Itching to buy a new tool? What tools have you wasted money on?

[Maurice Mcmurry]

I never wanted a "power hand saw". A shop-mate bought one. I tried in vain to find a use for it. It ranks high on my dud list.

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[Frederick Skelly]

Pocket hole jig. Used it exactly once.

[Warren Lake]

no specific tools just one brand. I have their old stuff and its good, US made.

[Patrick C Daugherty]

Patrick, most of the dowel plates are just too thin. Get a piece of scrap steel that is at least an inch thick, drill holes , champher.

If I need a good round dowel for strength and not really worried about looks, I can get the oak ones from the big box with a HQ in Wilksboro NC. For dowels that show I go real old fashioned and use a square dowel? of contrasting wood, sharpen the end and drive it home. I like the look. Haven't come across situation where I need both ends of the dowel to show yet.

[Jim Becker]

I've delayed putting a response in this thread for this long because it's hard to identify something that was a "waste" from the start. Sometimes, tools and fixtures that went unused did so because of an evolution of my shop and/or project requirements. One example of that was years ago, I went and bought a very nice Performax 22-44 drum sander. It sat basically unused. Why? The kinds of projects I was doing didn't have a need or fit with that particular tool. So I sold it and it's still working hard up in NE PA, to the best of my knowledge. Step forward a few years and I got into some new kinds of work and suddenly had a need for a drum sander to actually use. I got lucky and scored an SM 19-38 "used" (not) for not a lot of money in an estate sale. I use it more frequently than I expected based on how projects have evolved. And then there are tools that rarely are needed, but when they are the right tool...the Bosch 3x21 belt sander is an example of that. Rarely used, but...

I guess the one tool I can identify that was not a good purchase for me is/was a Freud edge banding setup. It's a nice tool...the current version from Rockler sells for $599...but it's seen little use over the years and when I do edgeband (a rare thing for me) I just use an iron. The edge bander was just collecting dust being stored and is currently on our garage floor to be sold in my next round of finally getting rid of excess stuff. (I sold the low hanging fruit of things I used for the shop build that will never be needed again, like the scaffold and big airless sprayer last week in the first round)

It's inevitable that there will be things that get acquired because they seemed like a good idea or were for a particular one time use. And in both cases, it's a good thing to unload them so they are not taking up space and not still hanging around someday when disposing of things is someone else's problem.

[Cameron Wood]

The 123 set up blocks have not gotten any traction.

Long ago, I developed a strong desire for, & bought, a Japanese hatchet. Rarely used- it is ridiculously hard to sharpen, as the blade is over 1/2" thick where it starts the inch long bevels to the cutting edge. Using it means then having to sharpen it & the steel is very hard.

[Michael Burnside]

My sentiments match Jim’s. I’m not a packrat and so if I have something I’m not using, it goes bye bye. Over the years I’ve learned my workflow and what I enjoy doing, so I really don’t have anything that is a total paper weight.

Over 25 years ago I saved for a year to purchase a huge Craftsman socket set. At the time it was around 800 bucks. Maybe that was a waste since I’ve probably used less than 50% of the sockets? LOL.

[Steve Demuth]

I have the Grizzly knock-off of a Tormek wetstone sharpening system, and most of the (genuine) Tormek jigs that supposedly make it useful. I keep it around because I'm too lazy to sell it, but I hardly ever use it. Way too fussy and messy compared to grinding on a good bench grinder.

I also have one of the big orange, mostly plastic, Ridgid oscillating spindle sanders. Been years since I used it. I so rarely found it useful that I gave the bench space it occupied over to a different machine, and put the sander under the bench, so now I have to actually get it out and set it up to use it, and thus rather than being very rarely useful, it's never used, at least as designed. The rubber spindles and sanding sleeves are easily accessible in the storage space, and they make beautiful handheld sanders for inside curves and the like. The get used a lot for that.

Finally, in the hand tool category - my beautifully made Veritas scraping plane sits in my plane drawer, from which it is withdrawn for actual use less often than even the restored Stanley compass plane (which is very much a specialty tool, but I love it, and find a good use for it probably on average once a year). The scraper is the only plane I have every owned that I have not been able to get fettled and adjusted to the point where I can confidently use it for the purpose for which it was designed. I damaged essentially every piece I ever tried to finish with it, and after many attempts, have given up (or maybe not - some big flat surface will come calling in a future project, and maybe I'll convince myself to give it one more try).

[Rod Sheridan]

To paraphrase George Best, “I spent most of my money on tools, women and alcohol. The remainder I squandered”

I think that even tools that turned out to be less than stellar were part of my learning experiences so I consider them educational expenses.

Regards, Rod

[Ron Selzer]

Drill Doctor 750, ruined a complete 29 piece set of drills with it.
Ron

[Alan Lightstone]

Hollow chisel mortiser. Bought it, make a great swivel cart for it, bought nice chisels for it, and I think used in once.

[Jim Becker]

Hollow chisel mortiser. Bought it, make a great swivel cart for it, bought nice chisels for it, and I think used in once.

I resemble that remark... LOL, although not about the cart.

[Patty Hann]

Drill Doctor 750, ruined a complete 29 piece set of drills with it.
Ron

I have the DD 500X. It took me a little while, studying it to see exactly how to place the bit.
But once I figured it out (no destruction of bits was involved in the study) it worked just fine on twist bits.
I have never used it on my brad points.
.

[andrew whicker]

I think a lot of router table stuff falls into "kind of / sort of" a waste once you get a shaper. The router lift I bought is "good" and I thought fairly expensive (jess em) but it turned out to be pretty meh. I also got a huge (for a router) trim bit that I used like once and I'll never have to use again (shaper).

I try hard not to waste money. My worst purchase was a 3 stage fuji turbine. I bought it before I understood utah doesn't sell oil based paints without a paint booth sign off.

Upgraded to a 5 stg and I'm still trying to sell that stupid thing without losing half my money.

The F style clamps that are 12 inches sold at the box stores.. the ones that are light duty... don't buy those.

Those super cheap thin fold up sawhorses.. don't buy those either. (The joys of forgetting stuff when it's an hour one way to your shop from the job site).

I guess the last two are pretty obvious.

Another one as a kind of sort of not sure is my pin nailer. I'm not sure what to do with it. I was excited to get it for a project and then realized it had even less holding power than I expected.

[Jim Becker]

Another one as a kind of sort of not sure is my pin nailer. I'm not sure what to do with it. I was excited to get it for a project and then realized it had even less holding power than I expected.

They have no heads, so shot straight in, they don't have a lot of "holding" power. Now shoot them in at random angles and they are a lot more secure. I primarily use them for fastening thinner materials to something more stout and they hold fine until the glue dries. Small detail moldings also benefit from them as they don't split things easily like larger brads. They are then virtually invisible. the 23 gage pins are also great for temporary fixtures.