Are you a Scaredy Cat with your tools

[James Pallas]

You get a brand new plane or chisel with the best steel and you sharpen it up enough that you could shave a shadow off of your eyeball and leave no trace. Now for the test. Do your test it on a knarley piece of new lumber or do you do the test on the most perfect board you can find in your stash. Then do you put it away for only perfect pieces or do you put it to work as a regular worker. I started to find myself leaning towards this thinking and had to resist. I just make myself use the great tools that I own and found that they work just fine and are a pleasure to use. No babying for me anymore. How about you?
jim

[John Kananis]

If I buy a new tool it is most likely (certainly not always) for a purpose so I use it for the task at hand (what I purchased it for), whether rough, smooth or what-have-you.

EDIT: That being said, I AM careful with my tools.

[Jim Koepke]

My most expensive tool purchased so far, LN #62, gets treated just as roughly as my less expensive tools. It can handle it.

It likely could shave the shadow off an eyeball. After one careful sharpening it took a shaving I measured at 0.0004". That even surprised me.

jtk

[Stew Denton]

New tools? Well mostly new to me old tools. I did buy some new blades for my vintage Stanley 71, but that's about it lately. The new ones cost less than the vintage Stanley ones on the auction site.

Well, no, I use the new to me old tools, once they are tuned up, when a need arises.

Stew

[Patrick Chase]

You get a brand new plane or chisel with the best steel and you sharpen it up enough that you could shave a shadow off of your eyeball and leave no trace. Now for the test. Do your test it on a knarley piece of new lumber or do you do the test on the most perfect board you can find in your stash. Then do you put it away for only perfect pieces or do you put it to work as a regular worker. I started to find myself leaning towards this thinking and had to resist. I just make myself use the great tools that I own and found that they work just fine and are a pleasure to use. No babying for me anymore. How about you?
jim

I only test my new tools on the finest, pristine MDF... :)

(MDF is nastily abrasive stuff. Definitely not recommended)

[James Pallas]

I only test my new tools on the finest, pristine MDF... :)

(MDF is nastily abrasive stuff. Definitely not recommended)2
Glad you clarified that Patrick. Thought you slipped a cog for a moment.:)
Jim

[James Pallas]

My most expensive tool purchased so far, LN #62, gets treated just as roughly as my less expensive tools. It can handle it.

It likely could shave the shadow off an eyeball. After one careful sharpening it took a shaving I measured at 0.0004". That even surprised me.

jtk
Wow Jim. You need to go to the contest with Brian.:)
Jim

[steven c newman]

The ones I have are all users, and they will get used on whatever lumber I am working on, at the time....knots and all. IF they can't handle the work, I will find one that does, and ship the reluctant ones off to Auctionland....

[Patrick Bernardo]

Whenever I get a new tool that's really new, I'm actually kind of relieved when it gets the first scratch or ding. Like 'glad that's over with.'

However, I have to admit that my pair of Veritas skew block planes - an indulgent expense, really - get wrapped in rust-inhibiting paper and put back in their boxes after use.

[Doug Hepler]

Fun question. I have a complement of rougher planes and chisels that I use for rougher work. I save my best planes and chisels for my most demanding work. Yes, the ones I baby are probably the best tools with the best steel. They are probably able to take on the roughest work. But I like to know that there is a newly sharpened excellent tool waiting for me when I need it. I'm too old to remember what I was planning to do with a tool if I have to take time to sharpen it first.

Doug

[Curt Putnam]

I'm not going to use my Blue Spruce long thin paring chisels to work MDF, I got el cheapo Stanleys, Irwins and vintage for that. But, mostly, all tools are users. No shelf queens.

[Phil Mueller]

I'll take it a step further. I actually didn't hone a new LN chisel for fear I'd screw it up some how. Of course, eventually, I had to suck it up and reluctantly give it a touch up. I will admit I have two fairly inexpensive Japanese paring chisels that have yet to see a stone.:o

[Stewie Simpson]

My most expensive tool purchased so far, LN #62, gets treated just as roughly as my less expensive tools. It can handle it.

It likely could shave the shadow off an eyeball. After one careful sharpening it took a shaving I measured at 0.0004". That even surprised me.

jtk

Jim; your still not achieving the sharpness as John Blazy.


Ok, I just timed myself on the 1-1/2" Greenlee in the pic below just now, and without rushing took me 72 seconds to grind down a nick, then waterstone to shave my arm. Then hit the rouge wheel to bring up the shine, and if I wave it through the air fast enough I can split the nitrogen from the oxygen.

[Phil Mueller]

Stewie, when I saw you responded to this thread, I thought for sure you had seen my post and suggested that I look in the mirror. Any you would be 100% correct.:D

[Kees Heiden]

Not really much experience with new tools, but I have another silly habbit. When I do a clean up and sharpen up the planes on my bench, then I tend to "play" with them until they are dull again....

[Jim Koepke]

Not really much experience with new tools, but I have another silly habbit. When I do a clean up and sharpen up the planes on my bench, then I tend to "play" with them until they are dull again....

Been there, done that, mesmerizing and still do it occasionally. That is why my tendency now is to mostly sharpen tools while in use or before use. Then all the joy of watching shavings can be productive work.

jtk

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Couple of thoughts:



I buy my tools to use them.
My tools usually look new, even after years of use, because I am careful with them.
When I am about to do something highly abusive, I may choose the tool based on that; for example, I used a hand plane to remove bumps from a particle board floor containing screws. I chose an older plane that I was less adverse to possible scratching the bottom of the plane. The blade was a fancy expensive new blade. I dinged up the blade a bit, but that was easily fixed. When my neighbor wanted to borrow a chisel, he got a $2 stanley that I then had to fix when he was done.


I can usually fix a blade, not so much the body of a tool. If I only own one instance of a tool, then that tool kind of has to be my beater version. I buy them to use them, however, not just look at them.

[Dave Anderson NH]

I have my garage tools and I have my shop tools and never the twain shall meet. The garage tools are used for rough carpentry, working with knotty pressure treated lumber, opening paint cans (kidding), and loaning to those folks whose tool handling habits are either unknown or suspect. All of my tools are users with the exception of a few inherited antiques which are very special to me. Even they get used on special occasions when I feel like waxing nostalgic about my shipwright and housewright forbearers.

[Prashun Patel]

For me a better policy is just trying to be efficient with tool usage.

My goal is fewer, well-placed: cuts, chops, pares, and strokes.

I guess trying to be more deliberate makes me feel less guilty and precious about using my nicer tools.

I do enjoy practicing, but I'm trying hard not to practice or get distracted during projects.

[Gary Cunningham]

Does buying a tool and never using it count? I'm guilty of "hey, the price is right" so I will buy it.

With every intention of using it. Someday.

[Robert Engel]

Every time you resharpen you have a new tool.......

[Bill Houghton]

When my grandmother had to move from her house, and my parents were cleaning it out, they found a drawer in her dresser that had all the handkerchiefs I and others had given her for her birthdays/Christmas. These were "lady's handkerchiefs," with embroidery or printed flowerdy things on them, very pretty. She was saving them "for good," meaning for special occasions. Years and years of untouched handkerchiefs, while she got by with more mundane versions.

They're tools; use 'em. Treat them well, and don't use them for planing mud off a piece of construction lumber (I agree with others that it's not a bad idea to have "rough work" tools; just don't use them for everything and leave the shiny ones on the shelf). But use them.

[James Pallas]

When my grandmother had to move from her house, and my parents were cleaning it out, they found a drawer in her dresser that had all the handkerchiefs I and others had given her for her birthdays/Christmas. These were "lady's handkerchiefs," with embroidery or printed flowerdy things on them, very pretty. She was saving them "for good," meaning for special occasions. Years and years of untouched handkerchiefs, while she got by with more mundane versions.

They're tools; use 'em. Treat them well, and don't use them for planing mud off a piece of construction lumber (I agree with others that it's not a bad idea to have "rough work" tools; just don't use them for everything and leave the shiny ones on the shelf). But use them.
My Mom did the same kinds of things. I guess it may be an aging thing. When I was working I bought tools to work. I didn't tend to hold them back. Recently I found myself hesitating to use my better or newer tools. I have now decided to give tools that I have multiples of to SIL, he is a woodworker and has my two grandsons to work with him they are young yet but have started things like Boy Scout projects. After all I don't think at my pace now I will ever wear out pmv11 blades and such. I do treat my tools well so I'm going to use them just like they were intended. I was just wondering what others do. I have seen people keep tools in original boxes and get them out only to work on "special projects". I don't want to get there for sure.
Jim