Look at these YouTube instructors. How many of these planes and chisels get used?

[William Fretwell]

The ‘enjoying later in life’ thing is not so simple. Later in life you wish you had made even more lovely furniture for yourself to enjoy during your life. Later in life you wonder why you are making it now, you managed without for so long. Children and grandchildren have a clear need for furniture that take president over your needs! Now is your best chance to make yourself stuff!

Yes you can make a lot with very little, that is the beauty of traditional joints, all of which can be made with just a few tools. Your tool collection is far from spartan! Raw stock preparation may be your biggest road block time wise. A local college may be able to help out?

Old tools as an investment? Even using them to make furniture is a meagre income. ‘People’ have no comprehension of the time and care to make furniture that will last 100 years. They don’t want to invest in such furniture. One of my nephews sells wine in Hong Kong, his customers spend more on a bottle of wine than a piece of fine furniture. You have to be very good to sell them furniture.

An important thought is by continuing now you will get better. Your artistic journey continues and takes you to a place you would never have got to ‘later’.

I’m full of admiration for your small space set up. Despite my 1,400 sq ft workshop with a 14 ft ceiling, all my fine furniture is made on one workbench. Excluding the raw wood prep my set up resembles yours. The rest is storage, piles of wood, a huge plywood storage rack and other manufacturing areas. A drill press I would miss.

More tools that make unusual tasks easier is a luxury. You have to remember you have them because you almost never use them, then you have to find them! The number of times I go through boxes and say “good grief, I have one of those!” Is not even funny! I need to buy nothing! I just have to find it! That 6V halogen bulb I put in a safe place……

Make a furniture list for yourself now before your family give you their list……

[steven c newman]

Currently sitting at a Computer Desk that I made in the Dungeon Woodshop. made from Ash....with 6 six drawers that never bind, no matter the Humidity.

This IS a Hobby, to me. Gives me something to do in Me Dotage, you might say. Keeps the body in shape, too.....whether in bit the miles of walking around on a Rust Hunt...or the 3 hours of pushing bench planes around....Beats sitting around all day just watching the TV....or playing games on a Computer....Just be sure to remove the Bi-focals before you head down the stairs to the shop....

[Joel Gelman]

Thank you Steven and all that have advised and inspired me. Daniel, you said". "it's if you have what you need to do what you want". That is really what I am looking for. Sometimes I get things I think I need and I was mistaken leading to a loss of money and time making storage only to later part with them for a major loss. Other times, I get something, find I use it often, and wish I had it sooner. It is my hope that with good thought and advice I will make good decisions in that regard. To me, space is even more important and precious to me than money as no amount of working-spending more will give me more space (other than a bigger shop), and so I spend a lot of time thinking about how to use space and best organize.

I am not seeking to move in the direction of hand tools over machines when the machines can do the task better than with hand tools or faster with the same result. However, I no longer want to be as limited by what machines can offer now that I am very well set as far as machinery goes.

The comment of a rabbet plane being a possible essential plane is something I need to explore further as there appear to be many options. I can make a rabbet-rebate on a shaper very quickly and accurately, but if for some reason I may want to make a change, I would think a nice rabbet plane would perhaps be the easiest for fine tuning. I would not mind being able to tweak the width and/or depth of dados with hand tools, something I have not done previously . It is for hand tools to do these things that I want to allocate space.

[Daniel Culotta]

Sounds like you're on the right track Joel. A router plane can alter the depth of dados, and a side rabbet plane can alter the width (you can also do this with a chisel and knife line). For fine tuning rabbets, a shoulder plane or wooden skew rabbet plane would probably be the ticket, though a normal rabbet plane would certainly work too, and let you cut the rabbets in the first place. Sometimes it's not the best for fine tuning though. Honestly, when I've got a lot of rabbeting to do I fire up my little make-shift router table (or shaper, in your case).

I hear you on space considerations. I'm in an extremely small space, which is why I primarily work with hand tools. No room for big machines!

[Joel Gelman]

I was just looking at skew rabbet plane. https://www.finewoodworking.com/proj...utting-rabbets

From what I understand, and I could be wrong, the skew rabbet plane aka moving fiilister has a depth stop, such as the Veritas. The LN 140 skew block plane may be a nice alternative but it lacks the depth stop. Actually, I do not favor too many adjustments, and for checking depth, seems like if I had a depth stop, I would not use it and instead favor checking depth with my Woodpeckers setup blocks as I progressed. I favor feeling things flush with setup blocks and my complete imperial and metric set gets used very often.

I wish the Garrett Hack 4-day Precision with Hand Tools workshop were tomorrow. It is in August.

[Joel Gelman]

oh...

https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread....lane-vs-LN-140

Maybe the Veritas will be one to occupy the limited plane space allocation. So much useful information here.

[steven c newman]

Skewed rebate plane....Stanley No. 46.....fence...depth stop...I seemed to remember a spur, as well, for cross grain work....

[Luke Dupont]

The ‘enjoying later in life’ thing is not so simple. Later in life you wish you had made even more lovely furniture for yourself to enjoy during your life. Later in life you wonder why you are making it now, you managed without for so long. Children and grandchildren have a clear need for furniture that take president over your needs! Now is your best chance to make yourself stuff!

Yes you can make a lot with very little, that is the beauty of traditional joints, all of which can be made with just a few tools. Your tool collection is far from spartan! Raw stock preparation may be your biggest road block time wise. A local college may be able to help out?

Old tools as an investment? Even using them to make furniture is a meagre income. ‘People’ have no comprehension of the time and care to make furniture that will last 100 years. They don’t want to invest in such furniture. One of my nephews sells wine in Hong Kong, his customers spend more on a bottle of wine than a piece of fine furniture. You have to be very good to sell them furniture.

An important thought is by continuing now you will get better. Your artistic journey continues and takes you to a place you would never have got to ‘later’.

I’m full of admiration for your small space set up. Despite my 1,400 sq ft workshop with a 14 ft ceiling, all my fine furniture is made on one workbench. Excluding the raw wood prep my set up resembles yours. The rest is storage, piles of wood, a huge plywood storage rack and other manufacturing areas. A drill press I would miss.

More tools that make unusual tasks easier is a luxury. You have to remember you have them because you almost never use them, then you have to find them! The number of times I go through boxes and say “good grief, I have one of those!” Is not even funny! I need to buy nothing! I just have to find it! That 6V halogen bulb I put in a safe place……

Make a furniture list for yourself now before your family give you their list……

Haha, all great points!

The "tools as investments" things was a joke, considering how expensive they've become. Though, one does have to wonder if an intelligent investment thesis could have been made given the lockdowns and stimulus checks, and rising popularity of the hobby.

My plan is to hopefully semi-retire around 50. That's a ways off for me still, but I should be young enough to enjoy things for longer. Then again, I'm sure it will take me quite a long time to actually build the stuff I intend to enjoy...

FYI, I do intend to continue doing woodworking. Just that I'm done buying tools for now... hopefully. I've got everything I need pretty much. Maybe I'm kidding myself that I can resist the temptation to buy yet another tool though...

[Joel Gelman]

Huh... interesting timing. in reorganizing the shop, I was planning to take down this wall mount cabinet I made in my basement in the 8th grade and kept. Other plans for that space and along the side and in a tiny drawer I never paid attention to, I found the attached. Never used those 3 planes, and not sure the model of the small shoulder plane as I can't find a number. The saw used once. Must have been purchased 25 or more years ago. Now I need to decide if they will earn their keep as I try to figure out if I will now use them where there would be no better tool. I guess the 99-98 were discontinued. Seems like there are better options for the non-collector, but maybe not. The journey continues

LN.jpg

[Adam Grund]

Haha, all great points!

The "tools as investments" things was a joke, considering how expensive they've become. Though, one does have to wonder if an intelligent investment thesis could have been made given the lockdowns and stimulus checks, and rising popularity of the hobby.

My plan is to hopefully semi-retire around 50. That's a ways off for me still, but I should be young enough to enjoy things for longer. Then again, I'm sure it will take me quite a long time to actually build the stuff I intend to enjoy...

FYI, I do intend to continue doing woodworking. Just that I'm done buying tools for now... hopefully. I've got everything I need pretty much. Maybe I'm kidding myself that I can resist the temptation to buy yet another tool though...

Same here. Though, try as I may I just can hardly devote any time to doing much lately. I collect now so I can play later.
And in that respect- I know it’s not the norm, but I’ve been shown more times than I care to see in the last few years people I know- family, co workers, ect, don’t even make it to retirement or barely retired before something drastic happens.
So 50 is quite a bit earlier than my plan, but I hope for 58-60. We’ll see how it all shakes out when it’s that time 🤞🏼

[Derek Cohen]

Woodworking does not wait for retirement. It does not wait for the collection of tools to be complete. It happens in spite of there not being enough time, or enough space, or the appropriate tools. It happens because you will it to be, in the face of family commitments, or the apparent priority of a new car. The passion is now, not tomorrow.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Adam Grund]

Can’t disagree with you, only to say I’m not there.

[Christopher Charles]

Good thought above. I recall reading that when asked "what's your favorite tool", Frank Klausz replied "my edge sander".



I'd suggest you just need time on the hand tools you have

Best,
Chris

[Ben Ellenberger]

My favorite video in the shop tour genre is this one with Andrew Hunter. Another example of just how much you can do with a pretty small collection of chisels, planes, and saws.

https://www.finewoodworking.com/2018...-andrew-hunter

From a little poking around, I think he qualifies as somebody who primarily makes things other than YouTube videos.

[Jack Dover]

Early on in my woodworking journey I enjoyed watching Paul Sellers for precisely this reason -- he shows how to do everything with just a few basic chisels, a No# 4 plane, and a tenon saw.

Yet he packs a whole storage of tools (says it on the blog) and a nice machine room behind that cute faux brick wall — it's alright though, I'd need two storage lots soon! Just let's not conflate someone's studio with somebody's shop: your ways of work don't necessarily match. You're not doing carefully designed pieces for carefully modeled situations and quite specific audience, are you?

Besides, "everything" is always some basic construction with just basic functions. One can't dwell on this method for too long. Doing everything with a minimal set is rather limiting once you move on to more elaborate projects. Eventually you would want curves and non-rectangular geometry, more complex joinery, better finish, etc — not that it's impossible with just basic tools, but why? The idea of a minimalist tools set is really entertaining, and it's usually demoed by accomplished craftspeople. So it's like watching a tournament won with a single basic punch and then going to a gym practicing just that basic simple punch and nothing else. That's how tournaments won, isn't it? Of course Paul can do it with just basic tools, but he has mastered many more before making his choice. And it's fine, but a dado cut with a plane is not a bit less workmanlike than dado chiseled manually.