Bad tool purchases

[Rick Potter]

Have you ever lusted after a tool, only to finally buy it, bring it home, and find out it was either a lousy tool, or maybe even (perish the thought) a tool you didn't even need? You know what I mean, that tool you just had to have that sits over there in the corner, unused.

Actually, I have several. My worst purchase was a steel tilting router table that I picked up at a WW show. WOW, it was the latest, greatest, centerfold quality tool I had ever seen. I was in love.

In reality it vibrates out of adjustment easily, the fence is lousy, the dust collection setup came out of a Crackerjack box, and it just sits there in the corner, mocking me everytime I see it. $600 worth of frustration, and no where to return it, because they were gone by the time of the next show.

RBI bought the rights to it and hopefully improved it, but that just pours salt on my wounded ego.

PLEASE: Tell me I am not the only one with a story like this. OK, I feel better now, it's your turn to come clean.

Hi....I'm Rick, and I'm a tool junkie.

[Larry Rose]

Rick, Don't feel like the redheaded stepchild, I've bought a boat load of junk/tools that either didn't work or I had no real use for them. My biggest problem was buying cheap junk instead of waiting a little longer to get a good one. In the town that I grew up in there was a little dinner run by an excentric old man. When you walked in the door you had to duck to get under a sigh that said "Cheap food's not good. Good food's not cheap. We serve the best." I now try to remember that when I'm tempted to buy a piece of junk. BTW it doesn't always work as I also have the dreaded wood guy disease.

[Christof Grohs]

Leigh D4. Lucky to have paid 1/2 of retail value at a local auction but to this day it sits boxed up...not a bad purchase (investment) but yet another tool I don't need or didn't need at the time. In the beginning I thought the machines would make me a better woodworker but I now know that practice, education and patience are the best tools I can own. A look at Krenov's work, coming from a minimalist shop, reveals this.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Leigh D4. Lucky to have paid 1/2 of retail value at a local auction but to this day it sits boxed up...not a bad purchase (investment)

Sell it before Leigh makes it look like it's obsolete. As the newer and newer models come along people will lust after the prettier paint schemes and ignore that fact that the older jigs had better clamps.

[Mike Peace]

Yup. It was my first stationary power tool when I started getting into woodworking about three years ago. Bought a used Craftsman RAS. No manual or wrenches with it. Can't seem to get it tuned as it has a bad heeling problem causing it to cut with a 1/4" kerf. I bought a Ridgid TS so the RAS sits unused.

[Aaron Frank]

I have to admit it, I'm a wood butcher. My projects often turn out fine, but getting from the wood store to the finishing stage takes way too long and there are so many mistakes along the way it's just embarrassing.

Anyway, 4 years ago when I was first beginning with ww'ing I saw the Windsor No. 5 scratch beader that was being reproduced by Kansas City Windsor Tool Works. It was an exquisite looking tool. I had no idea what it did, but I wanted it. But, it wasn't in production at the time. So, I put my name on the waiting list and a year+ later, I got the email. "Production is underway on 5 new beaders, if you're still interested send your money to such and such address." Well, I was definitely still interested, and now I knew what it was and sort of how to use it -- having used a Stanley #66.

So, it arrived and it was amazing - cocobolo handles, silver hued bronze body and laser cut scratch inserts. I tested it out on a couple of evenings, trying the different cutters on various scraps. Everything was flawless. It was amazing, so I sent it back. Would I have loved to keep it? Yes, of course. But to what end, so that 10 years from now when I've actually learned enough and become competent enough to use it properly AND actually have a project for which it is needed, I can pull it out of the drawer. No, that's money and time poorly spent.

Lesson learned: better tools may make make a project come out better, but if your a butcher you're still going to come out with a sub-par project.

(I have no affiliation with Kansas City Windsor Tools, but I will say that they make beautifully crafted tools.)

[John Wesley Williams]

Ridgid BS1400 - BS is a very fitting name - won't pass the nickel test or even the coffee mug test. Fortunately I'm inside the 90 day window to return it and go buy a Rikon

[Craig D Peltier]

I bought a Black an Decker mini screwdriver to get into tight spots.Its horribly underpowered for a screw.
Also my craftsman screw gun which I use full time 19.2 volt is way heavy.Wish I didnt cheap on that.I like those black and white little makitas,if anyone has one chime in please.

[Jason Boushard]

pretty much everything I bought up untill about a year ago. lol

[Jim McCarty]

Ridgid BS1400 - BS is a very fitting name - won't pass the nickel test or even the coffee mug test. Fortunately I'm inside the 90 day window to return it and go buy a Rikon

Funny. I'm a pro and still make an occasional bad choice. Sears RAS. Short bed jointer by Rockwell. Ryobi BT3000 for field work. Makita 8" table saw (I just don't like direct drive table saws I guess). As I get older I look for lighter tools since a lot of mine make it to the jobsites, unfortunately light and quality often don't go together. It's good to know that I'm not the only one to make these mistakes. My name is Jim and I'm a tool junkie.

[Steve Clardy]

Hmmm.

Buying bad/unneeded tools.
I've done it numerous times. I don't want to think about it.

[Mike Henderson]

Perhaps my worse tool purchase was a Rockler dovetail jig. I bought it early in my woodworking career, thinking I'd be using it to make dovetails on drawers. The problem was that it took a long time to set up, and it was a fixed spacing jig - so the dovetails didn't look right unless the drawer was just the right size.

Once I learned how to do dovetails by hand, I found that I could do them almost as fast as I could by machine, given all the set up time, and they looked "better" when made by hand.

I eventually sold the jig on eBay for a fraction of what I paid for it and was glad to get rid of it.

Mike

[Al Willits]

Ya, there was a couple of Festools I had, ended up throwing them in the trash...

That got your attention didn't it??

Actually one of the more expensive boo boo's I made was buying a 110v wire feed welder, luckily I sold it for about 75% of what I paid for it though.

Al

[James Aguanno]

A direct drive Delta (could have been any direct drive saw) table saw. It was about 10 years ago, and I was not into the internet, so I did not do much research. By the way, it was all that I could afford at the time, and I really wanted to get into woodworking. I still have the saw and use it regularly. I make do with the inaccuracies and noise (this thing is really loud). I have to do a little extra work each time I use it to make sure my cuts are where I expect them, and dread when I have to do a bevel cut.

I also regret buying a buscuit jointer. I really do not use it much and would have saved a lot of money had I just went with a pocket hole system first (now I have both but only use the pocket hole system).

Jamie

[Larry Fox]

Actually, one of my worst purchases (at the time) was a boatload of Bessy 50" K-Body clamps. It was not the clamps themselves that made it a bad purchase but the use. I decided, early on, that I wanted to start my clamp collection with the most useful clamps and decided on the 50" ones wiuld give me the widest range of applicability. I bought 8 of them and these were to serve as my everyday clamps for a long time. Wrong, they are so bulky and heavy that it turned out to be incredibly frustrating clamping anything small. I still have them and love them when they are appropriate but they get used fairly infrequently - I use the 12" and 24" inch ones all the time.

My worst purchase by far though was a japanese flush-trim cutoff saw. This thing has 0 set on it and I find it virtually impossible to use.