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Thread: the best tools or good enough?

  1. #1
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    the best tools or good enough?

    I have read the concept so many times "buy the best tool you can afford". But it does not work for a starting wood worker, like myself, who is trying to equip his shop. If I stick to this axiom I would more likely quit wood working as the price tag associated with just getting started is beyond a hobbyists range. I have a mixed approach towards this, tools that would produce a finished edge I tend to buy the best I can afford; these wopuld include router, hand planes, chisels etc. While tools that would probably require another process to produce the finished edge, I tend to go a little cheap on; these would include bench saw, jig saw etc. The intent being instead of waiting six months where I can buy the minimum set of tools to get me started why not buy a mixed bag of things, eventually replace the cheap one by high quality tools as time goes by. This keeps my hobby alive, and hopefully by learning the craft on cheaper tools I develop skill faster/better and also get to appreciate more what a quality tool can do for you.

    There are two reasons for this outburst. Firstly, yesterday I went to the dreaded "Harbor Freight tools" outlet in Little Rock and bought a couple of 36" bar clamps for $4.49 each (similar clamps in Home depot will cost me $40 each). I eyeballed them and they looked reasonably straight, besides there is enough play in the clamp jaws to make up for that anyway.

    The second reason is to ask you guys about what tools do you think should be of absolutely the best quality affordable, and which ones we can get away with less than the best quality.

    Zahid Naqvi

  2. #2
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    The best you can afford

    You have to consider more than just price when you buy a tool following the axiom "Buy the best you can afford".

    You have to consider how much time and materials you will waste on a "cheap" tool. You also have to consider whether the level of frustration you will develop from using a less than satisfactory tool will exceed your desire to complete the project. Buying good tools doesn't always mean buying the most expensive tool.

    With regard to your second question, you can probably get away with lower quality, I know I'm going to hear lots of opinions on this, clamps to a point. I use pipe clamps and they do a perfectly adequate job. They cost about $12 each plus a length of 3/4" pipe. Now you can buy Bessy clamps and spend a whole lot more and you will have some really nice looking clamps, but do they clamp any better, most likely not. An plain electric drill will work just as well as a cordless one and it is cheaper to buy. Yes there is a cord, but that isn't all that hard to deal with.

    You can buy any number of table saws starting at a few hundred up to a few thousand dollars. The more expensive ones are usually more powerful, but really don't cut any better than the blade you put on them. You can pay less and get the same job done. However, you might have to do some more alignments to get it set up and maybe align it more often than the higher priced one. I've seen some mighty fine work come off some really cheap saws.

    In the end it the hands using the tools that have the skill, not the tool.
    Last edited by Lee Schierer; 02-11-2004 at 12:25 PM.
    Lee Schierer
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  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Lee Schierer
    In the end it the hands using the tools that have the skill, not the tool.
    That just about sums it all up really. The only tool that must always be of the highest quality available is patience. With it you can create some beautiful work, without it, firewood.

  4. #4
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    First time tools

    Quote Originally Posted by Zahid Naqvi
    I have read the concept so many times "buy the best tool you can afford".

    The second reason is to ask you guys about what tools do you think should be of absolutely the best quality affordable, and which ones we can get away with less than the best quality.

    Zahid Naqvi
    Zahid, I did the same, many years ago, with a brand called "globmaster", precursor to HF I guess, only you can decide if your tool is quality enough. If it does the job you want at the quality and quanity you will accept, (you will accept less and less problems in your hobby "work"), then it is the right tool for you, (it was for me). Until you will not accept that problem with that tool. Cheap tools that do a low quality or quanity job does help you develop your woodworking skills faster. Work holding tools that we use while working on a project, that really do a quality job will give more satisfaction than the tool that does the job. Take care. Please help us with keeping that tropical bird of your aquaintence in line.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bobby Hatfield
    Please help us with keeping that tropical bird of your aquaintence in line.
    I am afraid Dennis is a lost cause. I've had the pleasure of visiting his shop on one ocassion, he has got more money invested in his shop than I have in both automobiles I own. Then again he is much more comitted and skilled at this craft than I am and produces some absolutely wonderful work. The pictures he posted of the CD rack a short while ago don't do justice to the actual piece.

    Lee your advice is well taken, my thoughts exactly. As a hobbyist I don't expect to make any money out of my projects, and since I do woodworking for recreation time spent in the shop is time well spent irrespective of whether I have anything to show for it or not. To quote an example, I bought a $30 Buck bros. hand plane from Home depot a few weeks ago. Last week, after having read a book on hand tools, I decided to tackle tuning the plane. I pretty much spent all day Sat, about 6-7 hrs, flattening the bed, filing and adjusting the chip breaker, sharpening the blade etc. and still it was not done. On the other hand I learned a lot on what function each of these componants performs and how much impact in usability and quality of work will be produced by improving each one. Now if I had bought a LN or any other high quality plane I probably would have been able to use it out of the box with minimum tuning needed, how would in that case I learn about all these interesting things my cheap Buck bros. taught me. Now if I can get hold of some old Stanleys from a flea market it will further my education of hand tools.

    On the otherhand the router I use is Porter Cable and the finishing sander is Makita, sticking to my original theory of using the best I can afford for finishing cuts.

    Zahid

  6. #6
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    Zahid,

    It is tough when you are starting out. Should you buy 5 so-so tools to get you going or only get 2 great tools but potentially limit what you can do?

    Unless you have a lot of money, the obvious choice is to buy what you can to do the job you need. Frankly, I am amazed what my Dad built with second-hand tools, and an old Craftman contractor saw. It was only many years later that a 10" Makita miter saw made it into his garage and he thought he hit the motherlode! That saw is now 7 years old! Only recently did he get a planer and, again, he thought he hit the motherlode!

    Do your best to establish what you need to do what you want and then go for it. When your skill develops and money stockpiles a bit, you can then go for more using the same method.

    One thing I will say, and it isn't much fun nor will it help you make any nice pieces, is dust control. This is really a health concern. Unfortunately, many of the tools that have good dust control are not cheap and the whole DC issue isn't cheap. Choking on MDF dust isn't fun but it isn't terribly cheap to control correctly. I guess a good facemask might be the cheapest way to go.

    Good Luck to you in your quest and we'll always be here to offer our two cents worth.
    Wood: a fickle medium....

    Did you know SMC is user supported? Please help.

  7. #7
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    Zahid,

    You have to remember that I NEVER started out with what I have today. I started out very much like you....except I never saw the need for a hand plane until years later. Wisdom does come with age!!

    I don't have a single Ashley chisel - Buck Brothers and Marples
    I don't have a Powermatic or Delta or General TS - It a Jet
    I don't have a single LN hand plane - a Record Jack Plane and a Stanley Block Plane
    I don't have a Oneway or Stubby lathe - a Jet 1236
    I don't have a Felder 731 Combo machine - Robland X31

    I could go on and on here. My point? I don't have the best there is either. The best is only in the eye of the beholder. If a Lowes bought Stanley plane is best for you....then that will be perfect. I have visited with woodworkers that have a LOT nicer stuff / tools than I, but I was only jealous for a few hours and then it was back to reality. I have been to woodworkers shops that have a LOT LESS stuff / tools than I and yet turn out better / nicer furniture that any I've seen.

    In short? Buy the best and most affordable "golly-gee-whizz" you can and learn about the tool AND develop your skills. As time, knowledge, skill and patience increase for you, so will the quality of your tools. If anyone tells you that you can't do woodworking unless you have a 10" Industrial Cabinet Saw.....they need to go back to school.

    Middle of the road tools in skilled hands can produce beautiful things.

    Off Soapbox Now......
    Thanks & Happy Wood Chips,
    Dennis -
    Get the Benefits of Being an SMC Contributor..!
    ....DEBT is nothing more than yesterday's spending taken from tomorrow's income.

  8. #8
    The way I see it is that you can ramp your skills up faster if you are using quality tools from the beginning... I have seen people rip what little hair they have on their head trying to compinsate for the tool. I will take you example of the jigsaw to illustrate the point. Both cut wood, but how easy is it to follow the line or stay on one side of the line when the jigsaw is bouncing all over the place... Blade changes one the better machines are quick and easy, on mine I just flip a lever and I can have the blade pop out, saving me from burning my fingers or getting some pliers, rag what ever to pull the blade out or protect my hands when you need to find the screw driver to change out the blade...

    In the resale market you can at least recoup a larger percentage of your cost with a name brand tool... Or make money on E-Prey if your auction is caught up in the bidding frenzies I have seen in the past . HF stuff well you can give them away once you upgrade or toss them if they break. I have a friend that purchased a Ryobi cordless drill about a 12-18 months ago and the battery has died, the only replacements he can find cost as much as the original drill he bought... now what??? He will probably buy another Ryobi drill because it is cheap and will probably have to go through the same deal down the road... PC, Dewalt, Milwaukee, etc not such a big deal to get a replacement battery, unless your drill is 10 years old .

    Just my thoughts on the subject. Take them for the 2 cents they are worth

    -Michael
    I can pay retail anywhere, so how's your service?
    Grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory one project at a time
    Maker of precision cut firewood


  9. #9
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    You will find a couple of HF things around here one actually gets used regularly. Most didn't live vary long.
    As a ski instructor I caution students not to by the best they can afford and be painfully honest about their abilities when they shop until their skills improve. The more expensive skis and snowboards are made for the advanced rider that can take advantage of the side cut, stiffness, camber, and beveled edge of the ski. I have watched new students flail around needlessly for hours with equipment that was too advanced for the user. Skis are specialized for ability, terrain, conditions and type of skiing.
    You will find the same in guitars where the noobie instrument is forgiving and makes it easy for the student to learn.

    With power tools the pro modal is heavier, more duarable, more powerful, can take a header off an 8 foot ladder and live to tell about it.
    I have an old Milwaukee Magnum Hole shooter that will spin you around the room if you’re not watching.
    Before you buy the best make sure you like WW. Then Never buy cheap tools.
    TJH
    Live Like You Mean It.



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  10. #10
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    The most expensive tools are the ones you need to replace early and often.

    That being said, Lee is correct...it's what you do with the tools you have that counts the most. It's the bottom line. Any advantage you can give yourself with buying better quality, however, will make things easier...less fighting with the tool lets you concentrate on the art. That doesn't necessarily mean buying "top of the line"; 'just making careful investments that you are comfortable with.
    --

    The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...

  11. #11
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    Zahid:

    There has been some excellent advice posted here. Let me add a couple of points, as someone relatively new to the hobby.

    Buy your tools as you need them. I have a bad habit of getting caught up in "Tool Acquisition Mode" instead of actually building stuff. I live in Atlanta, and there's a big woodworker's toy store called Highland Hardware here. I can wander around in there for hours thinking up potential uses for everything in the store!

    Quite often you'll find that there's more than one way to accomplish the same woodworking task. For example, there are people who don't own a jointer, but still manage to get straight edges on their boards with hand planes, router jigs or table saw jigs.

    When shopping for new tools, read all the reviews you can, but don't get too caught up in all the gushing over the best-of-the-best. When I was researching hand planes, everyone just gushed on and on about the high end planes like Lie-Nielsen and Clifton. They are excellent products, to be sure. But you can get the job done with something substantially less expensive.

    When you decide you need a certain tool, ask yourself if this is a tool you see yourself using often. If so, it probably pays to spend a bit more. If it's something that you'll only use occasionally, don't spring for the big bucks. Example: If you decide you need a biscuit joiner, and you can imagine yourself using it often, look at the Porter Cable, Dewalt, or even the Lamello. If it's more likely to be an occasional thing, buy the cheap little Ryobi, or go rent one for a day.

    As others have said, skill counts for at least as much as tool quality. I'll bet Sam Maloof could do far more with my 14" Jet band saw than I ever could. Sometimes the best investment you can make is education and training, followed by a committment to practice. When I can get back in the shop, I plan on gluing up a bunch of pine blocks and practice making bandsaw boxes, just to get more practice on the band saw. (Cutting curves is not easy, unless you're like me and your straight cuts come out curved!)

    Don't get discouraged with the price tag of this hobby. There's an awful lot you can do with moderately priced tools. And don't forget about buying used or "scratch-and-dent" tools - they're a great way to get good tools for less $$$.

    Good luck!
    Sam/Atlanta

  12. #12
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    Sam,

    Great points. I see this same thing on another board I frequent, a BMW board. People who post there are "mod" crazy. They want tighter suspensions, bigger sway bars, engine software to boost power, bigger wheels, etc. I tell most of them that the best way to take advantage of the wonderful handling of a BMW is to take some driving lessons on a track! You'll outdrive someone who put an extra 5k in his car who didn't take lessons....
    Wood: a fickle medium....

    Did you know SMC is user supported? Please help.

  13. #13
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    Shoot me if I am wrong here but I find you can do quite a bit with a couple of key tools.

    Drill (It doesn't have to be a cordless) --- $50-60
    Router (Get a good one here and you can be far ahead then buying a cheapo) $100-150
    Buy bits as you need them, I did buy a set and have used about 2/3's.
    Jig Saw $75-150
    Hammer $15
    Sander (assuming you don't want to hand sand everything but it can be done. $50
    Good Quality Square, again a cheapo only will compound the problem. $25+
    Chisels - My stanley and buck brothers work fine, need sharpening more often the best though. $25
    Plane $25-50

    If you can swing it, a TS. You might look used to start or really spend some money a good one. I started with a contractors, owned it about 8 years and sold it for about 50%. I was just fine with that. i know have a cabinet. Would I love to have a Euro model, sure... but there's no dollars in the budget so I will do with what I have.

    From these you can build jigs to do a large variety of tasks from planing to jointing to whatever. The other specialized tools just make the job easier and more efficient. I built a hutch and dining room table with about this list. (I didn't own the TS at the time but borrowed a friends).

    Once the wife saw I could do it, she let me buy one tool at a time. I would love to say I bought the best, but I bought what I could afford. As my skills got better, so did my tools, and so on and so on.

    Look for used it will help soften the blow, assuming the tool is of good quality and condition.

    The last thing I would want to see is someone quit becuase they thought they had to buy a $7k Euro saw or $2k bandsaw. You already started what many don't, is to learn the details about a tool and how to maximizes its efficiency and performance.
    Scott C. in KC
    Befco Designs

  14. #14
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    Sound advice Sam. My tool acquisition so far is driven by need and projects I choose to tackle, and it all started with a broken chair leg. We had just moved into our first house a couple of months ago, and I was begining to contemplate what I was going to do with all this space in my 2 car garage (looks real big when you have been living in apartments for the last 5 yrs). Anyway, one of our dining chairs conveniently broke it's leg. I proudly declared that I will fix this chair at a cost much less than that of a new chair, but I would have to get some basic tools. That was the excuse to buy a cross cut saw and a used dowelling jig off ebay, plus some 14" clamps. Well I got the chair fixed for the cost of a new chair but got all these tools in bonus, which I dutifully reminded my wife will pay for themselves in future projects. Next in line was a bookshelf. I had to get a router because there was no other way I could get the corners rounded perfectly. By then my wife had figured out the game, but she was happy to some extent because I was making useful projects (and she was probably sick of listening to stories of how I used to love working in my dad's shop in my early teens). Next to come was kids furniture, which I convinced my wife I can build at a much lower cost than new, a better quality and designed exactly the way she would like. This is when I discovered Dennis' woodworking affinity, a day spent in his shop to get a head board completed basically sealed the deal for me. As you might have guessed by now, along come a work bench (built myself) and table saw(BD present). I am building a Shoji style divider screen these days, the kids furniture is an ongoing project which I will build in bits and pieces all year.

    The moral of this truly entertaining story ;-) is that the purchases I made were driven by what I needed for certain projects. This seems to work for me in terms of growing my shop piece meal as well as keep the budget constraints in check.

    Where I screw up sometimes is choosing which tools are more sensitive to quality and which ones not. For example; I am glad I bought a Porter Cable router, because is handles beautifully. While I regret buying a cheap Black and Decker Jig saw, because it can't handle anything thicker than 1/4" and the blade turns so much that I have to true the edges later with the router to get a 90 degree angle. The cheap block plane seems to work fine, althought it did require plenty of work to get it tuned but once corrected it seems satisfactory. The combination rasp + Chissel was a blunder. But that's how we learn I guess. I was hoping you guys could give me tips on avoiding such pitfalls.
    The means by which an end is reached must exemplify the value of the end itself.

  15. #15
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    Scott, Gavin, Chris,
    You guys think like I do, makes me feel good to know I am on the right track. The two or three bad purchases I made were in the days before I was introduced to Dennis and SMC (no one to consult before making a purchase), but now I know better. A few sharpening stones and I should be self sufficient.
    The means by which an end is reached must exemplify the value of the end itself.

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