I am curious how many folks have a machine as their only, or primary power tool — that’s certainly the case for me — I have an old circular saw I’ll haul out for breaking down stock at need, and a small track saw which I use more frequently, and a pair of drills (one cordless, the other corded) which I’ll use for drilling holes.
Usually haul out hand tools, esp. when a task is presented which they are well suited for:
Thanks! For those who are not hand tool aficionados (or cognoscenti?) it’s a Lie-Nielsen No. 60-½ Rabbet Block Plane with Nicker — Lie-Nielsen being a well-regarded contemporary manufacturer of woodworking tools (eventually I need to do a pilgrimage and visit their production facilities when they re-open them to the public).
I have a fair collection of vintage and modern planes (and have given away a few more — my son got my very similar but not rabbeting vintage Stanley) — I should use my Bridge City Tool Works HP-8 more often, but it’s in the box for my v2 Chopstick Master and isn’t as convenient to access, plus it would entail removing the depth skids — I keep telling myself I don’t need an HP-8X Celebration Edition Mini Block Plane, but may not be able to hold out.
Anyone who works with wood and doesn’t have a good-quality, well-tuned plane is really missing out — a vintage Stanley or Millers Falls or Record plane can often be picked up very affordably and tuning one up (fettling is often used to describe the process) is a pleasant activity if one likes working with tools — highly recommended.
I have a couple of Lee Valley Veritas tools, and have been very impressed — the aesthetics of their planes doesn’t appeal to me for most of them which really saddens me (but probably won’t prevent me from eventually getting a full set of their miniature tools when I retire: https://www.leevalley.com/en-us/shop/tools/hand-tools/miniature-tools ) and their router plane and medium shoulder plane and shooting board will probably be my next two tool purchases, but it’s the Lie-Nielsen shooting plane which I’ll be getting when I finally have a dedicated working area.
Funny mentioning “power” tools, and you are the power in the tools you mention!
I don’t even have a set of chisels (yet); let alone a block plane. I spent a lot of my wood life working with caveman tools, because my focus was on a different kind of success. Now I have the best power tools I can afford; table saw, band saw, drum sander, belt sander, drill press, various hand-held drills / grinders, and last (not least) Shapeoko 3 XXL. (Someone elsewhere called us “sanders” sissies! )
I try to design things that don’t need to fit closely, but joints are always an exception.
My reasoning is that if I can’t get close enough with good power tools for a sanding process to make something fit, I need to cut it over or redesign it.
Yeah, it seems the case that for a fair number of our customers the Shapeoko and trim router are their first/only power tools which is why I’ve always tried to focus on bootstrapping when I do tutorials such as:
and some good 30 seconds later (!) on my computer, the UI popped up
Maybe give it some time ?
I know @neilferreri had troubles when launching it on one of his computers, not on other computers.
The software seems very “alpha” (no criticism, just a fact), and may not like to run in a VM.
I tried it for a little while but it generated really weird toolpaths, so I gave up.
I had the same experience. I also realized, once I saw the way it worked, that the designs would be easy to replicate in other software.
Some of the toolpaths were a mess… Things like dropping the Z over a meter.
I’m just the opposite, I’m a power tool tramp. I actually have fewer hand tools (for wood) than I have power tools. I have plenty of non-wood hand tools from when I was a mechanic, but as far as non-powered wood tools, I have a hammer, tape measure (although I prefer digital calipers most of the time), and a smaller collection of wood turning tools (which require a power tool to be useful). I had a saw and miter box once, pretty sure I gave it away? I’d have more power tools, but I have a motorcycle in the middle of my shop.
