Crazy Idea Here.................Learning on low end stuff makes you pay closer attention to technique and problem solving............leads to better results when you get to use better quality stuff?
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Crazy Idea Here.................Learning on low end stuff makes you pay closer attention to technique and problem solving............leads to better results when you get to use better quality stuff?
Yes and no, Ron. If the so-called "low end tool" is still of quality and works accurately and without fuss, then learning the ropes on it is just fine. But having to "fight" with a tool compromises a number of things including safety and if everything one does requires "problem solving" (because of the tool), then it can also discourage one from continuing with the activity. "High end" isn't necessary for sure, but... IMHO, of course.
I started with a typical bench top table saw. Then I bought a third party table/fence for it to try and make it actually work well enough to use consistently. Sold it for pennies on the dollar because that was the only way to unload it. Then I bought a contractor's style saw from a name brand that had a quality table, fence and motor. At that point, I was able to start actually learning woodworking and stop using so many bad words. My upgrades since there were primarily to add capability that I decided was right for me and worthy of my money investment. Had I bought that quality contractors' style saw first, I would have been much better financially as well as farther along with my skills much sooner.
IME, learning on subpar equipment in subpar conditions often teaches subpar expectations. If repeatable 1/64" accuracy is impossible to achieve 1/8" becomes a close enough standard.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ron Citerone
You can forget about having the greatest tools because I believe I have them.:) The good news is you can still have the latest or newest.
Very satisfied here
I'd say there is a third type, as much as I hesitate to use "DIY" as a type it fits. The person building something because they can't afford to pay (or don't want to pay) someone else to do it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Osvaldo Cristo
The home owner building a deck doesn't necessarily love construction but it's a means to a end. Just like the "woodworker" building a piece of custom furniture / custom cabinets / custom built-ins for themselves because they don't want to pay or can't pay for the quality they seek.
Sort of the "I needed 40,000lf of trim for my DIY reno so I bought a weinig hydromat" people.
False frugality..maybe but common enough
Someone came up with the best quote, a short while back, about a hobbyist buying tools. He said he considered it: "Buying future happiness". For those of us producing work for a living, it can run the gamut from buying happiness, to just getting the work done.
YES! But whether or not we end up with it is a whole different story.
I think the OP's premise is a bit of a strawman. There are definitely some folks on here that are enthusiasts, and recommend high end tools. But there are even more people who advocate Craigslist, Harbor freight tools, Grizzly etc.
In other words, you definitely have the Festool crowd here, but there are plenty of folks who advocate for cheaper tools all the time.
If you're too poor, or simply unwilling, to buy expensive tools, there is plenty of advice from folks here about how to build great furniture without expensive tools.
Personally, I buy the best tools I can afford for the project I'm working on. Sometimes that is Harbor freight, sometimes that is MiniMax.
Get in where you fit in.
The "best" tools are not the most expensive-accurate-blah-blah-blah. Many of my tools are "oldies" that I refurbished/tuned-up. I love my little Atlas Bandsaw for contour work. And my ancient Delta Rockwell Drill Press is heavy, sturdy and was free! For me, the "best" tools meet my needs, hopefully have some emotional value and may be brand new or quite old.
There are many posts where we have no clue whether the original post (or the answers), is coming from a newbie or a pro.
I have long thought it would be helpful for each of us to self label ourselves, and have it appear right under the place where it describes us as member or contributor. This would allow the OP to know what frame of reference the answers are coming from.
To answer your question, I started at age 24 when I bought a package of used tools from a classified ad. I got a Monkey Ward RAS, an old 8" Atlas table saw, a home made workbench, and an old Craftsman 12" band saw with no tires. I paid $125 for the bunch in maybe 1967 or so.
I got them because I wanted to add a room to my house, which meant DIY was all I could afford. I still consider myself a DIY'er mostly, but would love to do more hobby work. 50 years later, I am still doing stuff the current house needs.
I have collected some pretty nice tools, most used, over the years. Cannot refuse a good deal, but I have bought new also, as I can afford them. I now have a separate workshop full of neat stuff.
For what it's worth, that is how I got started. No training, very little input from my elders.
This has been well covered but one thing that comes to mind is the assumptions that come with the word budget and to a lesser extent tool size. For a hobbyist the amount of money they are willing to spend on a tool at a given time is not necessarily all they can afford. It is simply what they are willing to spend for a tool that meets their needs. Recently I was in the market for a 14" band saw and for how much I would use it was "worth" a 1000 budget. The advice I received was great although several people said I should save more, double my budget and get a better, bigger machine. I could have bought a $2000 band saw (my wife never asks what I spend) but the money could be more wisely spent on other things. I ended up with a Rikon 10-326 I love and will probably be the last band saw I own.
Size is a similar issue. For many who work out of their garage, space is a major factor in tool purchases. Space considerations for many are more important than budget when buying a power tool. Benchtop drill presses and lunch box planers are great tools when you only have a few hundred square feet to work. Yeah, the drill press wont be able to drill 4 inch deep hole with out some work and the planer won't handle a 20" wide slab but they are up to the task for the vast majority of what most hobbyists need.
I received a ton of enjoyment from making my first pieces using a 6” jointer, router, lunchbox planer, and portable table saw. Still using the workbench I made using those starter tools. If you enjoy building things and working with wood then I don’t think it ultimately matters what color your tools are. With that said, I definitely enjoy working more with the tools I currently have. No more clamping a jointed piece of wood as a straight edge for a circular saw. Much easier to have a stop on the felder outrigger. It is convenient to have things go smoothly and with minimal effort 99% of the time.
If you are depending on this for income, then that is all a different story. I take it that is not the reason the OP started the thread.
I grew up on a dairy farm. We didn't have fancy tools, but when you bought a wrench you made sure it was a good one (Craftsman in those long ago days), doing otherwise didn't make sense. My own rule was to buy a tool when I needed it, driven mostly by repairing my home and autos. I didn't take up woodworking until my kids were grown. I started with a Delta tilting table saw and some bar clamps. I thought of it as "make do" until a brother-in-law pointed out that I had gotten a better machine than the current big-box contractor saw and pointed me to the OWWM site. I've since enjoyed acquisition and use of older stuff, a 15 year ramp up to: 1947 Unisaw and scroll saw, 1920s Yates 6" jointer and 12" Solem planer, Walker-Turner 14" band saw, Moak 26" bandsaw, Delwat radial arm, Delta HD shaper, and lots of smaller stuff. I'm not against new: have an Inca router lift, DowelMax, and a Domino for instance. In the last year I sold my Solem planer and bought a 16" MM Jointer/planer; the Solem was hell for stout and did a great job, but I hated changing the knives, to the point that dull blades didn't do a good job. My main output is furniture for spouse and kids, and giving it to them is what is most fun.
I am a used equipment fan, since I could never have purchased all these machines otherwise. (The MM cost about equals the sum of all the others). Rehab was mostly just new bearings, which for me is also kind of fun. But that wouldn't be enjoyable to everyone. Do what brings you joy. I do have a nice dust system, but that was used too ($850 for a 5HP Oneida + 200 feet of pipe) + a used 15 HP VFD from craiglist ($50). Again, not everyone's cup of tea to set up.
My only other comment is to be aware of safety. Some of the new stuff is safer, and that may be worth a premium. I am likely to shift to a slider one day for only that reason: hands to close to a spinning blade makes me nervous.
Terry T.
I discovered woodworking in college about 12 years ago. I started with a cheap Stanley miter box, and a Skill router. I lived in an apartment in Philadelphia. Sometime around 2007 I discovered Krenov, Nakashima and the other big names. Shortly thereafter, I found Woodworking Magazine, Fine Woodworking and various forums. I was a hobbyist who used mostly hand tools from 2007-2012. In 2013 I started to do woodworking full time. In the years that followed, I worked as an apprentice carpenter, and in furniture and cabinet shops. I got yelled at constantly. I learned to love power tools as much as hand tools.
I bought my first planer (DW735) prior to purchasing a vehicle. That planer lasted longer than my first truck. Over time, I acquired power tools that a carpenter might have, and a 6” jointer. Between 2017 and 2019, I got into larger power tools. Today, I have a 16” jointer, 20” planer etc.
I don’t think you need expensive tools to do good work. I don’t think beginners need the best tools. I think there is a point where many intermediate folks benefit from high quality professional quality tools. At a certain point, fighting tools is a waste of time. I think this applies to professionals and amateurs. It’s hard to learn higher order skills if your time is consumed with lower order tasks.
This comment right here sums up everything I believe about the topic of "pro vs hobbyist" when it comes to tool selection. If a tool is difficult to use, adjust and maintain accuracy it doesn't matter if you're a pro or a hobbyist, fighting with that tool results in different but still negative results. If you're a pro, that low end tool is probably going to end up costing you money in lost productivity. If you're a hobbyist learning your way, that low end tool could prove so discouraging that you give up. In both cases it could also result in safety issues. I equate it to the old belief that you're far more likely to cut yourself with a dull knife than with a properly sharpened one. Remember the saying, "Let the saw do the cutting"?Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim Becker
When it comes to the topic of people offering advice about what tools someone should buy, the one thing that drives me absolutely nuts is when people say you don't need the high end tool because you're a hobbyist, only a pro needs that particular tool. That is a ridiculous statement simply because the majority of pros look at tool purchases very differently than hobbyists. From what I've seen, most pros view tool purchases in terms of ROI, how it impacts their productivity and ultimately their bottom line which is exactly what they should be doing as responsible business owners. Hobbyists view the same tool purchase as something to enhance their hobby and that the tool may bring more enjoyment to what they're doing. At the end of the day it is no different than buying a high end camera and lenses to photograph birds or upgrading the suspension on your Jeep to go mudding on the weekends, doesn't matter if you're doing it professionally, if you can afford it and it brings you enjoyment then by all means go for it.
One other thing to consider is that a "high end tool" can serve as a gateway that can help people realize that they can actually pull off projects that they want to attempt. Any tool that makes the job easier will have that effect. If you haven't already figured it out, I'm a hobbyist. I've been doing my own home renovations for 20 years, did my first room remodel which was a complete bathroom gut down to the studs and the only power tool I had was a Ryobi 12V drill that I used to hang drywall. I did all the moulding and trim work with a plastic miter box and hand saw along with a hammer and nail sets so I get the idea of starting with the cheap stuff. The next reno project resulted in my first miter saw and a pancake compressor and nails guns. The realization quickly set in that I could do these projects and I didn't have to fight my way through them.
Skip ahead 20 years and we arrive at what is probably one of the most controversial tools that comes up in the pro vs hobbyist debate, the Domino. A couple years ago I got a good bonus from work and decided to splurge on a tool that most people would say isn't needed for a hobbyist so the Domino came home with me. I had never built a cabinet or table or any other piece of furniture because I didn't think I had the skills to do it. The Domino changed that thought process and opened up a new world for me, I was able to produce fairly decent looking pieces without having to fight my through the process or overthink every cut. Those results encouraged me to go even farther with what I was doing, it encouraged me to take on a larger effort and learn more about what I am doing. The next project is now a full kitchen cabinet build for our home. That one high end tool purchase completely changed the trajectory of what I thought I was capable of and inspired me to learn more about the craft. I realize the Domino isn't the end all/be all of joinery but for me it opened up a whole new world of possibilities in my hobby and a desire to learn more about our shared craft. Bottom line, that particular "high end tool" was a game changer for me in more ways than one and I would never discourage someone from buying a tool simply because they're "Just a hobbyist".
This ended up much longer than I planned when I started typing, sorry about that...