Nate Perkins wrote:

"My Old Tools" wrote in
:

PC biscuit joiner. I just don't use it. Mortise and tenon is
stronger and I prefer it to the noise and dust.


I agree with you. I don't have a biscuit joiner. Haven't needed one yet.
I use all mortise and tenon or dovetail. Of course it would be different
if I were doing this for a living and not a hobby.

I wouldn't use it where I would use a heavy tenon, either...

Larry Jaques wrote:
....
B&D belt sander. This one is over 30 years old and has seen about
3 hours total work in that time. ...

Is it the 735 3x24 by any chance? I'll be more than happy to pay you
for it plus shipping...I have worn two out and can't find anything
currently made that I like for balance anyways near as much...

Unfortunately, the particular gears that are worn are no longer
available to repair mine...

Wed, Dec 29, 2004, 8:02am (EST-3) (foggytown) claims:
And now in a burst of refreshing honesty we're all going to admit to the
most useless, waste-of-money, unnecessary, white elephant, "why the hell
did I ever buy that" tool in our arsenal. snip

I've bought some stuff I didn't really need, yes; and some some
stuff I've not used yet. Possibly those could be called a "waste of
money", by some, but not by me. Possibly some stuff might even fall in
the "why the hell did I ever buy that?" category, too. But, in truth, I
can't really think of anything that could actually be termed useless, or
a white elephant, because anything I've bought will be put to use,
eventually - some of them are for projects I won't even be able to start
for awhile yet - just bought the tools because I had the money to spare
at the time, and knew I'd eventually need them. .



JOAT
People without "things" are just intelligent animals.

foggytown wrote:

And now in a burst of refreshing honesty we're all going to admit to
the most useless, waste-of-money, unnecessary, white elephant, "why the
hell did I ever buy that" tool in our arsenal.

Interesting thread. I can think of a lot of contenders for most useless.
However, the tool that clearly takes the cake is the first hand plane I
ever bought, quite a long time before I ever really settled down with the
notion of trying to make interesting things out of wood. I think I bought
it to trim a door in an apartment.

Anyway, years later, I picked it back up and tried to do something
interesting with it. It was one of those simple types with no mechanical
depth adjuster. You had to loosen a big wheel, then jiggle the blade a bit
to try to get it to project just right. Very fiddly. Worse, it had an
ALUMINUM body. Based on more recent research, I would have thought Stanley
got over this bad idea after the dismal failure of their Sweetheart line,
but I suppose not. Aluminum planes suck for all the reasons you've ever
read about. Not the least of which is that they leave horrible black
streaks on everything. Adding insult to injury, it was never made very
well. The sole wasn't flat, the cheeks weren't perpendicular to the sole.
It was almost impossible to adjust, and it wouldn't stay adjusted for love
or money.

I tried to true it up and tune it, but I ultimately just threw the thing in
the trash. I kept the iron out of it, and that's the only piece. It's
rare for me to toss anything. I still have a flywheel from a Nordic Trac,
and the remains of my ill-fated treadmill belt sander. I can always find
some use for almost everything eventually, but this plane was a completely
useless piece of crap.

I can come up with other tools that really aren't very useful. My hot glue
gun hasn't been seen since I don't know when, and I don't really miss it.
My Crapsman router and table is a tool the use of which is best studiously
avoided. My cheap Delta scrollsaw is a close second to this plane for most
useless, poorly-conceived purchase, but even that stupid space waster has
proven sort of halfway useful at least twice. No, the plane wins, hands
down.

--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/
http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/

porter cable detail sander, cant keep paper on the thing for more than a few
seconds

jim

"mark" wrote in
:


"Nate Perkins" wrote in message
. 125.201...
....
I agree with you. I don't have a biscuit joiner. Haven't needed one
yet. I use all mortise and tenon or dovetail. Of course it would be
different if I were doing this for a living and not a hobby.

I use mine for some panel glue-ups. How do you do yours? A spline?
Dowels?

I glue up right after jointing, lightly clamping only 3-4 boards at most at
one time. I make sure the joints are flat at the ends and middle by feel,
and use a rubber mallet to fine position the boards prior to tight
clamping. I do the (wider) final glueup from the sections in the same way.

Works okay for me ... although I can see your point that on a big glueup it
would be very handy to have a biscuit joiner.

On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 21:51:57 GMT, Nate Perkins wrote:
"My Old Tools" wrote in
:

PC biscuit joiner. I just don't use it. Mortise and tenon is
stronger and I prefer it to the noise and dust.

I agree with you. I don't have a biscuit joiner. Haven't needed one yet.
I use all mortise and tenon or dovetail. Of course it would be different
if I were doing this for a living and not a hobby.

How about for, say, a tabletop? Rather than just edge-gluing?

Dave Hinz

On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 22:02:21 GMT, mark wrote:
A rotozip tool. How can they even sell one? Why did I buy one? I thought I
could use it to rough out some sheetrock electrical socket holes, but it was
pretty crappy.

Oh yeah, got one of those too. Also as a gift. Also from SWMBO...
I used it to cut some round cuts on tile (toilet flange), and the tile
got into the front bearing and it squeals like a pig now. Odd that using
a tool in a manner shown on the box would ruin it.

I hate tools that are broken by design. And don't even get me started about
Christmas presents that are so poorly designed or made that they're broken
out of the box. (DISNEY, I'M TALKING ABOUT YOU PEOPLE).

Dave "Ahem. Sorry." Hinz

"Dave Hinz" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 22:02:21 GMT, mark wrote:
A rotozip tool. How can they even sell one? Why did I buy one? I
thought I
could use it to rough out some sheetrock electrical socket holes, but it
was
pretty crappy.

Oh yeah, got one of those too. Also as a gift. Also from SWMBO...
I used it to cut some round cuts on tile (toilet flange), and the tile
got into the front bearing and it squeals like a pig now. Odd that using
a tool in a manner shown on the box would ruin it.


That's funny -- here's a tip for you from someone who hates to throw
anything out. I had it in my hands, on the way to the trash, because mine
squealed exactly like yours. Then I thought, "what the hell, it's only 4
screws. The least I can do is see what makes it tick, then cut the cord off
if it's nothing obviously wrong. So...it wasn't the bearing. The squealing
is caused by the little white finned cooling fan slipping down on the shiny,
polished (yeah, good move) shaft, and contacting the plastic housing. I
clipped mine completely out, and the tool works fine now. I have no idea
what I will EVER use it for, but I did see some kind of cut-off sheel
attachment that looked marginally useful....but probably not. But i didn't
throw it out.

On 29 Dec 2004 08:45:31 -0800, "the_tool_man"
wrote:

Those little Veritas corner rounding planes - the ones bent from a
piece of steel with the little elliptical opening. Woodcraft sells
them for $14 apiece. They either split the grain or require so much
pressure to work that my fingers get sore quite quickly. Easier and
more consistent to use sandpaper or a router.

Real handy on sheet plastic, though.

--RC

"Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. It just yells
'can't you remember anything I've told you?' and lets
fly with a club.
-- John W. Cambell Jr.

On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 00:37:12 GMT, "Chuck Hoffman"
wrote:

Not aimed directly at the last poster but just a general observation:

It's amazing how many of us hold onto stuff we'll never (again) use. Many
times, the plaintive cry is, "But it's worth more than I can get out of it."
Wrong. It's worth exactly NOTHING sitting unused on your shelf. If you
sold it to someone, that would accomplish two things: 1) give a disused
piece of equipment new life, and 2) put a few bucks in your pocket which you
could use to buy wood for a new project.

3) **** off the guy you sold it to.

- -
LRod

Master Woodbutcher and seasoned termite

Shamelessly whoring my website since 1999

http://www.woodbutcher.net

Does the Ronco Popeil Pocket Fisherman count?

"Jim & Sharon" wrote in message
m...
porter cable detail sander, cant keep paper on the thing for more than a
few
seconds

jim

On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 12:33:14 -0600, Duane Bozarth
calmly ranted:

Joe Gorman wrote:

Chuck Hoffman wrote:
A Ryobi detail sander. It looked like a good idea at the time but...
...
Yes, I got one as a gift and don't recall opening it after the
obligatory Christmas morning look, however many years ago that was.
Joe

OTOH, my wife uses hers a lot for the refinishing she does and likes it
well...

YMMV...

You must be rich, Duane. Media cost for those things has to be
$50/day, minimum. Have you seen the new Searz circular thingy?
It has a pair (or 3?) of 3/4" washer-sized sanding discs on it.
I can't imagine how long they'd last while sanding, but I'll bet
you a dollar to a donut that it's sub-1-minute. g

(Disclaimer: I was in Searz to return an old broken Crapsman tool
which they no longer made. I finally settled on a $15 gift card
from them. It took me 3 months to get to the gift card ting and
to find something to purchase from them. I settled on a long-sleeve
shirt and a philips/flat screwdriver blade.)

-----------------------------------------------
I'll apologize for offending someone...right
after they apologize for being easily offended.
-----------------------------------------------
http://www.diversify.com Inoffensive Web Design

On 29 Dec 2004 17:28:41 GMT, Dave Hinz wrote:

On 29 Dec 2004 08:02:38 -0800, foggytown wrote:
And now in a burst of refreshing honesty we're all going to admit to
the most useless, waste-of-money, unnecessary, white elephant, "why the
hell did I ever buy that" tool in our arsenal.

SWMBO bought me a Black and Decker "sanding mouse" 2 years ago for
Christmas. I've never used it, and she's never asked about it.
As far as woodworking stuff, clamps. I've got too damn many clamps.

Dave "sorry..." Hinz

I have one of those, it's great for getting into small spaces and also
SWMBO uses it, she doesn't like my big sander.

MP
Mike Patterson
Please remove the spamtrap to email me.
"I always wanted to be somebody...I should have been more specific..." - Lily Tomlin

"mark" wrote in message
...
A rotozip tool. How can they even sell one? Why did I buy one? I thought
I could use it to rough out some sheetrock electrical socket holes, but it
was pretty crappy.
This one gets my vote. Created so much damn dust, I was back to my drywall
saw in a flash.

"Chuck Hoffman" wrote in
m:

Not aimed directly at the last poster but just a general observation:

It's amazing how many of us hold onto stuff we'll never (again) use.
Many times, the plaintive cry is, "But it's worth more than I can get
out of it." Wrong. It's worth exactly NOTHING sitting unused on your
shelf. If you sold it to someone, that would accomplish two things:
1) give a disused piece of equipment new life, and 2) put a few bucks
in your pocket which you could use to buy wood for a new project.

I think too highly of my fellow man to burden someone with bad tools. If
someone is fully informed, and knows what they are doing, then, and only
then, will I allow them to take/purchase the Searz Routah with AHAF...

That, or I'm too embarrassed to admit that I spent good money on crap. I'm
old enough to know better.

Patriarch

On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 01:04:20 +0000, LRod
wrote:

On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 00:37:12 GMT, "Chuck Hoffman"
wrote:

Not aimed directly at the last poster but just a general observation:

It's amazing how many of us hold onto stuff we'll never (again) use. Many
times, the plaintive cry is, "But it's worth more than I can get out of it."
Wrong. It's worth exactly NOTHING sitting unused on your shelf. If you
sold it to someone, that would accomplish two things: 1) give a disused
piece of equipment new life, and 2) put a few bucks in your pocket which you
could use to buy wood for a new project.

3) **** off the guy you sold it to.


Funny thing is, that doesn't always happen. I had one of those Wagner
paint drip squirters a number of years ago. I got it to paint the house
trim -- the house was mostly brick with a bit of trim and some siding on
the chimney and roof eaves. After I figured out that this beast was next
to useless -- it either spit paint runs or one had to thin the paint to the
consistency of water, but it was noisy -- I decided to get an air
compressor and a real paint sprayer. One of my wife's co-workers heard
about all the problems I had with this thing and offered to buy it; he was
absolutel sure I just didn't know how to use it and that *he* could make it
work properly. Not one to shrink away from recovering some of my shrunk
costs, especially from an arrogant so-and-so, I jumped at the chance to
unload this piece of crap. A while later my wife asked him whether he had
a chance to use it yet; he replied, "oh yeah, it works great!" uh-huh.


- -
LRod

Master Woodbutcher and seasoned termite

Shamelessly whoring my website since 1999

http://www.woodbutcher.net



+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Now we'll just use some glue to hold things in place until the brads dry

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

"Norman D. Crow" wrote in
:





"Patriarch" wrote in message
news:n_CAd.39764$k25.30196@attbi_s53...
"foggytown" wrote in
news:1104336158.089897.251330 @f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:

And now in a burst of refreshing honesty we're all going to admit
to the most useless, waste-of-money, unnecessary, white elephant,
"why the hell did I ever buy that" tool in our arsenal.


The whole @#$%ing Shopsmith incident. I donwannatalkaboudit.

Patriarch

C'mon now, it does make a halfway useable lathe and drill press.


I bought a good drill press for maybe $300. Good used lathes are for
sale all the time. But I'm afraid of a good lathe. All the wood
turners I know chase tree trimmers, fill their basements with half-
turned bowls wrapped in plastic and newspaper, and upgrade to a better,
multi-thousand dollar machine every couple of years.

I already am trying to get one addiction under control. There are at
least a dozen handtools here, which I haven't used yet. ;-)

Patriarch

"AAvK" wrote in news:hqDAd.60959$QR1.45253@fed1read04:


The whole @#$%ing Shopsmith incident. I donwannatalkaboudit.
Patriarch

How much $$ would you sell your whole shopsmith outfit for?

Alex



Contact me on email at gmadsen at comcast dot net.

Larry Jaques wrote in
:

snip

B&D belt sander. This one is over 30 years old and has seen about
3 hours total work in that time. Every time I use it I cuss myself out
four using it again because it invariably finds a way, when I'm least
suspecting it, to TILT and dig in and mar every piece of face wood it
touches, no matter how hard the wood and with 120 grit belts. sigh


I thought that was what they were designed to do...

Patriarch

(J T) wrote in news:28231-41D3304C-539@storefull-
3157.bay.webtv.net:

... because anything I've bought will be put to use,
eventually - some of them are for projects I won't even be able to start
for awhile yet - just bought the tools because I had the money to spare
at the time, and knew I'd eventually need them. .


I buy wood that way. If it calls to me when I'm there, and have a vague
notion that there might be a project in it. Or it's interesting and cheap.

Then there is the wood that turns up unplanned, that most welcome of all
wood: free wood.

Even JOAT approves of that species.

Patriarch

Gino wrote:

I couldn't live without a Dremel.
I even used it to remove the exhaust system from my 3/4 ton pickup.

How many cutoff wheels did YOU go through?

The Dremel almost made it onto my list, but it's a useful tool. Just not as
useful as it sounds on the box. Sure, you can do all kinds of things with
it if you're verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry patient. Sometimes it is just the ticket,
but I've never used probably half of the bits I have. Maybe 3/4. The wood
cutting carving shaping stuff is especially useless. I can carve wood
faster with a pair of tweezers.

--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/
http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/

On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 21:09:48 -0500, Silvan wrote:

Gino wrote:

I couldn't live without a Dremel.
I even used it to remove the exhaust system from my 3/4 ton pickup.

How many cutoff wheels did YOU go through?

It saved me on a plumbing problem. Had to replace several toilet shutoff
valves and the gorilla who installed the originals crimped the compression
rings into the copper pipe so deep they wouldn't slide off, even with some
knarley pliers. The problem was the new valves and old valves had
different threads, so I couldn't use the old nut on the new valve. The
nifty dremel cutoff wheel ground almost all the way through the
compression ring and a little twist with a flat blade screwdriver popped
it right off. Whew, success!

- Doug

--

To escape criticism--do nothing, say nothing, be nothing." (Elbert Hubbard)

Silvan wrote in
:

Gino wrote:

I couldn't live without a Dremel.
I even used it to remove the exhaust system from my 3/4 ton pickup.

How many cutoff wheels did YOU go through?


For about the same price, I bought a DeWalt low angle grinder and a diamond
cutting wheel. You can cut a lot of stuff with that rig, and very quickly.

Dremel stuff is too light duty for my Binford tastes.

Patriarch

On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 02:39:20 GMT, Patriarch
wrote:

Silvan wrote in
:

Gino wrote:

I couldn't live without a Dremel.
I even used it to remove the exhaust system from my 3/4 ton pickup.

How many cutoff wheels did YOU go through?


For about the same price, I bought a DeWalt low angle grinder and a diamond
cutting wheel. You can cut a lot of stuff with that rig, and very quickly.

Dremel stuff is too light duty for my Binford tastes.

But the Dremel is tiny.
It was the only tool that I had that could do the job.

"Patriarch" wrote in message
news:rTJAd.825879$8_6.65430@attbi_s04...
Silvan wrote in
:

Gino wrote:

I couldn't live without a Dremel.
I even used it to remove the exhaust system from my 3/4 ton pickup.

How many cutoff wheels did YOU go through?


For about the same price, I bought a DeWalt low angle grinder and a
diamond
cutting wheel. You can cut a lot of stuff with that rig, and very
quickly.

Dremel stuff is too light duty for my Binford tastes.

I had a Dremel go up in flames in my hands when I tried to use it as a dry
wall cut out tool with a 1/8" down spiral bit.... Now that was interesting.
;-)

John

On Wed 29 Dec 2004 12:33:04p, "the_tool_man" wrote
in oups.com:

Funny, but if someone started a "What's the best tool you've ever
bought" thread, I'd probably rank my PC biscuit joiner in the top 5 of
my tools. It's great for edge-joining and the occasional face frame.

Funny how that works. I bought an older Ryobi at a cabinet shop's going out
of business sale for fifty bucks, worried that I was throwing money away on
a tool I'd never use. And it's been real handy. Banded the edge of the
workbench, my panelglueing got better, put shelves in a nightstand door.
It makes aligning a lot easier and faster. I don't use it a LOT but it's
sure not on my list of tools I wish I never bought.

I guess that honor goes to the first "serious" tool I ever bought - a used
direct-drive Craftsman table saw. At least, I *thought* it was serious when
I bought it.

Almost gave up on woodworking till I found out it might be that screaming,
dancing, wobble-bladed monster. Still got the stand around here someplace.

"foggytown" wrote in message
oups.com...

Rotozip. Absolutely worthless....
Gave it to my SIL. He was thrilled at the time. I don't think he has ever
used it.

BUT...

I bought a Ryobi laminate trimmer, (rebuilt one to boot) and use it all the
time. I keep waiting for it to burn up, so I can buy a DeWalt laminate
trimmer, but it refuses to cooperate. I chuck up 1/4 bits in it all the
time, especially the round-over bits, and very occasionally, even use it to
trim laminate.

Observation 1: I have six routers. Bosch, Craftsman, and Skil. (I keep
running across old Craftsman routers at auctions and end up picking them up
for $10 and $15) As far as I can tell, they're from the early 80's. They
work perfectly fine. One old boy told me that his wife bought him the
router for Christmas in 1980, and he never used it. "I ain't no
woodworker,". I also got a half-dozen high speed steel bits in the bargain.
I used them once, and then I remembered why I love carbide so much.

Observation 2: Over the years, I've been to hundreds of auctions and
thousands of garage sales. (Other than C-Clamps), I have yet to find any
decent woodworking clamps, other than some rusty old pipe clamps. I know
they sell the hell out of those K-body, but the only thing I can figure is
none of them every make it into an estate sale.

James...

On 29 Dec 2004 08:02:38 -0800, "foggytown" wrote:

And now in a burst of refreshing honesty we're all going to admit to
the most useless, waste-of-money, unnecessary, white elephant, "why the
hell did I ever buy that" tool in our arsenal.

Hands down, my Dremel tool is the most useless POS I've ever used!
I've got all the bells and whistles for it, and it still isn't useful
for a damn thing except for cutting round holes in ceramic tile with a
rotozip bit (poorly, I might add) The sad thing is that this is the
second one I've bought. The first one was a cordless model that I
sold after a month to some poor sucker who thought it was a neat tool,
and then I made the mistake of buying a corded version because I
thought it might work better somehow.

For me it's a B&D "electric file" - basically a needle-nose belt
sander. It's a something that should be handy as hell but it's just
too damned vicious. Touch it to a piece of wood and you have instant
"**** - too much". I've never been able to get anything done with it.
Next?

Yeah, those suck for wood- but they sure are nice for deburring steel
or gouging out hunks of your storm window tracks to wedge in an
air-conditioner!

FoggyTown
"Cut to shape . . . pound to fit."

Aut inveniam viam aut faciam

On 29 Dec 2004 08:02:38 -0800, "foggytown" wrote:

And now in a burst of refreshing honesty we're all going to admit to
the most useless, waste-of-money, unnecessary, white elephant, "why the
hell did I ever buy that" tool in our arsenal.

For me it's a B&D "electric file" - basically a needle-nose belt
sander. It's a something that should be handy as hell but it's just
too damned vicious. Touch it to a piece of wood and you have instant
"**** - too much". I've never been able to get anything done with it.
Next?

FoggyTown
"Cut to shape . . . pound to fit."

reconditioned Wagner "power (yeah, right) painter"...
tried it for staining a redwood fence, it couldn't even do THAT!

Gift: deluxe wood burning set...
right! I'm left handed and never learned to double joint my wrist to
write upside down...
How the hell could I do wood burning, when even I can't read my
handwriting?


mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

Patriarch wrote:

sale all the time. But I'm afraid of a good lathe. All the wood
turners I know chase tree trimmers, fill their basements with half-
turned bowls wrapped in plastic and newspaper, and upgrade to a better,
multi-thousand dollar machine every couple of years.

I already am trying to get one addiction under control. There are at
least a dozen handtools here, which I haven't used yet. ;-)

LOL! Those words could have come straight out of my mouth.

--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/
http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/

Doug Winterburn wrote:

nifty dremel cutoff wheel ground almost all the way through the
compression ring and a little twist with a flat blade screwdriver popped
it right off. Whew, success!

That's about the only practical thing I use mine for too. That and turning
things that aren't into slotted screws. It's not useless, just mostly
useless.

--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/
http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/

Mark & Juanita wrote:

unload this piece of crap. A while later my wife asked him whether he had
a chance to use it yet; he replied, "oh yeah, it works great!" uh-huh.

That's funny. We've been passing around one of those stupid things for
years. Dad bought it to do his house, then sold it, then somehow or other
he got it back, then sold it again, then got it back, gave it away, got it
back again. Then he used it to spray some really thick high tech coating
stuff that couldn't be diluted. I got drafted to help with that one. He
paid me, but not NEARLY enough to wrestle with that stupid piece of crap.

I wound up finishing the job with hand rollers, and me crawling around like
an idiot monkey in the rafters painting this stuff on all the spots I
couldn't reach with the long roller (painting the underside of the roof
decking), just trying to paint like a son of a bitch so I could get it
finished before Dad got the stupid Wagner running again and caused us to
spend even longer on the job.

Wow, that sucked. Those things are USELESS.

And hey, speaking of useless, SWMBO's vacuum cleaner is USELESS. I swear I
can get the floor clean faster raking the carpet with my bare fingers and
putting dog fur and other miscellany in the trash by hand. What a piece of
crap. No wonder she never uses it.

--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/
http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/

Mark & Juanita wrote:

Funny thing is, that doesn't always happen. I had one of those
Wagner
paint drip squirters a number of years ago. I got it to paint the
house
trim -- the house was mostly brick with a bit of trim and some siding
on
the chimney and roof eaves. After I figured out that this beast was
next
to useless -- it either spit paint runs or one had to thin the paint
to the
consistency of water, but it was noisy -- I decided to get an air
compressor and a real paint sprayer. One of my wife's co-workers
heard
about all the problems I had with this thing and offered to buy it;
he was
absolutel sure I just didn't know how to use it and that *he* could
make it
work properly. Not one to shrink away from recovering some of my
shrunk
costs, especially from an arrogant so-and-so, I jumped at the chance
to
unload this piece of crap. A while later my wife asked him whether
he had
a chance to use it yet; he replied, "oh yeah, it works great!"
uh-huh.


- -
LRod


Vanity. He just doesn't want to admit that he wasn't able to handle
the thing any better than you were.

FoggyTown

Gino
I couldn't live without a Dremel.
I even used it to remove the exhaust system from my 3/4 ton pickup.

Doug Winterburn
It saved me on a plumbing problem.


And another ditto for the Dremel. Working with old
machinery you'll find that a machine hasn't been used for
quite some time and for quite some time people will store
them in "less optimum" places. God bless the Dremel people
of Racine, Wis.

UA100

foggytown wrote:

And now in a burst of refreshing honesty we're all going to admit to
the most useless, waste-of-money, unnecessary, white elephant, "why the
hell did I ever buy that" tool in our arsenal.

For me it's a B&D "electric file" - basically a needle-nose belt
sander. It's a something that should be handy as hell but it's just
too damned vicious. Touch it to a piece of wood and you have instant
"**** - too much". I've never been able to get anything done with it.
Next?

FoggyTown
"Cut to shape . . . pound to fit."



For me my first "table saw" , ryobi direct drive junk, gave it to my
son in law and got a decent one. (never really liked him anyway)

Rick

"Silvan" wrote in message
...
Gino wrote:

I couldn't live without a Dremel.
I even used it to remove the exhaust system from my 3/4 ton pickup.

How many cutoff wheels did YOU go through?

Get the larger (1 1/4") fiberglass reinforced cutoff wheels, they work
great.

--
Nahmie
Those on the cutting edge bleed a lot.

"Dan" wrote in message
.. .
On Wed 29 Dec 2004 12:33:04p, "the_tool_man"
wrote
in oups.com:

Funny, but if someone started a "What's the best tool you've ever
bought" thread, I'd probably rank my PC biscuit joiner in the top 5 of
my tools. It's great for edge-joining and the occasional face frame.

Funny how that works. I bought an older Ryobi at a cabinet shop's going
out
of business sale for fifty bucks, worried that I was throwing money away
on
a tool I'd never use. And it's been real handy. Banded the edge of the
workbench, my panelglueing got better, put shelves in a nightstand door.
It makes aligning a lot easier and faster. I don't use it a LOT but it's
sure not on my list of tools I wish I never bought.

I guess that honor goes to the first "serious" tool I ever bought - a used
direct-drive Craftsman table saw. At least, I *thought* it was serious
when
I bought it.

Almost gave up on woodworking till I found out it might be that screaming,
dancing, wobble-bladed monster. Still got the stand around here someplace.

(1) I use my Freud biscuit joiner with fair regularity. Haven't tried the
135degree thingy with it that PC advertises, but looks like it should do
just fine with the fixed 90deg. fence and the adjustable fence together.

(2)Not all DD saws are screamers. My TS is an early 80's vintage Craftsman
DD, but with an induction motor, not a universal(no, it's not one of the
flex cable driven ones). I would love to replace it, but that's down the
road a ways. With a decent blade & some blade stabilizers it does OK. The
stabilizers were the best investment I made for it, because the original
pressed steel ones were causing way too much runout.

--
Nahmie
Those on the cutting edge bleed a lot.

"Patriarch" wrote in message
news:8hJAd.825740$8_6.382685@attbi_s04...
"Norman D. Crow" wrote in
:





"Patriarch" wrote in message
news:n_CAd.39764$k25.30196@attbi_s53...
"foggytown" wrote in
news:1104336158.089897.251330 @f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:

And now in a burst of refreshing honesty we're all going to admit
to the most useless, waste-of-money, unnecessary, white elephant,
"why the hell did I ever buy that" tool in our arsenal.


The whole @#$%ing Shopsmith incident. I donwannatalkaboudit.

Patriarch

C'mon now, it does make a halfway useable lathe and drill press.


I bought a good drill press for maybe $300. Good used lathes are for
sale all the time. But I'm afraid of a good lathe. All the wood
turners I know chase tree trimmers, fill their basements with half-
turned bowls wrapped in plastic and newspaper, and upgrade to a better,
multi-thousand dollar machine every couple of years.

Now I'll 'fess up. My SS is an old(very) 10ER that was my stepfathers, new
circa 1950, that was passed around the family a little bit, then I got it.
Motor burned out, I replaced it with a freebie from SIL. Basically, I use it
as DP, with an occasional foray into a little turning, and once in a while
the 12" disc sander.

Buy one? No way!

--
Nahmie
Those on the cutting edge bleed a lot.

Larry Jaques wrote:

On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 12:33:14 -0600, Duane Bozarth
calmly ranted:

....
OTOH, my wife uses hers a lot for the refinishing she does and likes it
well...
....

You must be rich, Duane. Media cost for those things has to be
$50/day, minimum. Have you seen the new Searz circular thingy?
It has a pair (or 3?) of 3/4" washer-sized sanding discs on it.
I can't imagine how long they'd last while sanding, but I'll bet
you a dollar to a donut that it's sub-1-minute. g

....

Haven't seen it, no...we only have a small catalog store here which is
mostly appliances, etc., so don't see most of that kind of
thingy...thank goodness!

Re media cost for the detail sander, I'm not really sure...shouldn't
make it sound as though she's a full-time pro, particularly since we're
now back on the farm she's busy enough w/ other stuff. She did resell
stuff w/ a couple of friends in TN in a small shop and was pretty
regular w/ it at the time...but, that was her thing so I never actually
bought any media for it myself...

I did use it while painting the house to get into the corners of some
window sills where I had to do some repair/patching on...w/ the coarsest
pad she had it took the epoxy filler down to a paintable surface fairly
quickly w/ less effort than I was expending by hand although still had
to finish the very corners w/ the sharp chisel trick...

It's not indispensible nor wonderful, but does have some specialized
uses imo...