I suppose that a woodworker may never have enough tools so it’s never really news when a woodworker gets some new tool. I feel like I’m approaching a place where I can get increasingly choosy about which tools I get and when. I have a nice selection of saws, chisels, hand planes, measuring and marking tools. As I move through my practicing of various hand tool techniques I do find a small tool here and there that would be useful in simplifying the task. My observation in these tools, unlike my previous power tool life, I am finding that these tools are simpler and more basic.
Here is a shot of my new tools:
On the top left is a divider. In practicing my dovetails, I am getting increasingly happy with my cuts and fits of the joint but have noticed that my rough guesses at where to make pins/tails and how wide to make them is looking non-uniform. While I feel that hand cut parts should have some non-uniformity to them, I would like a closer sense of symmetry just from an artistic point of view. In watching various dovetail experts, I noticed that Rob Cosman uses dividers to get symmetry in his joints so that was my motivation.
Far right is a new crosscut carcass saw. All my shorter carcass/dovetail saws are rip so I needed a crosscut for things like tenons.
In the middle is a goose neck chisel for cleaning out the bottom of mortises.
Lastly on the left/bottom are some Veritas bench pups which give me another bench tool for keeping material in place while working that material.
If I head towards making guitars as I fantasized in a previous post, I expect that I will need a few additional tools but hopefully not many. Everytime I make a tool purchase means that I don’t have the funds to purchase wood for actual projects.
