Basic tools....

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This was the TOPs C&G kit we were issued with on release:

Toolbox - made week 5
5 1/2 Record jack plane
Good quality Sanderson & Kayser saws:
26" hand saw 6tpi
22" panel saw 10tpi
14" tenon saw 14tpi
3 Marples firmer chisels 1" 3/4" 1/2"
Rabone Combination square
Whitehill 16oz claw hammer
Nail pullers (Footprint?)
sliding bevel (poor quality)
double sided oil stone - box made week 6
big screwdriver
small screwdriver
2 ft boxwood rule
nail punch
brace & bit (one 32mm bit for yale locks
mallet
S&J carpenters axe
marking gauge
bradawl
brass face marples spirit level
plumb bob

Still got them all except the boxwood rule and a few things replaced
5m tape and Block plane 220 perhaps the most important early additions
Good list!
 
2 bradawls are essential. You can hang a door on one bradawl (and a wedge) while you use the other starting holes for the other screws.
I thought the Tops course selection (above) was pretty well thought out - they all got well used
Never thought if using a bradawl for hanging a door! Usually the first screw!

Cheers James
 
Paring chisel too for door fitting - it reaches the parts other tools can't reach and with one hand.
Used to scribe stuff with the carpenters axe followed by the block plane.

Something we'd agree on, but for different reasons!!
I could say I never find a use for paring, but cleaning up the innards of a wooden plane while making it cut left to right with no clogs no matter what it's planing....a narrow and thin paring chisel is super for that. For someone making lots of planes, it would be double super.

It's always tempting to say they have little use other than for patternmakers.
 
Here's my thoughts:
* try plane (wooden), jack plane (wooden), stanley 4 (3 if someone likes the 3 better) - it's nice to also have a metal jointer added to that group - not critical, but nice to have.
* two mortise chisels in most used size
* two paring chisels - 1/4" and 3/4"
* a set of english bench chisels
* combination grinder and buffer and a fine india stone
* two large rip saws (one in around 4 point and one in 6) - one in 5 1/2 would be fine in a real pinch
* two large crosscut saws (one 7 or so points and one 11) - one in 10 would be fine in a real pinch
* one rip dovetail saw (doesn't have to be expensive), one crosscut sash saw around 12" and 12 point or so and one tenon saw around 10 or 11 point and 14" long
* one japanese hard tooth crosscut saw, but relatively fine cutting (like z265)
* some sandpaper (not critical what it is , but could be two psa roll 80 and 220, and then finish paper in 220 or 320
* a decent flat spokeshave and a decent concave spokeshave
* one inexpensive hand cut rasp from overseas, and a couple of worn out files to follow it
* one decent wheel gauge (like veritas) and a gaggle of other knife and nail gauges
* one good tape measure, one good 12" draftsman's rules with the tip ground to zero of the rule starts other than that, a 24" rule and a 48" tinner's rule (cheaper than a bigger rule, and usually crisply marked)
* a good bench with a pair of holdfasts and a few dogs
* four pairs of hollows and rounds
* two small beading planes
* one good wooden moving fillister
* one good rabbet plane, about 1" wide
* files for saw care
* a few basic gouges (you can make the slips) and a bar of honing compound (something cheap - like gold alumina)
* one good vintage hardened head 12" square and one decent inexpensive 4"-6" fixed square
* one good straight edge (or one junker)
* one decent propane torch and a quart of cooking oil, and a small amount of refractory blanket
* one decent cordless drill
* two 2x12s to make a poor man's saw bench
* a couple of good pencils and a strong-marking pen.
 
Here's my thoughts:
* try plane (wooden), jack plane (wooden), stanley 4 (3 if someone likes the 3 better) - it's nice to also have a metal jointer added to that group - not critical, but nice to have.
* two mortise chisels in most used size
* two paring chisels - 1/4" and 3/4"
* a set of english bench chisels
* combination grinder and buffer and a fine india stone
* two large rip saws (one in around 4 point and one in 6) - one in 5 1/2 would be fine in a real pinch
* two large crosscut saws (one 7 or so points and one 11) - one in 10 would be fine in a real pinch
* one rip dovetail saw (doesn't have to be expensive), one crosscut sash saw around 12" and 12 point or so and one tenon saw around 10 or 11 point and 14" long
* one japanese hard tooth crosscut saw, but relatively fine cutting (like z265)
* some sandpaper (not critical what it is , but could be two psa roll 80 and 220, and then finish paper in 220 or 320
* a decent flat spokeshave and a decent concave spokeshave
* one inexpensive hand cut rasp from overseas, and a couple of worn out files to follow it
* one decent wheel gauge (like veritas) and a gaggle of other knife and nail gauges
* one good tape measure, one good 12" draftsman's rules with the tip ground to zero of the rule starts other than that, a 24" rule and a 48" tinner's rule (cheaper than a bigger rule, and usually crisply marked)
* a good bench with a pair of holdfasts and a few dogs
* four pairs of hollows and rounds
* two small beading planes
* one good wooden moving fillister
* one good rabbet plane, about 1" wide
* files for saw care
* a few basic gouges (you can make the slips) and a bar of honing compound (something cheap - like gold alumina)
* one good vintage hardened head 12" square and one decent inexpensive 4"-6" fixed square
* one good straight edge (or one junker)
* one decent propane torch and a quart of cooking oil, and a small amount of refractory blanket
* one decent cordless drill
* two 2x12s to make a poor man's saw bench
* a couple of good pencils and a strong-marking pen.
Giving Jacob a good run for his money!

Cheers James
 
I'm sure he could outbuild me on a site, but his tools would be 1/3rd as sharp. I'm thinking of coming up with sayings like.

"I haven't had a good brandy since the last time Jacob used a sharp tool". :)
 
Curiously I have only two arms, but manage perfectly well with a smoother.
But not for the task I mentioned. The problem is that doors are hung on hinges and can swing, so they aren't conveniently fixed in place like a block of wood in a vice. And you often can't wedge a door to stop one moving because that might mark a finished floor, for example, so you may need to use one hand to hold onto a workpiece whilst you plane the door edge with the other. A simple task with a block plane, an almost impossible task with a smoothing plane. In construction and fit-out there are lots of tasks like this. There are also situations where the the adjustable mouth on a block plane makes dealing with awkward grain in lippings far easier.
 
I'm sure he could outbuild me on a site, but his tools would be 1/3rd as sharp.
I'm pretty sure the absolute sharpness you crave simply isn't maintainable on site, or for that matter necessary most of the time. So Jacob would probably be going home with a nice pay packet whilst you'd be skint, having spent all your time rehoning and rehoning your tool edges instead of getting stuff done in a timely manner. That's no way to build the world. Anyway, what makes you think his cutting edges are too dull to work? Or that they are any duller than, say, a Victorian carpenter's tools? Just curious

PS in response to yourvearlier comment, good socialist principles would suggest that in the spirit of equality Jacob and I share a duo tandem, comrade
 
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I'm pretty sure the absolute sharpness you crave simply isn't maintainable on site, or for that matter necessary most of the time. So Jacob would probably be going home with a nice pay packet whilst you'd be skint, having spent all your time rehoning and rehoning your tool edges instead of getting stuff done in a timely manner. That's no way to build the world. Anyway, what makes you think his cutting edges are too dull to work? Or that they are any duller than, say, a Victorian carpenter's tools? Just curious

I'd do what I do for a living instead and use pleasurably sharp tools, be money and hobby ahead.

I think cabinetmakers would've used tools sharpened similar to mine, same with planemakers and instrument makers.
 
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One thing that appears to have been left out of everyone's lists...

...Tea making facilities :D

I think cabinetmakers would've used tools sharpened similar to mine, same with planemakers and instrument makers.
Viceroy disc whetstone.
Like all industrial set ups, the need to keep the tools honed to a very fine edge is something that will be done daily, but again some sort of machine to make that happen quickly will be used, which is why in bigger cabinet shops that pretty much churned out fine or any sort of furniture, the big whetstone grinder would always have a place. They werent interested in having people spending too much time rehoning chisels.

The last big industrial butchery i worked in had a sharpenset whetstone on the go pretty much all day, and you'd rehone your knife at least two or three times a day. Knives, much like chisels and planer blades are consumable items, and in that environment, I'd go through at least 2 boning knives per year. Knives in that environment have to be razor sharp and its far quicker to use a machine that try to do it by hand.
In a small retail butchers I'd maybe regrind the knife 3 or 4 times a year and hone it maybe once a week, obviously using a steel every couple of minutes depending on what I was doing.

Again it all depends on how much work you are actually doing.
 
But not for the task I mentioned. The problem is that doors are hung on hinges and can swing, so they aren't conveniently fixed in place like a block of wood in a vice. And you often can't wedge a door to stop one moving because that might mark a finished floor, for example, so you may need to use one hand to hold onto a workpiece whilst you plane the door edge with the other. A simple task with a block plane, an almost impossible task with a smoothing plane. In construction and fit-out there are lots of tasks like this. There are also situations where the the adjustable mouth on a block plane makes dealing with awkward grain in lippings far easier.

I have fitted dozens of doors without a blockplane. I'm not suggesting you don't use a blockplane, but the fact that you chose to doesn't make it impossible to do it without one. You are going down the Jacob route - if it's not done the way I choose it's wrong.
 
One thing that appears to have been left out of everyone's lists...

...Tea making facilities :D


Viceroy disc whetstone.
Like all industrial set ups, the need to keep the tools honed to a very fine edge is something that will be done daily, but again some sort of machine to make that happen quickly will be used, which is why in bigger cabinet shops that pretty much churned out fine or any sort of furniture, the big whetstone grinder would always have a place. They werent interested in having people spending too much time rehoning chisels.

The last big industrial butchery i worked in had a sharpenset whetstone on the go pretty much all day, and you'd rehone your knife at least two or three times a day. Knives, much like chisels and planer blades are consumable items, and in that environment, I'd go through at least 2 boning knives per year. Knives in that environment have to be razor sharp and its far quicker to use a machine that try to do it by hand.
In a small retail butchers I'd maybe regrind the knife 3 or 4 times a year and hone it maybe once a week, obviously using a steel every couple of minutes depending on what I was doing.

Again it all depends on how much work you are actually doing.

Once I cooked up the "unicorn" method, which allows full sharpness of stuff that doesn't sharpen that well by hand (knives that are a little soft, etc), it seemed like if you had a fixed tool, for a couple of hundred bucks, you could create a machine that you could pull a long knife through in about 15 seconds total and get a blinding sharp edge that would hold up better in a production environment than just "sharpening the apex to a point" with stones.

I sharpen all of my knives now with a deburring wheel and the buff (They're sharper and the edge lasts longer without as steep of an angle behind it, and thus they're not just sharper, but easier through anything that doesn't need to be wedged apart). I could see coming up with a western made device for a production environment (like commercial butchering) for a grand and it would pay for itself quickly. Of course, with some skilled users, you don't need a point and shoot machine like that, but I can't see much hand sharpening other than perhaps by chefs in smaller kitchens or by small butchers.

And I can't see production butchers tolerating anything that isn't really sharp and with good geometry because poor results would be very quickly noticed.

Before round wheels were common, I gather than giant sandstone rub stones were common to minimize the grinding time. If one reads too much now, they'd conclude that they were slow (And compared to a giant silicon carbide rub stone, they may be), but a heavy hand and a minute on a really coarse friable silica stone would probably cover several honing sessions. I doubt it was much slower. No steel with carbides harder than iron carbides in quantity, though, and no overhard or overthick tools. Corundum (natural aluminum oxide) was listed as lapidary supply references hundreds of years ago, but I've never read far enough to see if that got further than cutlers and polishers. I doubt it was necessary.

Tea supplies would be replaced by coffee or "mini beer fridge" in the US.
 
The man who taught me, got us a tool kit from Tyzack for just over £90. This is around 1971.

Tool lists for my long term (40 week) courses were about £ 2,000 in the nineties.

He also used a bench design from the Rural Industries Bureau.

Best wishes,
David Charlesworth
 
...

It's always tempting to say they have little use other than for patternmakers.
They have lots of uses which is why they are so common and often found worn short with use.
Being long means they need to be slender and light
Basically for paring/planing" but in places where a plane can't easily reach e.g. bottom of a hanging door edge where the plane would hit the floor, inside mortices, across tenons, etc. The long length is for reach and also for accuracy - easier to get a straight cut.
 
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I have fitted dozens of doors without a blockplane. I'm not suggesting you don't use a blockplane, but the fact that you chose to doesn't make it impossible to do it without one.
Nobody said that - but they are very useful and indispensable when you get the habit
You are going down the Jacob route - if it's not done the way I choose it's wrong.
I never said that but it seems to get you excited as you've repeated it at every opportunity. Feels like being stalked - some threads you are even commenting and waiting for me to arrive!
 
......And I can't see production butchers tolerating anything that isn't really sharp and with good geometry because poor results would be very quickly noticed.
.......
Try asking one?
Friend of mine is food technologist and was a butcher in a family of butchers. He said they sharpened all knives with steel alone and had done for generations.
I didn't ask about cleavers and such, I guess they'd need a medium/fine stone.
 
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Tool related, if not exactly tools.

First aid box, so if someone does get a cut they won't drip blood onto expensive wood.

A very good lock, so all the carefully acquired tools are there when you come back next day. Maybe a lockable cabinet or two bolted to something solid.

A decent size crowbar which someone keeps at home so you can get in when the key to the above gets lost.
 
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