What should be in a basic woodworking toolbox?

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davebodner
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Re: What should be in a basic woodworking toolbox?

Post by davebodner »

JPG wrote:An extra long 5/32" allen wrench. :D
Preferably with a T-handle?
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Ed in Tampa
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Re: What should be in a basic woodworking toolbox?

Post by Ed in Tampa »

garys wrote:I think you are worrying about things you don't need to be concerned about at this point. Start building the woodworkng projects you plan to do and as the projects come together, you learn what other tools you might need. Buy them as needed.
Planning for the unknown just keeps you from getting projects done now.

Different projects call for different tools, so different people will need different tools.

You received good advice but I think Garys' was the best. With the exception of a pencil and a tape measure the job will dictate the tools you need.

My first tools were a hammer (much too heavy) used to drive nails, set fence posts, pounding stuff apart, and smashing my thumb many times. A screw driver, a cheap set of sprockets, a hand saw and a copping saw. About a year later my wife bought me a good craftsman Sabre saw ( craftsman was good 55 years ago) and my neighbor borrowed it lost a blade hold in screw and replaced it with a wood screw destroying the tool. Learned never to lend tools. But in any case I built furniture with all of this and never knew any better. One piece of furniture i built is still in use today over 55/years old. Would not win furniture of year awards but it was solid wood and built better than anything sold today.


Oh by the way I still have all those tools even the “cheap socket set” which is better quality than any sprocket set sold today. The hammer was a 24 ounce steel shank craftsman that built muscles just swinging it.
markjunelleharmon
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Re: What should be in a basic woodworking toolbox?

Post by markjunelleharmon »

JPG wrote: Tue Jun 02, 2020 12:17 pm
robinson46176 wrote:Buy a run down house to rehab that sits 15 miles from where you live... And that is 15 miles in any direction from any town that actually has stores and 35 miles to any big box stores. Spend 6 months rewiring, re-plumbing from scratch (including well pump). All floors, walls and ceilings... Keep operating a store of your own and also grain farming and at the end of the six months you will know exactly what you want in that tool box... :D :D :D

Note: Tool one is a hammer. :)


.
#2 is a hatchet! :D :D :D :D
Preferably one with a hammer head on the back end.

I second that hatchet/hammer! I had one many years ago, not the kind roofers use. It was ancient and rusted and no handle when I got it, whittled a handle and wire brushed it.
#3, maybe a Stanley wood plane.
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dusty
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Re: What should be in a basic woodworking toolbox?

Post by dusty »

Ed in Tampa wrote: Thu Jun 04, 2020 9:40 am
garys wrote:I think you are worrying about things you don't need to be concerned about at this point. Start building the woodworkng projects you plan to do and as the projects come together, you learn what other tools you might need. Buy them as needed.
Planning for the unknown just keeps you from getting projects done now.

Different projects call for different tools, so different people will need different tools.

You received good advice but I think Garys' was the best. With the exception of a pencil and a tape measure the job will dictate the tools you need.

My first tools were a hammer (much too heavy) used to drive nails, set fence posts, pounding stuff apart, and smashing my thumb many times. A screw driver, a cheap set of sprockets, a hand saw and a copping saw. About a year later my wife bought me a good craftsman Sabre saw ( craftsman was good 55 years ago) and my neighbor borrowed it lost a blade hold in screw and replaced it with a wood screw destroying the tool. Learned never to lend tools. But in any case I built furniture with all of this and never knew any better. One piece of furniture i built is still in use today over 55/years old. Would not win furniture of year awards but it was solid wood and built better than anything sold today.


Oh by the way I still have all those tools even the “cheap socket set” which is better quality than any sprocket set sold today. The hammer was a 24 ounce steel shank craftsman that built muscles just swinging it.
Really! What brand. I might want to get one to replace my "old" sets of SK Wayne.

Let's see now. I bought those in Kalispell, Mt the 1st year (1964) of my second hitch in the Air Force.
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dusty
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Re: What should be in a basic woodworking toolbox?

Post by dusty »

JPG wrote: Thu Jun 04, 2020 1:03 am An extra long 5/32" allen wrench. :D
You might find that you need a half dozen or so of these. They are elusive little things.
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Gene Howe
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Re: What should be in a basic woodworking toolbox?

Post by Gene Howe »

No such thing as a "basic" tool box in my shop. I enjoy the hunt.
edma194
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Re: What should be in a basic woodworking toolbox?

Post by edma194 »

Ed in Tampa wrote: Thu Jun 04, 2020 9:40 am My first tools were a hammer (much too heavy) used to drive nails, set fence posts, pounding stuff apart, and smashing my thumb many times. A screw driver, a cheap set of sprockets, a hand saw and a copping saw. About a year later my wife bought me a good craftsman Sabre saw ( craftsman was good 55 years ago) and my neighbor borrowed it lost a blade hold in screw and replaced it with a wood screw destroying the tool. Learned never to lend tools. But in any case I built furniture with all of this and never knew any better. One piece of furniture i built is still in use today over 55/years old. Would not win furniture of year awards but it was solid wood and built better than anything sold today.


Oh by the way I still have all those tools even the “cheap socket set” which is better quality than any sprocket set sold today. The hammer was a 24 ounce steel shank craftsman that built muscles just swinging it.
Looking back at your first tools is a good approach. The first tools I used were my dad's, but as a teenager I began to pick up a few things, and a cheap socket set was one of them. Not sure when I picked up my first set of screwdrivers, I had lost and found a few random ones along the way. For some reason I found my Craftsman stubby flat head to be something special, I guess that's just because I had so few tools. Things really picked up when I got a motorcycle, a Honda so I suddenly needed a lot of metric stuff, and an impact wrench, one of those ones you hit with a hammer. My first power tool was a 4 1/2" circular saw I bought at the KMart. That's almost 50 years ago. I'm not sure what happened to it, stopped running one day but didn't seem to be the brushes.

Backing up a little, you need a decent square, tape measure, and a level. You need pencils and you need knives. You need some wrenches and screwdrivers, you need a hammer.

If there's an a tool definitely dictated by the projects you encounter it would be clamps. You always need more clamps than you have. You need small clamps and large clamps. You need short clamps and long clamps. You need angle clamps and square clamps and corner clamps, 4-way clamps, bar clamps and C-clamps. You'll keep getting more clamps as long as you keep making things. And then some of the things you make will be clamps also.
Ed from Rhode Island

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Ed in Tampa
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Re: What should be in a basic woodworking toolbox?

Post by Ed in Tampa »

dusty wrote: Wed Feb 10, 2021 9:13 am
Ed in Tampa wrote: Thu Jun 04, 2020 9:40 am
garys wrote:I think you are worrying about things you don't need to be concerned about at this point. Start building the woodworkng projects you plan to do and as the projects come together, you learn what other tools you might need. Buy them as needed.
Planning for the unknown just keeps you from getting projects done now.

Different projects call for different tools, so different people will need different tools.

You received good advice but I think Garys' was the best. With the exception of a pencil and a tape measure the job will dictate the tools you need.

My first tools were a hammer (much too heavy) used to drive nails, set fence posts, pounding stuff apart, and smashing my thumb many times. A screw driver, a cheap set of sprockets, a hand saw and a copping saw. About a year later my wife bought me a good craftsman Sabre saw ( craftsman was good 55 years ago) and my neighbor borrowed it lost a blade hold in screw and replaced it with a wood screw destroying the tool. Learned never to lend tools. But in any case I built furniture with all of this and never knew any better. One piece of furniture i built is still in use today over 55/years old. Would not win furniture of year awards but it was solid wood and built better than anything sold today.


Oh by the way I still have all those tools even the “cheap socket set” which is better quality than any sprocket set sold today. The hammer was a 24 ounce steel shank craftsman that built muscles just swinging it.
Really! What brand. I might want to get one to replace my "old" sets of SK Wayne.

Let's see now. I bought those in Kalispell, Mt the 1st year (1964) of my second hitch in the Air Force.
Dusty
Wrenches were Thorsen and are like new even though they have to be 64 years old owned by a 10 year old that abused every tool not knowing any better. The sockets and you may laugh are Industructo again 64 years old and used by that same kid that thought nothing of hammering on them. Both the wrenches and sockets are none the worst for wear. Both made in the US and built to last.

Have a craftsman set of sockets I bought in 1969 that are all in tac. Of course by then I had learned what was to be hammered on and what wasn't.🥴
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dusty
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Re: What should be in a basic woodworking toolbox?

Post by dusty »

Were the sockets maybe Indestro?
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Hobbyman2
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Re: What should be in a basic woodworking toolbox?

Post by Hobbyman2 »

might not fit in the box but a good broom, scoop shovel and a box of band aids or a first aid kit.
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