held it in some way with my body, or up against a wall/corner, or with clamps on a table. A vise - even (especially?) a portable type that clamps on to a table top, along with a few bench hooks, and a saw horse or two, are among the most useful things any new woodworker can have. You can't work effectively or safely if your work is moving on you, or if you can't hold it in such a way that you can work the surfaces you need to work. I'm sad to say that I went far too long without any decent work holding devices/methods!

I have to disagree with the OP on a few things, though! In general, I've had wonderful luck making my own tools, and in many cases, I've made higher quality tools that better fit my needs than I can buy (or, at least, than I can afford to buy!). Moreover, working with a hatchet, and splitting green wood is a great skill for any woodworker to have. In fact, I'd say these things constitute some of the most rewarding aspects of woodworking that I've done. Don't let fear stop you from learning, and growing your skillset. Just proceed with due caution, knowledge, and safety. Knowledge really helps the other two points fall into place.

Of course, I have had just as many failures and time-wasting endeavors. Most of them involve crude metal working as opposed to wood though :P Or were conducted when I just needed a tool or device, and didn't work as painstakingly careful as I usually do. Or else got frustrated and kept working - that's always a recipe for disaster.


Edit: One more. This one more recent: buying large, 4x8' sheets of hardwood plywood to work with. $100 worth of the stuff. Now, I'm sure if you have the right space, tools, and physical strength to carry them about, this isn't a problem. But for one who lives in an apartment, works on a 10x10' balcony, and has only hand tools and a (I discovered) useless-for-cutting-straight-lines-cheap-harbor-freight-jigsaw, and chronic tendonitis to boot, this material is a nightmare. Ripping 4-8' of hard plywood to width over and over again with a little Ryoba is not very fun. And rather damaging to the hands/wrists/arms. Also, it sucks, because it's not fun to work with. If it's warped, you can't just plane it flat. If an edge isn't cut square, it's difficult to plane that as well, because you just get dust, and not shavings. So it's hard to tell what you're doing; you don't know if you're consistently taking off the same depth of wood across the whole edge, or if you're heavy on one side or the other. Moreover, the edges aren't really conducive to gluing.

I think I'm going to stick to real wood from here on...

[Mike Henderson]

I suppose mine was buying too many hand planes. Good vintage Stanley planes that I tuned up and replaced the blades, but just too many. I don't use them all. I could do with a lot less. One of these days I'll sell off what I think is the excess. But every time I start to do that I think, "Maybe I'll need this one later" and I keep them.

Mike

[Tony Zaffuto]

Buying too much stuff thinking it was collectable, when I should have just saved my funds for the truly collectable. Who needs a dozen ordinary #4's, or 20 kitchen variety D-8's and so forth.

[Matt Lau]

Luke,

Thanks for the correction!
One reason why I started this thread, is because I'm well aware of my inexperience and limitations.
Corrections are especially appreciated.

Any tips on splitting wood/hatchet work? For a while, I was copying the Pete Follansby model of keeping the wood between me and the hatchet. However, I was talking with Dr. Phips in Auburn (a boy scout leader), and he recommended being very careful with axes. It's not that I think that splitting wood is a fool's errand--rather that there are some "mishaps" that I can't afford to experience. For the walnut, I was just going to resaw it on my bandsaw to smaller, workable chunks.

Regarding making tools--I'll be making an assortment of finger planes soon, as I bought a bunch of white steel, japanese plane blades on closeout.

-Matt

ps. Regarding the full sheets of plywood, I might recommend getting a tracksaw (haven't used mine yet).
I'd been wrestling with my $100 used Rockwell 9" tablesaw, and decided not to risk losing digits (I've known 6 dentists lose their careers by severing tendons on their palm).

The Paulk workbench + tracksaw is a pretty nice combination.

Cheap tools of all kinds from Lowes, Home Depot, and Harbor Freight. Especially Harbor Freight. I didn't really know any better when I first started woodworking, and kind of assumed that anything sold as a "saw" "chisel" "plane" or "file" were indeed good quality items representative of those labels. I was nearly turned off from hand tools until I discovered that there are much better tools to be found, which make life far more enjoyable. Oh, and sharpening does that for one as well.

So, using dull, poor quality tools would be my answer.

Oh! Also, work holding devices. For the longest time, I didn't know much of anything regarding how to hold my work, and just held it in some way with my body, or up against a wall/corner, or with clamps on a table. A vise - even (especially?) a portable type that clamps on to a table top, along with a few bench hooks, and a saw horse or two, are among the most useful things any new woodworker can have. You can't work effectively or safely if your work is moving on you, or if you can't hold it in such a way that you can work the surfaces you need to work. I'm sad to say that I went far too long without any decent work holding devices/methods!

I have to disagree with the OP on a few things, though! In general, I've had wonderful luck making my own tools, and in many cases, I've made higher quality tools that better fit my needs than I can buy (or, at least, than I can afford to buy!). Moreover, working with a hatchet, and splitting green wood is a great skill for any woodworker to have. In fact, I'd say these things constitute some of the most rewarding aspects of woodworking that I've done. Don't let fear stop you from learning, and growing your skillset. Just proceed with due caution, knowledge, and safety. Knowledge really helps the other two points fall into place.

Of course, I have had just as many failures and time-wasting endeavors. Most of them involve crude metal working as opposed to wood though :P Or were conducted when I just needed a tool or device, and didn't work as painstakingly careful as I usually do. Or else got frustrated and kept working - that's always a recipe for disaster.


Edit: One more. This one more recent: buying large, 4x8' sheets of hardwood plywood to work with. $100 worth of the stuff. Now, I'm sure if you have the right space, tools, and physical strength to carry them about, this isn't a problem. But for one who lives in an apartment, works on a 10x10' balcony, and has only hand tools and a (I discovered) useless-for-cutting-straight-lines-cheap-harbor-freight-jigsaw, and chronic tendonitis to boot, this material is a nightmare. Ripping 4-8' of hard plywood to width over and over again with a little Ryoba is not very fun. And rather damaging to the hands/wrists/arms. Also, it sucks, because it's not fun to work with. If it's warped, you can't just plane it flat. If an edge isn't cut square, it's difficult to plane that as well, because you just get dust, and not shavings. So it's hard to tell what you're doing; you don't know if you're consistently taking off the same depth of wood across the whole edge, or if you're heavy on one side or the other. Moreover, the edges aren't really conducive to gluing.

I think I'm going to stick to real wood from here on...

[Stephen Rosenthal]

Notwithstanding your space limitations and that this is a hand tool forum, a fantastic way to cut plywood sheets to size is with a Porter Cable 314 trim saw with a Forrest Woodworker II Rip/Cross combo blade and a Tru-Grip straight edge (or equivalent). This small and relatively light weight worm drive circular saw has more than enough power to cut any type of 3/4" ply and the Forrest blade leaves an incredibly smooth edge. I picked up an older model (Made in U.S.A) 314 in perfect condition on Craigslist for $75. Nowadays they go for $200 up on the auction site.

[Frederick Skelly]

"My biggest doozy is sinking a stupid amount of money into every sharpening approach under the sun, and then discovering that what I needed all along was practice."

Everyone should take special note of this.[/QUOTE]

Yup. I fell for that one BIG TIME. Bought 5 diamond stones, a shapton 6000, a worksharp with diamond lapidary disks, a piece of granite, a tormek clone (tried and quickly sold off) and a slow speed grinder with cbn wheel and LV tool rests. Guess which ones I need/use? Two diamond stones, the shapton 6000 and the slow speed grinder.

Buying sharpening gear hasn't been among my brighter woodworking moves......

[Ray Selinger]

Trying to tune-up a 1949 #4 Stanley by hand. Stanley and their green castings. I did it, I'm very stubborn . They were made on machines, they should be corrected on machines. Better yet, buy a new LV. Craftsman power tools, followed by Craftsman hand tools, that Sears credit card was a curse.

[Tony Zaffuto]

Fred,

Hope you didn't ditch the CBN wheel! Just the ticket for easy, non-burning concave grinds!

T.Z.

[Frederick Skelly]

Fred,

Hope you didn't ditch the CBN wheel! Just the ticket for easy, non-burning concave grinds!

T.Z.

No Tony. I kept that grinder and wheel. It works every bit as well as you folks all told me it would. I'm (finally) satisfied with my sharpening setup!

Thanks man!
Fred

[Roy Lindberry]

Everyone should take special note of this.

Yup. I fell for that one BIG TIME. Bought 5 diamond stones, a shapton 6000, a worksharp with diamond lapidary disks, a piece of granite, a tormek clone (tried and quickly sold off) and a slow speed grinder with cbn wheel and LV tool rests. Guess which ones I need/use? Two diamond stones, the shapton 6000 and the slow speed grinder.

Buying sharpening gear hasn't been among my brighter woodworking moves......

This concept isn't specific to sharpening, either. It's easy to fall for the shinier new tool or to assume that a different saw, name brand plane, etc. will make your work improve, when the truth is that while they may help some, nothing will be a substitute for practice and gaining experience.

[Luke Dupont]

This concept isn't specific to sharpening, either. It's easy to fall for the shinier new tool or to assume that a different saw, name brand plane, etc. will make your work improve, when the truth is that while they may help some, nothing will be a substitute for practice and gaining experience.

And knowledge! You can struggle along gaining sub-optimal experience for quite a while if liu of it

[Prashun Patel]

I regret buying a halfblind dovetail jig and bad router bits.

As far as handplanes, even though some of my rehabs work horribly, I can't help but feel it's the musician and not the instrument. I still try to take them apart and tweak them to better use. In this way, they've become very good training.