On Mon, 10 Apr 2006 14:14:52 -0700, "Teamcasa"
wrote:

Do you just try to buy the cheapest tools you can find? Does this mean your
work is solely based on how cheap you can make it? Are the two correlative?

Is the only factor in the quality of what you make how much you spent
on the tools? You can somewhat make up for a lack of skill, but not
craftsmanship or originality or anything else with expensive tools.
You CAN compensate for lower quality tools most of the time.

Personally, I find nothing more frustrating than fussing with a tool that
won't hold up to the rigors of life in my hands. Underpowered, noisy pieces
of cheap junk that fail to do the job asked of them.

That is a perfectly valid opinion.

You can't make money or enjoy using cheap tools.

That is bull****. Maybe YOU can't, but I have and do. Some of my
cheap tools have paid for my expensive tools. I have a Ryobi 9" band
saw that's made me more than 10 times what it cost, and it's still in
the shop in the shadow of its new bigger brother, which would still be
considered a cheap tool by many even though it cost 5 times as much.

My father, grandfather, great grandfather were all cabinet and furniture
makers or lumber men. The tools they passed down to me along the way are
all surprisingly high quality or hand made.

And guess what. They had a bunch of crappy tools that served them
well enough at the time too. They just didn't get passed down.
Everything isn't an heirloom.

Should everyone learn how to sharpen on a $50 chisel? Should I reach
for that chisel when I need to get some dried glue off my bench?

I know a lot of people feel like they wasted money on cheap tools, and
they try to keep newbies from what they feel like was a mistake they
made. But there is a lot to learn, and postponing the beginning of
that learning while they save up for the unisaw and the aircraft
carrier of a jointer and the stationary planer and the $2000 band saw
doesn't do you any good. The best tool is the one in the shop being
used, not sitting at the store. There's plenty of time to buy better
tools, there's limited time to learn a lifetime's worth of things that
go into making great work. The months or years of extra experience is
worth a lot more in the long run than a couple hundred bucks we
'wasted'.


-Leuf