Rex Krueger
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You Can't Buy One Tool
🕑 Added 2020-11-02 12:29:57 +0000 UTCFriends: This article will appear as this month's issue of Fabrication First, my email newsletter. If you're already a Patron, there's no need to sign up for that; everything on the newsletter appears here first. Hope you enjoy! --Rex
I know a lot of power tool woodworkers. Sometimes one of them will say to me, “Hey Rex, I think I would like to own one hand plane. You know, something to cut down on sanding and handle little pieces that aren’t safe to put through the jointer.”
I’m happy to help, and we find a nice old Stanley No. 4. But that same woodworker often comes back to me and says, “You know, I have a few sharpening stones for my chisels, but they aren’t that great. I could really use some nice ones for this plane.” That’s no problem either, but it’s never the end of the conversation.
At some point, weeks later, we end up having a long heart-to-heart about workbenches.
I was a power tool woodworker for years, and my workbench was very basic. It had a steel frame, a maple top, and a little mechanic’s vise. This bench was enough to work on small pieces and I could use it to clamp down parts for drilling or routing. I did good work. I was perfectly happy.
It wasn’t until I started using hand tools that I realized my bench wasn’t even a bench. It was a sturdy table. The vice was wrong (and mounted to the wrong end), the structure was too wobbly, it was too high. I figured this all out when I started planing wood. Lean into a big old Stanley No. 6 on a lightweight bench and you’ll shove that thing halfway across the garage.
Soon enough, I was building my first real bench out of beams leftover from the construction of the local Chipotle. I had already upgraded my sharpening stones and built a portable sharpening station to hold them. I began buying 3-in-1 oil in the big bottles.
The truth is, there’s no such thing as buying a single hand plane. Even if you resist the urge to buy more (good luck with that), a plane needs a whole support network to even function. You’ll need stones to hone the iron, a couple of screwdrivers to adjust it, oil to lubricate the moving parts, and this is before the tool even touches wood. If you’re buying a vintage plane and restoring it (and I recommend you do) then you need a reference surface for flattening, several grits of sandpaper, something for rust removal, and (ideally) a powered grinder.
Your plane won’t work without a decent bench, something a bit lower than a table, something heavy. It will need to hold boards so the faces, edges, and ends can all be worked. If you don’t have a good vice, you’ll buy one or make one. And you might buy another to use in the tail-vise position. I use a pair of holdfasts, but whatever.
Last month, I wrote about the way that tools require a system of workholding to function. This month, I’m thinking about how each tool requires a support system to even exist. Until you can adjust it, set it, hone it, fix it, and protect it from rust, your plane is a paperweight.
And don’t even get me started on rust. You know what I learned recently? Dust particles in the air of your shop collect moisture and salt before settling on your tools. We all know what happens when you add water and salt to iron and steel. I keep an eye on my tools. I keep them oiled. But there are a lot of them and sometimes I pick them up and find spots of rust were there shouldn’t be any. I work in a basement, but a share it with the furnace and that helps. I keep two dehumidifiers running all the time. It’s not enough. As I sit here writing this, I can almost hear my tools rusting.
You know how the old-timers dealt with all this? They built tool chests. Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century chests even have a specific part called the “dust seal.” No kidding. Those old boys knew what they were up against and they knew what to do about it.
Honestly, I have zero interest in building a tool chest (or more likely three or four for all the vintage tools I’ve accumulated) but slowly, I’m being pulled toward the project. This is how it happens. You buy one tool, then you buy the tools to restore it and adjust it. Soon enough, you’re building a new bench so you can use it. Finally, the tool has you building complete pieces of furniture that have no function beyond storing the tools themselves.
Just as woodwork is organized into systems, tools exist in networks. Look at any tool in your shop and you can see the lines connecting it to other tools. Picture your router and then imagine an invisible line connecting it to the case of bits, the guides and jigs, the router table, and finally the custom wall-mounted case you built to house everything. There’s no escaping it. Buy one tool and you’ll soon buy another, if only to help maintain the first tool.
This is why I believe in systems of woodwork. If your tools are going to be connected, they might as well share those connections. You want a single set of sharpening stones to handle every edge tool in the shop. You want the screwdrivers you use to turn fasteners to also adjust your tools. (I own a fine new smoothing plane that adjusts with hex-wrenches; I hate this feature with a passion.) If you’re going to build a tool-chest, it might as well hold every hand-tool you own. Too many tools to fit in the chest? Maybe some of them need to go.
Yes, I’m a hypocrite, but it’s still good advice.
Comments
Riley Sanders
Hahaha so well spoken. I am a chef, so keeping things sharp, even 1 sided edges are not daunting. There is honest truth to the cant buy just 1 plane to restore. These things are as a bad a Lays Potato Chip. I am up to 3 planes in 2 weeks. Bottom line until Rex I had no idea how much nicer a planed board feels to the touch than a sandpapered one. Time to stop tooling and start building, so I can go back to tooling. Vicious cycle I know. 6 board chest here I come. Keep up the great content Rex!
Rex Krueger
"an indoor garden of wood and iron." This is the most quotable line I've seen in MONTHS.
Paul Thoma
I've had a month and a half to let this post simmer and have migrated to an even more apt description than "network".... My hand tools, nearly all acquired in the past year since finding your videos, exist in an ECOSYSTEM that lives around them...there are symbiotic relationships between the tools, fixtures, lubricants, abrasives, and the workspace. Initially a hand plane or two from an antique store found a foothold in a tiny niche of my cluttered "workshop", but they invited other tools and accessories, gradually expanding their reach, terraforming the landscape of one of my barns into a whole dedicated hand tool workspace, and in turn demanding improvements for storing *all* my other tools and equipment as well. First they called for their own bench, now more benches, better storage, a more consistent climate...it's like an indoor garden of wood and iron. They've helped guide me to establish new principles and processes for how I work at home, how I organize, and how I approach new projects. Learning the habitat, care, and feeding requirements of these old vintage hand tools is making *every* project feel more "doable" in an organic, bite-sized way.
Ben Grech
Been working as a hobby woodworker for about a year and a half and I’ve made the workbench and I’m almost finished making a wall mounted tool cabinet. So I resonate very much with this post. Especially because I live in an apartment and space isn’t something I have. Or money. Machines aren’t an option. Your channel is probably one of the only reasons I’m working at it - hand tools, minimal space, minimal finances. And it led me to read a few dozen books you and others have recommended and I almost always find myself thinking about Christopher Schwarz’ anarchist woodworking series after watching one of your videos. It’s a nice philosophy. Anyway - thanks, love the videos. Im sick of my actual job and woodworking has gotten me out of a pretty serious rut. I love your approach to hand tool woodworking as efficiency and austerity and precision - it’s really rare and I’m glad you do it.
Alexander Angell
i especially find this the case when i buy off marketplace, went to get a block plane yesterday and came home with a couple of wooden smoothers with it.
Evan Van Dyke
I am jealous - my workshop is in a garage. In the winter it MUST all fold away so my wife can use it as a ... garage. Ridiculous, right? I would desperately love a good bench. What I have is fold-down tables that are lag-bolted to the studs on one side. Forget cheap - I need portable, storable, and foldable. It's a whole other philosophy. I love Rex's homemade leg vise. I could never fit it into my shop. Looking for a better solution, haven't found it yet.
Evan Van Dyke
That is definitely where I was thinking, but I do have a home built router table, and a track saw, so between them and the bench planes I'm not sure if I really /need/ the jointer...
Rex Krueger
A jointer plane! I like wooden.
Rex Krueger
Only 3?
Rex Krueger
Maybe. The drawer probably helps.
Rex Krueger
I just need to find "my" take on it. I don't want to just replicate what's out there.
Rex Krueger
You can also just purge the shop. I do it once a year. Anything I haven't touuched in a year goes.
Rex Krueger
It's funny how many things you need to do before you get to the thing you actually want. The shooting board I just built was motivated by another thing I want to build....
Rex Krueger
And you can even make more of the tools themselves. That's nice.
Rex Krueger
I've been hooked on worse things....
Rex Krueger
That is SO nice to hear!
Rex Krueger
I guess it's that low humidity, but you're very lucky!
Rex Krueger
Mission creep....happens to us all. I started out in the corner of a 1-car garage!
Rex Krueger
I love the Moravian. It's a brilliant design.
Rex Krueger
I try to make the writing good. It's my background.
Rex Krueger
Thank you!
Rex Krueger
I hope you posted some pics of that chest on the Discourse!
Rex Krueger
I recently donated a bunch to a woodworking school. That made me feel good and cut down on some clutter.
Rex Krueger
That is not a bad idea. I might try that.
Rex Krueger
Rust never sleeps.
Evan Van Dyke
My workshop is like my kitchen: Not enough space for all the stuff I want. I have to manage /very/ carefully what I let in. After my last project, I have decided to acquire a couple vintage bench planes to refurbish; went for a 4 and a 5 - once done will see what else I want/need.
Knathaniel C
It is literally impossible. You buy one tool, and then 3 more just happen to find their way into your home.
Fred Gosbee
Planes - I have four or five that are working and another three or four to set up. They live in a drawer under the long bench that holds a chop saw - otherwise known as a dust generator. Maybe they'll have to move.
Craig Joseph Martin
Rex, you may as well start working on your plans for the tool chest now, I think it’s obvious from the way you spoke about it that it is an unavoidable eventuality. Starting to pencil down Your ideas and inspirations on the project now will make it just that much easier when the final straw comes to rest on that poor camel. I personally would be very much interested to see where your process and perspective will join function to form on the matter.
Ryan Thompson
Hey Rex. I've been woodworking since my Dad gave me my first chisel (incredibly dull so I couldn't hurt myself) in the early 1980s. I moved up to power tools in my teens when I could safely feed the table saw, and am just now, 30 years later, beginning to appreciate the merits of hand tools again. Thanks, in part, to your videos. But whether using power tools or hand tools, they are a "space filling curve"... no matter how fastidiously I tidy up, halfway through the next project, every flat surface in my basement shop is covered in tools, sawdust, and band-aids. I have too many tools for my space, and yet every time I get rid of a tool, that's the tool I need for my next project. The chronic clutter is really starting to put a damper on my will to woodwork. I see another shelving project in my future.
Alton Plummer
Rex, I agree with you. Woodworking, like any other craft, rolls in systems. When I returned to woodworking as an advocation, after de-rusting all my planes that had sat idol for five years, I needed a new tool chest. The one I built out of baltic birch in 1984 had reached the end of its life. But first I needed a bench (arguably the primary tool) ... and a vise (Moxon style for dovetailing) ... and hold downs ... and ... and ... and. The tool chest was actually my fifth project in a line of, as we say in the south, " I'm a fixin' to" projects. But what this preparation did was give me time to think about what I really need to do what I do. What tools do I used all the time ... sometimes ... enjoy having 'round but use once in a blue moon. I've let a lot of stuff go as I've worked to not impulse buy the way I did with machine woodworking. I'm taking a Shaker/Quaker approach : "tis a gift to be simply. tis a gift to be free" and let creativity and ingenuity come forward. That's why I chose the small Dutch style chest for my tools. Respect the system theory: but it's not a contest: dying with the most toys does not make you a winner, or better.
Alex Lopatka
This is a great article, and I think it explains why some people new to the craft can get a bit overwhelmed. When I was just starting, I was reading and watching videos, and the network of tools mindset was ever present, even if not explicitly stated: If I'm going to plane a board, I need to sharpen the iron. Ok, so I need some sandpaper and now I need to find a flat surface. I picked up some rough sawn lumber, so now I need a scrub plane or else I'm going to be planing forever. Now I want to cut a joint? Ok, time to pick up a tenon or dovetail saw. The examples go on. What I really like about your channel is that you've made the network much more approachable. And of course the benefit of the network is that once you have a good collection of tools, you can make just about anything.
Rustique Frank
Its a addiction!!! A good one!!!
Marty Ford
Rex, rust never sleeps.... I agree, that every tool is part of a complete system to help you accomplish a project. It is amazing to me that building the Joiner's workbench was the game changer for me and every project I have tackled since. It made lots of other tools easier to use, more precise, and made myself more productive.
John Griswold
Even though I live in Salt Lake City salty dust particles seem to be no problem here. Our humidity averages 25% or lower, have had unoiled planes and other old restored tools sitting on open shelves in the garage for months with no hint of rust. Guess that salt stays in the lake;)
John Griswold
Just modified my Moravian last week. I built it out of 4x6 for leg assemblies (2x4 for lower stretcher in mortise, 2x6 for top stretcher in bridle joint), long stretchers, bench top (3 4x6 joined). The thing is rock solid, practically immovable, but in use the tool tray was a major annoyance. Would have worked better if I had the room to put the bench away from a wall, up against the wall it just filled with shavings and hid whatever was in it, particularly small items. Bought two more 4x6s and joined them, the combination of the two bench top sections was going to leave an 1 1/4" gap between if both sides were flush with leg assemblies. Mulled that over and then looked at some youtube videos on split top Roubouxs and voila, the perfect solution, almost like I tried to do it that way;) Will make an insert today with a 3/4" gap in the middle to hold tools I am using, would strongly recommend split top over tool tray if space is an issue, Griz
Puraz
I'm a relatively new woodworker and this is exactly how it all started. I wanted to build a simple folding work table in the garage to do basic handy work and as a plant servicing/potting station. I wanted it to fold up so I could park the car in the garage through the Canadian Winter. One thing lead to another and 6 months later I can no longer park my car in the garage, I have wall shelving so that I can reclaim every inch of floor space for tools and a bigger bench and I've spent $ on lighting, heating and insulating the whole space. Loving every minute of it though...
Thomas Sutrina
I am in the process of building a Moravian work bench. No basement, two car garage with the cars in it. That table bench on one wall with what was in a basement filling it. A 1940's Atlas bench lathe and Chinese bench mill. Not much room left. I came to realize that I need a hand tool bench because the table doesn't work well for wood projects. Tired of working on sheet metal folding saw horses. The power tools are going to have to fit on a shelf and the bench against the wall. Had dull planes and few chisels and no jigs like a shooting board. Building the bench has been a learning experience in basic wood features. At the construction of the leg vise with the tray last. Building from construction lumber because I know that this is a learning project and it will look like it.
Nathan Arthur
Great insights, and great writing. And this isn’t the first time I’ve thought that. Thank you for these!
Merritt Derr
Pretty funny, "Maybe some of them need to go" followed by "Yes, I'm a hypocrite". When it comes to tools, maybe we all are. Great article, thanks.
Scott Pysher
I am in the process of restoring an old and large tool chest that was built in Wolf Point, Montana and it's dated 1917. It was also signed by the man who built it. Unfortunately it's in a bit of a hiatus right now as my plans were to turn it into a liquor cabinet for the floor and put it on vintage casters but a home remodel is in the way for the remainder of the year. Can't wait to see what you come up with.
Mad Hamish
I was enjoying that right up till the end 'Maybe some of them need to go.' How could you even consider such a blasphemy!....................:)
Geoffrey Wilson
I, too, discovered that dust is the enemy. A tool box with a dust seal is high on my list of priority projects. I've actually been buying more hand tools... In order to make the tool box. Currently, I cover all of my planes with cloths, which seems to work. I've heard that craftsmen used to cover their told with their aprons at night, which is why I started with the cloths.
Matthew Leigh
I feel that rust comment... I picked up my #3 the other day and discovered it was sitting a little tiny pine shaving chip... Which left a rust mark right near the mouth
