Some Tools You Will Probably Need For Making, Part I

In this video I go over what I feel is a solid way to approach accumulating enough tools to get most things done.  HOWEVER, this approach does have a downside!  It's very easy to end up with far TOO MANY tools than you actually need if you follow this method - I am speaking from experience here.  :)

One of the things I have learned to do is list what tools I need BEFORE I go on a "Tool Safari", so I don't end up with all kinds of money languishing in the toolbox, on or under the tool bench.  I guess the other way to go is to resign yourself to the fact that once you have mastered these techniques, you will end up with a zillion tools - and maybe have enough spares to get other MAKERS started, particularly the younglings among us.


The first thing I do is try to rationalize WHY I am buying a given tool.  In other words, I try to enumerate in my mind exactly WHAT I am going to be doing with the tool, and see just how many projects that tool might be implicated in.  Of course, there are many tools that will be used in almost *every* project - like screwdrivers, but other tools you may only need to use once or twice in a decade, those tools I now seek to rent or borrow, because they represent a sunk cost that I may never recover.


Finally, I prepare a list of the things I needed (both tools and consumables), have a look at what tools I already have around the house, cross off the ones I can substitute and ONLY THEN do I go out to buy tools. 



1st Principle of Buying Tools:  *NEVER* buy new if you can at all avoid it.  Find out where to go to meet people who are liquidating their old tools FIRST, because I can show you how to make used tools "almost new" again in this and other videos. 



2nd Principle of Buying Tools:  If you have to buy new, buy *CHEAP*.  It could be that your grandiose list of applications in the clear light of day, once you gain an appreciation of how difficult that tool is to master, or how difficult its applications are - and how infrequently or reluctantly you will be using it as a consequence.  It's almost a certainty that if you do end up using a tool a LOT, you will exceed the tool you bought only after a considerable period of time, after which you will know which "perfect" make/model to buy, because you will have developed the seasoning with that tool (and its associated community) that informs such decisions.


3rd Principle of Buying Tools:  After you have maxed out the cheap tool, buy the perfect tool because you will have earned the right to buy - but first think of buying a *USED* one that some other guy bought who didn't know about the Second Principle, bought the "top of the line" tool and then used it twice because he couldn't master it, its applications or lost the context to need it.



I find these principles help me to avoid buying tools I DON'T need, and help me to justify - to myself and to Mrs. Maker - that I have earned the right to buy tools I DO need!