Thread: Starting out buying hand tools - to restore - or new

Originally Posted by IanW

Colin, I think D.W. was being flippant, I took it that it was his way of suggesting a windfall.

It's always a bit of a conflict when you see something that you want and it's priced below what you think is typical market value - I guess the skeptic in me always thinks "what;s wrong with it?". Most of us, I'm afraid, would likely succumb to temptation, if it really is a bargain. I guess the person who sold the item will be perfectly happy they got what they asked for, until someone tells them they could've gotten more! Fortunately (or unfortunately?), it's a moral dilemma one rarely has to deal with!

To be truthful, I suspect my better half would happily pay someone to empty out my shed if I karked it without dealling with its contents, so keep an eye on the 'hatched, matched & despatched' notices you Brissy blokes..

Cheers,

I battled to phrase what I was trying to say, I hope I didn’t offend anyone, especially you D.W., that certainly wasn’t my intention.

Ian, I couldn’t agree with you - both about a real, serious bargain being a bit of a dilemma and about them not coming up too often. Additionally, if you can afford the thing it’s a much easier decision to make when faced with a grieving (or even a relieved) widow. The word widow actually carries a lot of baggage - many widows are better off financially than they were before the insurance payout. If it’s a trader, I’d snap it up without a second thought, even though he’s also just trying to feed his family.

In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have clicked “Post” on that one, as it’s a minefield, and I didn’t really negotiate it adequately. On the other hand it’s not a bad discussion to have, even if it’s started off by me looking rather ‘preachy’ and judgemental.

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Most second hand chisels need work and they normally wont match the stone you have if the flat side is curved from bad honing on a curved stone.

Rob; the high use of convex bevels may explain why many earlier honing stones show a concave wear pattern along their length.

Originally Posted by planemaker

Rob; an increased reliance on convex bevels may explain why many earlier honing stones show a concave wear pattern along their length.

Could be Stewie .

Rob my friend, Those Ebony handle chisels are really pretty. And you don't really appreciate the work relieving the bolsters and tangs on a chisel until sharpening when the new cone shaped bolster rides right up on the stone and rounds the bevel at the back... At least relieving it a bit gives you 1/2" before that happens...

The rationale behind my advice of going at an old chisel is that an old chisel is a relatively small "cost" all in. Rehabbing chisels is unlikely require additional investment in parts.... And then you can just go use it and make up your mind... Best of all - it's fairly cheap to buy a 1st quality new production model for a "shootout" to calibrate reality vs mythology..... .

So for example - buy an old chisel for $10 or $15 and then buy a new Sheffield made Stanley for $15 or a new Two Cherries or Ashley Iles for around $30.. Your shootout puts you out maybe $70 all in counting chisels and sundries (sandpaper, wire wheel, and rust remover chemical).

The same shootout for a $25 used #4 plane could easily run you over $350 all in counting the used plane, sundries, repair parts, new iron and chip breaker for the old plane, and then something like a Luban to shootout head to head.. These costs for repair parts on these old girls is a very real consideration - I had to replace an out of square sole on a Type 16 Stanley #5 - apparently the mold must have shifted during casting and the entire thing was severely out of square - inside and out... I just couldn't stomach binning the beautiful brazilian rosewood knob and tote...

Thanks.

Originally Posted by auscab

I think the problem with that suggestion truckjohn is a chisel is a Hog of a thing to resurrect and get running well if its been mistreated in the past . Most second hand chisels need work and they normally wont match the stone you have if the flat side is curved from bad honing on a curved stone. And that's the Hog part of it.
I love My second hand tools but My second hand chisels tend to stay in a box to be re purposed for other uses like knocking out tacks from Upholstered seating needing to be re upholstered. Ive collected nice sets of Bergs and some Titan but for my clean woodwork I go to a new set that I showed here a while back which I fitted Ebony handles. The nice sets collected I will probably sell on .

If the OP wants to have a good time with cleaning and running with a second hand tool then Planes are the go . You would probably agree.

Maybe what we should do is point out the planes to go for . My basic way of going for a good Stanley is if its got a large front knob not small and the brass wheel is large not small . Then its a good one to go for if its got its two original BRW Handles.
The large knob and wheel BRW are the best to use compared to earlier low knob small wheel . I don't get into all the "Types " of changes Stanley went through to much .

Rob

Originally Posted by truckjohn

The same shootout for a $25 used #4 plane could easily run you over $350 all in counting the used plane, sundries, repair parts, new iron and chip breaker for the old plane, and then something like a Luban to shootout head to head..
Thanks.

Around here you could buy a no 3, a no 4 and a no 7 for about $350. All good enough to clean up , no new parts needed. And be shaving wood with them the day you got them home. You don't buy the stuff that needs any new parts. There is plenty of good enough stuff to be had.
Start off with just a 3 or a 4 and enjoy it .

Originally Posted by Colin62

......I battled to phrase what I was trying to say, I hope I didn’t offend anyone, especially you D.W., that certainly wasn’t my intention......

I don't think what you said was at all offensive, Colin, I don't think it hurts to be gently reminded that we have a duty of care to each other, even perfect strangers...

Originally Posted by Colin62

....Ian, I couldn’t agree with you - both about a real, serious bargain being a bit of a dilemma and about them not coming up too often. ....

Well, I sure don't stumble on too many absolute old-tool bargains round here, maybe I should move to a better spot?.....

Cheers,

I did say earlier that so far as chisels are concerned - I'll be buying new. Simpler. Same goes for a block plane.

I think new chisels is a good idea, Narex are very hard to beat for the price and readily available in most countries.

Originally Posted by IanW

Colin, I think D.W. was being flippant, I took it that it was his way of suggesting a windfall.

It's always a bit of a conflict when you see something that you want and it's priced below what you think is typical market value - I guess the skeptic in me always thinks "what;s wrong with it?". Most of us, I'm afraid, would likely succumb to temptation, if it really is a bargain. I guess the person who sold the item will be perfectly happy they got what they asked for, until someone tells them they could've gotten more! Fortunately (or unfortunately?), it's a moral dilemma one rarely has to deal with!

To be truthful, I suspect my better half would happily pay someone to empty out my shed if I karked it without dealling with its contents, so keep an eye on the 'hatched, matched & despatched' notices you Brissy blokes..

Cheers,

Well, sort of, but not quite (being flippant).

I have the same sensitivity as you're implying, but dealers generally don't (which is what you have to become if you're going to try to turn tools around). I recall Todd Hughes talking about an old lady who called him (this is a decade old story now), and she had what sounded like high 3 figures worth of moulding planes. She got his name from someone as a person who buys and resells old tools, and told him she wanted $400 for the lot. He told her he'd give her $150, which I'd guesstimated to be about a fifth of the value of the planes - and I'm sure he did, too - he does it for a living. She was offended and left, but he told her that he couldn't really make any money on them at $400 and was fine if she looked elsewhere.

She came back with the planes not long after that and sold them to him for $150, and i'm sure he resold them on ebay (because that's what he does).

It's just a time (the dump of a loved ones' tools) where you can either be a seller who spends a decade or three trying to get market value for everything, or you can give in to dealers. It should serve as notice to those of us hoarding large piles with disinterested spouses.

If you try to sell that stuff at an estate sale (which is typical here in the states), what happens is what occurred with a friend of mine. Her grandfather had 1600 planes. He wasn't a woodworker, he just liked planes. A couple of the rare ones sold and "all of the money was out of the room" after that. They ended up selling hundreds of planes for a quarter each, and still had hundreds left. It's just the way it goes.

Todd took a lot of heat for mentioning that, but i'm sure there are other professional dealers who would've tried for a lower amount than $150.

There was another sale less long ago where a collector had two of every single thing that BCTW has made and a basement full of other tools, too. He allowed himself use of one of the BCTW tools and the other was unused - for every example. His wife would sell the entire lot only, and a dealer on SMC or woodnet bought the whole collection with the intention of keeping items they liked, selling the rest (presumably with a margin of cash on top of all of it).

I'm on the other end in person (which is why I'd make a bad dealer, but it's easy to be polite when it's not for a living or intentionally to make money. I could run a zero profit operation pretty well by being a wonk for what's fair).

The reality is that dealers have to make money. And that's how they put food on the table. The dealer risks losing his money on piles of unsalable stuff.. And he risks his reputation letting bad things get out.. There is a tremendous work in beween "Pile of stuff in deceased's collection" and "Receive market value prices"... And often as not - "Market value prices" are disappointingly low... Around here it's still hard to even give away wooden molding, rabbet, and dado planes...

After buying a couple miscellaneous lots related to another hobby - aka piles of somebody else's junk - I have sympathy for these dealers...

Seriously - what showed up on my door step in one case was a black trunk full of rusty bits and pieces.. Some stuff in boxes, some loose.. It took me many many hours to catalogue the pile and to even make heads or tails out of what I had... On top of this - about a full 30% was just trash.. Either literal trash/cigarette butts/nuts, bolts, and washers, or stuff completely rusted beyond any hope of recovery. Another 30% of what was left was missing parts..

Then cleaning it up, repairing things that were worth repair, finding, buying or making and restoring lost bits and pieces. Finally taking pictures and listing the things I did not want took hours and hours and hours....

In the end - yes, I made my money back selling the stuff I didn't want - but only just barely if you counted all the $$$ I had to spend on replacing missing and damaged pieces.... But I certainly didn't make a penny back off the hours I spent... In the end - I gave it up as a hobby.. Too much hassle, too little return to make it worthwhile.....

D.W. and truckjohn

You have both brought home the realities of life and business. I have to say that I am surprised at how long dealers over here are prepared to have goods up for sale at inflated prices without selling.

Just to return to the issue of re-selling goods and iandrewmartin's original concept, I agree that you will be hard pressed to make money from the enterprise. If I look at my own situation collecting handsaws my plan is to restore and sell mainly once I have retired, which may be some time in the future still. Will it make money? Absolutely not! The best I can aspire to is a cost neutral result to offset my hobby. That is acceptable for me, and I stress the "for me" aspect with certain provisos: Firstly that I continue to enjoy the restoration and sharpening process. And secondly that my eyesight continues to "be good enough for all practical purposes."

I have a work colleague who loves walking and hiking. He plans his walks a year in advance. Just into his fifties, his attitude is that he is getting this aspect of his life out of the way while he still can. He does not want to get to retirement age looking forward to walking and then face the realisation that physically he cannot do it.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

........ The best I can aspire to is a cost neutral result to offset my hobby. That is acceptable for me, and I stress the "for me" aspect with certain provisos: Firstly that I continue to enjoy the restoration and sharpening process. And secondly that my eyesight continues to "be good enough for all practical purposes." ........

That's pretty much my own philosophy, Paul! By selling a few 'spare' tools I can contribute a little to 'shed overheads', but it would take more energy & time than I have to turn it into a genuinely profitable business. I think it's far more practical for most of us to keep our hobbies as hobbies,and do a bit of horse-trading to offset costs. It just occurred to me, our private health fund is always promoting the benefits of gym membership & offering discounts etc., to sign up to a gym programme - I reckon the health benefits of a shed are far greater, so it's about time they started subsidising sheds!

And yes, don't imagine for one minute that any aids are going to give you back the eyesight of a 25 year-old! Specs allow me to focus on what I'm looking at, but my vision just isn't what it was 25 years ago! I noticed a couple of years ago, when sitting down at the multi-header microscope with some young grad students that even though I was sharply focused, I wasn't seeing the detail their young eyes were picking up. Working under strong light helps a lot, but nothing totally restores the sight of our youth, so I'm preparing for the worst by trying to learn to sharpen my saws by feel alone.......

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

That's pretty much my own philosophy, Paul! By selling a few 'spare' tools I can contribute a little to 'shed overheads', but it would take more energy & time than I have to turn it into a genuinely profitable business. I think it's far more practical for most of us to keep our hobbies as hobbies,and do a bit of horse-trading to offset costs. It just occurred to me, our private health fund is always promoting the benefits of gym membership & offering discounts etc., to sign up to a gym programme - I reckon the health benefits of a shed are far greater, so it's about time they started subsidising sheds!



I wasn't seeing the detail their young eyes were picking up. Working under strong light helps a lot, but nothing totally restores the sight of our youth, so I'm preparing for the worst by trying to learn to sharpen my saws by feel alone.......

Cheers,

Ian

Well, now you mention it my workplace offers a health subsidy of 75% of the cost of equipment up to about $600 or so. This is ordinarily for athletic equipment, sports boots, bicycles etc, but a hand saw is exercise isn't it?

Would you like to borrow my braille saw set. (The saw teeth will be right when they are prickly)?

Regards
Paul