Hand tools and where to find them

It is a fact that hand tools have fallen out of fashion. I could wax on about how we've lost touch with a slower, more deliberate and more artisanal time, but I am choosing not to. Partly because I don't think that's entirely fair.

My current hand planes from L to R: An Indian made block plane
from Grizzly. A used Craftsman block plane (eBay). A super cheap #33?
plane from Harbor Freight. A Stanley #3 smoothing plane from a
flea market. An unmarked #4 clone from Grizzly. A used
Craftsman #4 clone (eBay). An unmarked #5 jack plane from
Grizzly. Lastly a used Craftsman jointer plane (eBay).

There are a lot of advantages to those modern conveniences. For example, we don't burn down our houses as much because candles or kerosene lamps (not to speak of indoor air quality). Our streets aren't piled in animal dung. If we don't finish something, we can put it in the fridge for later. If you would like some perspective about the state of the world and modern comforts, you should check out this bit between Louis CK and Conan O'Brien.

But back to the point. Power tools have replaced hand tools. If you want to use hand tools, it will cost you. It's a fact. Either you will pay premium prices for new quality tools or you will pay in time to restore older quality tools or tuning less than ideal new tools so that they perform like their betters.

There are several vendors that sell new quality tools. My personal favorite is Traditional Woodworker. They have one of the best selections of new hand tools in one place at the most reasonable prices they can manage. A runner up would be Woodcraft/Japan Woodworker. I'm not sure of their corporate arrangement but they are affiliated. Woodcraft has a very broad selection of tools both powered and hand. Japan Woodworker is almost entirely hand tools but with an obvious emphasis on Japanese hand tools. The Ferrari of hand tools would be the twin manufacturers of Lee Valley and Lie-Nielsen. There are many other retailers that I could mention but I don't want to bore you however there is one more that I feel I should mention mostly because I have purchased so many items from them. That would be Grizzly Industries. Hand tools feel like more of a novelty item for them but at least they do sell them.

My specialty planes in columns from L to R:
An Indian made rabbet plane from Grizzly. A used Stanley #147
tongue and groove plane (eBay). An unmarked small router plane
from Grizzly. An unmarked spokeshave (Grizzly). A used Stanley
#71 router plane (eBay). An Indian made shoulder plane from
Traditional Woodworker. A Taiwanese made plough plane from
Japan Woodworker.

Now, one could spend a great deal of cash outfitting a shop through these fine merchants. As a librarian working in the Mid-West, I do not have the kind of cash flow that it would take to pay the premium prices so, to save some dough, I frequently spend the time making sub-standard tools perform better.

The obvious place to find a wealth of good used tools is eBay. A word of caution though. Hand tools have become collectors items. People buy them who never intend to use them and they have driven up the prices of used tools. As a result, it is not uncommon to find a Pre-War #4 Stanley smoothing plane fetching the same price as a precision made #4 from Veritas (see the Lee Valley tools link). So, you can pay $200 for an old plane that will require some TLC or a new plane that you probably won't even have to sharpen first. Be cautious of listings with words like Vintage or Rare. They're probably over priced from the get go.

Another surprising place to find tools is Etsy. You have to be savvy but there are treasures to be found there. Pay close attention to the photos and do your research before you buy. I find some of the listings here to be a bit vague. I don't suspect deceit as much as I suspect ignorance. Many times people listing here don't seem to know much about the items and fail to include info that is important for an informed decision.

Lastly, I would like to advise you to bump through your local flea markets and swap meets. There is a hundred years of tool inventory out there to be had. I can't believe it's all in current circulation.

Be wise. Do your research. In subsequent posts, I will do a sort of what-to-look-for for each major tool category. I will also do several tool restoration tales for your edification.

The Workbench

In order to work wood of any kind you will need to have work space. The center of that space is usually the workbench. You will need a level, sturdy table somewhere around wrist high. There are places where one can purchase a work bench; Rockler, Grizzly, Woodcraft, Traditional Woodworker, to name a few. I should say, they can be purchased at great expense and, possibly, great marital strife. However, you can get by for quite awhile without a bench. In his book, Hand Tools: Their Ways and Workings, Mr. Watson gives us some clever ways to use clamps and wedges on a sturdy table to secure your work piece. I'm not going to pretend that these are a substitute for a sturdy bench but, they can tide you over.

Now, if you are like me and don't have tons of money to spend on stuff, getting a bench is a pretty steep obstacle. A decent sized bench with vises can pretty quickly get into used car territory. The situation is not totally bleak, however. I'm sure there are dozens of options out there but the one I eventually decided to try was Tom's Torsion Box Workbench. It looked like a sturdy bench that didn't require a lot of fancy tools or complex joinery (remember that I was just starting out and knew nothing). The plans were posted to Popular Woodworking's website in 2012 but were originally published in American Woodworker in October 2001 when it was suggested that it would cost $250 in material. In all honesty, it would probably cost you nearly $100 more than that today.

 I built the bench pretty close to exactly as it was designed. I was limited by a lack of tools in some kinda goofy ways. For example, in order to attach the front rail, you benefit from a socket wrench to tighten the lag bolts down into their countersunk holes. At the time, I only had an adjustable wrench. The result is that, if you were standing in front of the bench, you could see that the countersunk holes for the bolts are roughed up around the edges. I also didn't have a large enough drill bit to drill the holes for the threaded rods that hold the whole thing together so I drilled holes with the biggest bit that I had and then used a rasp to enlarge them (not recommended as it is a real time consuming pain in the ass).

So, how does it work? Well, when you balance the cost of the thing, it's pretty dang nice. It has it's limitations. The most frustrating one is probably that the hand screw tail vise will loosen and eventually release under heavy strain like course planing.
Additionally, over time, the jaws of the front vise became worn slick and it took stupid amounts of pressure to hold anything if there was the slightest lateral force applied (think, planing end grain). I eventually became so frustrated that I applied anti-skid tread tape to both sides (not recommended). While it radically reduced the slip it introduces accidental abrasion from the grit. Had I foreseen that (or thought at all about the sandpaper like nature of anti-skid tape) I would probably have used suede. I expect that mis-matched scraps could be acquired fairly cheaply and glued to the jaws introducing friction without the scratches (that's the point of this blog, by the way, to pass along lessons that I learned the hard way).

As I learned more about woodworking techniques, I eventually decided to modify the bench. One of my first mods was to bore holes into the top to for use with hold fasts. Those perform better than they have any right to. If you looked at the plans then you know that the top is a hollow box made of 2x4s and plywood. Since hold fasts stay in place because of the friction of the wood surrounding the shaft is so great it seems likely that a hold fast knocked into a hollow box wouldn't hold for crap but you would be wrong. The will still occasionally turn loose but not often.


Another modification I made was the introduction of the free rotating saw backstop. It is a piece of wood screwed the end with washers to keep the pivot smooth. It will rotate until vertical when it meets a dowel driven into the end of the bench. This provides back pressure when sawing (with a Western style saw) which is nice because I haven't gotten around to building saw horses yet.

Now, back in November, Woodcraft had a significant sale and I have picked proper tail and front vise hardware (coming soon).