Thread: Do we need expensive hand tools?

I think there are a number of factors here.

I have mostly old tools, some of which belonged to my Grandfather and some of which I have picked up here and there. I have a very small number of 'new' tools, including a Veritas block plane and some Two Cherries chisels. However I improved my Stanley #4 smoother (Canadian) by adding a blade from Thumbsucker's group buy. So having the better steel has made a difference, both in performance of the plane and duration of the edge.

There is no doubt that there have been advancements in such things as metallurgy and tool design, largely due to the fact that people these days have the measuring equipment and the time to examine things to the nth degree.

Having said that, a lot of wonderful things were built with the old tools and so the results speak for themselves.

I can see your frustration but I don't think anyone can tell you that you need to buy these things to improve. At the end of the day, it's down to whether or not you are satisfied with the results you are getting. In some cases (the Domino being one) I think that these new tools DO make the job easier, or at least the results more consistent for the hobbyist. But if you can already cut a neat M&T, the only benefit to you will be time.

If you are into it because you enjoy using hand tools, then there is no point buying a power tool to do the job. You are only eliminating the very reason you enjoy the process.

Personally, I mostly use the tools I've got and rarely buy new stuff. I use M&T because I don't need anything more than the two bits of wood I'm joining and the tools I have in my cupboard to do it.

Who cares what tools one has,woodworking is so much more than the tools. If in the journey of your woodworking life you end up with high end tools out of the passion,love and respect for them so what. If you don't so what. At the end of the day it's what you make with what ever tools you have.


Frank.

Some years ago I hosted a representative group of the Danish Guild of cabinetmakers on a tour of the state. They were displaying a brace of "Anniversary Cabinets", each individually made and showing varying but universally high levels of craftsmanship.

We called into Hobart Town to view a couple of particularly fine collections of historic pieces on exhibit. One bequeathed to the Tasmanian Library of all places was hidden away in their basement, and guarded by a rather officious member of staff, who would obviously have rather been doing something else by her overall demeanour.

One particular fine piece, described as Chinese, sparked interest. One of the guests remarked "no, it's Dutch reproduction this is just like one my boss has". The staff member in a haughty manner asked "oh and who might that be?" He replied "Queen Margette: She has it in her sitting room. I look after the palace furniture, it came from the workshop of ......(dutch maker). I had to repair a split in one of the drawer bottoms, and can you see how this veneer is starting to peel in the same place as the one at home?"

What a change - from haughty indifference to fawning obsequience in a heartbeat. Down came the barriers, out came the cotton gloves, and we all had unparalleled opportunity to get in close & maul the furniture, admire the inlays and marquetry and generally get up close and personal with some truly spectacular world-class craftsmansip from some of Europe's finest workshops of the 18th & 19th centuries.

The irony is that for all that definitely some, probably most, and possibly all of these priceless pieces weren't actually made by their famous makers. Sheratons, Chippendales and Hepplewhites are out there in surprisingly large numbers. Far more than could actually ever have been made in a lifetime by any maker. Because they didn't make them. Their apprentices did, supervised by craftsmen.

I guarantee these lowly paid apprentices didn't have the latest & greatest tools either. Just the same type of hand-me-downs the rest of us use.

It's nice to have a good tool, but it's great to have a familiar one too. My little block plane is small enough for my pocket, and is a constant warm companion for those small tasks like softening an arris, cleaning up a chamfer or a light trim for a better fit. After 30 odd years its almost part of my anatomy. Hell, the bloody thing even comes in with me at night and spends it's evenings on the living room mantlepiece when I empty my pockets. There's little more discomforting than a lump of cold cast iron in the pocket on a midwinter's morning.

Originally Posted by Ratbag

that you need high quality (and expensive) new hand tools to achieve good results.

No one can be that stupid. Surely!!

I've been saving for 2 years for a festool toothpick, I'm sure it will make my teeth picking much more pleasant.

I believe the tools dont make the trademan.

This thread could easily degenerate into a 'flame war'!

Expensive is separate to 'value for $', and both only really apply to things that have a re-sale market, are used for production or trade, or are an essential. Trying to apply the concepts to a hobby is always going to be fraught as you could always say that the hobby is not essential and therefor wasteful of money!

I suppose the issue could be 'resolved' by thinking of whether a wedding 'needs' to be expensive. Some couples are happy with a registry fee and pop in at lunch, others need the whole shebang.
Try to convince the bride that wants the whole shebang that she doesn't need to suffer the expense, and you will only get a dirty look.

Additionally there is a whole section of marketing that relies on the motivations behind purchasing which has nothing to do with value.

One of the problems with this issue, other than the definition of 'expensive/value for $', is that people often need to justify their decisions/purchases by convincing themselves of 'value', and need to have others chorus agreement that that value exists.
Also, what is expensive to me may not be expensive to a richer and more spendfree person.

So... the whole question is vexed with ambiguities!

My opinion is that you don't need expensive tools.

My $60 Ryobi electric drill works well enough that spending lots more money on a Festo is just not worth it.

I was happy to pay more for an old scraper plane than a similar condition No 4, as scrapers are rarer and I wanted one - that is recognizing relative value - however if someone suggested that I needed a hand made, infill, aircraft tolerance machined one to make my work better, then I'd consider them simply more willing than I to spend $. BTW, the scraper plane was more expensive than a lifetime supply of card scrapers!

That said, for most of us working in wood is a hobby, and if part of that hobby is to feel satisfied in owning expensive, value for dollar, or cheap tools... then whatever floats your boat!

Enough philosophizing for me!

There is a lot of market pressure and hype amed at the woodworker same as any other comsumer group. That is modern life in the global age. Every man and his dog trying to tell you what you must have to be fullfilled. The cosmetics and fashon sectors would be the worst offenders but the marketing works to a point otherwise they would not bother with it.
Woodworkers in general must be a hard nut to crack for marketers due to woodworking being a very practical activity so done by people with practical minds. In general less likly to be swayed by fads and slick adverts. Our aim is to get a job done so we mostly get the tools needed for that.
Most of us have a mix of old and new tools because we have to budget but we still want good tools. New tools go from worse than very bad to quite good but the good stuff is expensive. The old sorby, ward, marples, tyzak and the like were expensive in the day and stuff like norris would have been quite expensive. The difference today is the sheer amount of utterly crap tools aimed at the DIY person. Tools so bad as to be not fit for purpose. I can only reason these tools get produced at all because the makers trust the marketers to sell them.
There I have talked it round in a circle!
Regards
John

It is no different to just about any other pursuit/hobby/recreation I can think of.

Some people are only interested in results, some people like the equipment, some people are collectors, some people can't afford to spend much and make do very well, some people go absolutely over the top and never produce anything worth mentioning.

Why should woodworkers be any different?

I don't think you need expensive tools but I do think there is a certain minimum standard of quality below which the tool starts working against you rather than for you. The old tools you described must meet that standard or else they would frustrate you in use.

There are two complicating factors. The first is skill. The more skill you have (up to a point) the less the quality of the tool matters. Also what does expensive mean? I paid about $300 for four Veritas back saws: 2 dovetail saws, a crosscut saw and a rip saw. Was that expensive? Maybe it was but I have had them for a few years now and when I die my son and then my grandchildren will have them. Now I could have paid a few hundred dollars,for each saw from other sources and to me that would have been expensive. Same with chisels. I have a set of Narex bevel edged chisels and another set of Narex mortice chisels. With postage maybe less than $250 for the lot. Was that expensive? I don't know the answer to that. I have used LN chisels and the Narex work just as well I think so maybe they were not. I suppose I spent about $300 on one Veritas plane and next to nothing for all the rest, picked up from markets and garage sales. I like the $300 plane but unless I find a wealthy relative somewhere old plane will do me.

It it does seem that some tools are just ridiculously expensive. And I doubt that the difference in the price is justified by any potential difference in performance.

Hi,
The quality lasts long after the price is forgotten. So which side am I on? Yes you have to pay for new quality but equally the quality is still there when the price, and original owner are long forgotten, when you buy generations old tools, the cheap and nasties have long since been binned.
Now I suppose I will be talking with a squeaky voice, they say that is what happens when you have a foot on each side of the fence.
Regards

There's a few things to mention, and the primary one is that skilled hands with not so good tools will do a better job than unskilled hands with a superb version of the tool. But at the same time, I would think it might be better to learn with a good tool rather than a lesser tool.

Does more expense necessarily make it a better tool? I think that would be quite variable, and many of the tools made have quite some additional bling which is clearly marketed towards the amateur rather than the pro. Doesn't make the tool function any better at all but for many (amateurs) holding a nice looking tool inspires them to do better work.

Another point that hasn't been raised is that if the current hand tool makers are not supported then all those skills and the future supply of tomorrow's old tools will die, and that would be a disaster. In *that other thread* I quoted an example of an HNT 1" Shoulder plane (Gidgee and Brass for practical reasons - not just bling - HNT don't make bling planes very much except for the occasional use of some gorgeous timber that adds nothing to performance).

The cost of that plane is about 1 to 1½ days wages ($185 inc GST), so I wonder what the cost of a Shoulder Plane in terms of how many days wages would have been back in the day. Possibly not too much different. In the case of my own HNT Shoulder planes I supplied some Dead Finish timber for the set. Why? Simply because I could. It will add value to them, and I would imagine that if I ever came to sell them and they were up against a set of the normal Gidgee planes at the same time then mine would probably sell first. That's not a major consideration, but certainly has merit. I've only really started accumulating woodwork specific tools over the last 3-4 years and i made an early decision that I would only buy the tool once. This has paid off when I have decided to sell a few of them (to raise funds for a thicky/jointer) because I was selling quality tools and they sold quickly and for good money.

One other point: Would yesteryear's craftsmen have used power tools had they been available? I would think a resounding "YES!" in a heartbeat. Put them in front of a Mitre Saw with an 80 tooth blade and show them how stupidly quick and accurate they are with an end grain cut surface to die for and they'd want to know where do you get this magnificent tool. Then show them how it will do mitres and compound mitres to a 300mm wide board and they'd be forming a very disorderly queue!

And to the nitty gritty of *that other thread*: would they have wanted a Domino (at least for many of their tasks)? You betcha! To them, as it it is to today's pros, time was money. Dovetail joints were only done for practical reasons - strength - and were pretty much always hidden where possible (as far as I can make out, anyway). It's only nowadays, in the face of diminishing skills because of machine replacement, that Dovetails have become elevated to the status that they have. DTs (and M&Ts ) were just they way things were done then.

Even a member who could arguably be described as the forum's biggest aficionado of handplanes purchased a Thicky/Jointer earlier this year, to do the heavy lifting.

Horses for courses. If you have the spare dough then support the current handtool makers, otherwise do what you need to do (which will support the second hand market, and that's a good thing too).

A lot of those old 'user' tools would be a lot cheaper if it wasn't for the tool collectors paying top dollar

I don't know. There is just so much to it. Take planes for example. A lot of people argue that we need this and that because the old Stanley plane designs were fine for the timbers in use at the time but struggle with our hard woods. I suppose you'd have to agree to a certain extent. So there have been experiments with bed angles and blade orientation and cap irons/chip breakers ad-nauseum.

Does it make a difference? I suppose if you had a particularly curly bit of grain, you would toss it out or use it somewhere that it won't be seen rather than try and make it look nice. With the price of timber and the appeal of that sort of grain, I suppose if you had a plane that can tackle it, it's worthwhile. Personally, if I come across something that my smoother and card scraper can't handle, I don't waste my time on it. But others see the value in it and so go out and buy the HNT Gordon planes or the Lie Neilsen low-angle smoother or whatever.

So that might be an example where a more expensive tool might let you work with materials that you otherwise would avoid.

Then there are the efficiency improvements like the domino, and I suppose things like the electric router would have been in that category a few decades ago. The price puts them out of the reach of the average DIYer until they become more common and then everyone has one. Whether the domino winds up in that category remains to be seen, but I suppose once the patent expires they'll be selling them in Aldi.

However I think the main complaint here is the perceived elitism that goes with it. The suggestion that to be any good, the tool has to have a big price tag or come from a prestigious maker. I'm sure there is an element of tool snobbery with some people anyway. But I look down my nose at those who own tools that are not at least 50 years old. They just don't make them the way they used to

Hi,
On the other hand the tailors did not welcome the sewing machine, it meant any one could sew.
Regards