Collector, User or Both?

[GazPal]

User with an annoying habit of stockpiling spare tools and tool parts.....just in case......

I am poor and I am good at finding ways to repair my tools so I think my tools would scare away the more snobbish half of you, but they do good work in my hands.

Stockpiles and used tools are good. Condition doesn't really matter if a tool's capable of doing it's job. :wink: ............ I keep trying to tell SWMBO "it'll come in handy" and yet she still tries to have clearouts :shock: (Is there a "run for the hills" emoticon?)

 

[tekno.mage]

I think there should be another category "hoarder".

I only buy tools I think might be of use at some time. I have bought the occasional interesting tool because I didn't know what it was actually for, but looked useful. I never sell any of my tools, although I have been known to pass certain items on to other people who needed them, but I probably own far more tools than I actually need right now. I modify tools to make them more usable so I'm certainly not a collector.

 

[Pekka Huhta]

I haven't owned too many planes when I was a kid. Still when I used to renovate wooden boats (15 years ago) I was more inclined to electrical tools or new hand tools. When I moved to my own 90 years old timber house, I got a pile of old tools from the previous owner, who was a carpenter. And after that it has been a pretty steep slope to antique tools.

I started as a sort of a collector, as many of us do. Any old tool would have been thrown on top of the heap at the corner of my workshop. Many of them were tested once and then forgotten.

At one point I purchased all the tools from an old boatyard which got closed down. I kept what I needed and sold everything I could not fit into our house. At that time I became a small scale tool dealer as well: I just had to get rid of most if it.

After I started selling tools, I became a tool addict and a pusher :wink: You know how the drug addicts get their money: they sell some to pay for their own drugs. That's what I did: when I needed or wanted a tool, I bought three. One for myself and three to sell out and pay for my own plane.

So it meant that if I used enough time to fix and repair planes for other people, I would get my own planes for free. so, naturally it got out of hands pretty quickly. I have owned, restored or rehabbed well over a thousand planes and a quite countless amount of other tools.

And one gets pretty tired of that as well. I started selling my own planes as well, and kept only planes that I have used and will use in the future. There are some pretty expensive mistakes (like a #55 or a 6 pcs graduated set of complex molding planes with the same profile) that I want to keep just for the heck of it, but otherwise I have pretty effectively recycled all the useless or unused planes from my workshop. Well, at least the plane count is under 200 these days


So I think I have been an user, addict, pusher and dealer. And a collector as well, but I think I have been rehabbed out of that habit lately :wink:

Pekka

 

[mahking51]

Hmmmmmmmm!
Not sure where I am really on this one.
I do have several tools :^o
I do use some of them.
I am always buying more.
Some of them I would find it very hard to part with.
Probably best if those who know me and my storage shed(s) pass judgement on which category I am in...
Cheers,
Martin ( sufferinf a category crisis :? )

 

[Paul Chapman]

I use all my tools. Used properly, and with a bit of care, good quality hand tools will last a generation or two (maybe more). Can't really see the point of just collecting them when they could be used to make nice things.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[jimi43]

Well, at least the plane count is under 200 these days

:shock:

Ok...forget the parachutist....I'm just a mild user now!

 

[Pekka Huhta]

Well, at least the plane count is under 200 these days

:shock:

Ok...forget the parachutist....I'm just a mild user now!

I said it got out of hands, didn't I :wink:

Maybe I'm not completely cured then, if I think that under 200 is a pretty decent amount of planes. Trust me - it is, compared to what it once was.

Garret Hack said in his book that "There is no such thing as a complete set of molding planes", but it's easy to accumulate a surprisingly big heap of them

Pekka

 

[Alf]

As soon as you get into woodies, planes numbering the hundreds is a horribly easy part of The Slope to reach. Buy a toolchest's worth of tools because you want two or three out of the lot and the seller won't split, well that soon throws your numbers into trouble too. Then happen across another one, and whoops... And watch out for patternmakers who go round their garage hauling out handfuls of tools and adding them to your pile because they're just so pleased that someone knows what the hell they are - that can upset the user status terribly. I'm just guessing of course, but I imagine this is how people can get unfairly tagged with the c*ll*ct*r moniker...

 

[Pekka Huhta]

As soon as you get into woodies, planes numbering the hundreds is a horribly easy part of The Slope to reach. Buy a toolchest's worth of tools because you want two or three out of the lot and the seller won't split, well that soon throws your numbers into trouble too. Then happen across another one, and whoops...

I had a very nasty accident when someone sold a "chest full of planes" with one lousy three-word description and an out-of focus photo on eBay and told that only local pickup is possible. I agreed that if I win, I'll ask a courier to pick the chest.

I thought that there would be a set of hollows and rounds, the usual beads and hopefully a few molding planes for myself as well. If I would sell most of the chest I could make a nice sum for other purchases. It was pure lottery, the seller did not know anything about them and he just commented taht 'by the way there were some small holes in the planes as well'.

So when I got the chest for about £50 I did not have any great expectations. When the box arrived, there were no hollows, no rounds, no beads and no wormholes either. Just 62 molding planes with complex profiles, the widest being a tad over 2" wide. A few graduated series of same profiles and all sorts of interesting specialties.

I still have almost all of them

Pekka

EDIT: By the way, do you think that this guy is an user or a collector?

http://woodgears.ca/workshop/jacques/index.html

 

[Alf]

Ooo, don't you just hate nasty accidents like that? Why can't people be more accurate in their descriptions so we could stay safely away? [-X

If I'm ever feeling worried, I find looking at pics like this reassures me that really I'm still safely on the Nursery Slope:

 

[studders]

:shock:

"Just popping out to the shed to sharpen my Planes Dear, be back in a Year"

 

[GazPal]

:shock:

"Just popping out to the shed to sharpen my Planes Dear, be back in a Year"

I just get my four kids to sharpen mine in shifts. :lol:


Wooden moulding planes are dangerous to the wallet once you get into them, but bloomin lovely pieces of kit to use.

 

[studders]

I just get my four kids to sharpen mine in shifts. :lol:

.

Keeps 'em out of mischief.

:lol:

 

[GazPal]

I just get my four kids to sharpen mine in shifts. :lol:

.

Keeps 'em out of mischief.

:lol:

They used to go through a fortune's worth of plasters, but they're improving and haven't blood stained any blades in ages.

 

[Pekka Huhta]

Ooo, don't you just hate nasty accidents like that? Why can't people be more accurate in their descriptions so we could stay safely away? [-X

It's awful how inaccurate the descriptions are sometimes. You can always read between the lines if someone is trying to say "I'm selling you a brilliant tool chest, very well ventilated by the small holes all around, and a huge lot of three excellent planes with a lovely sticky patina on them and by the way two of them are missing the iron bit in the middle".

This guy should have mentioned that "this lot is exactly for you, you lowly break-the-sets-apart-and-make-money scumbag, I'm selling you so lovely set of planes that you just have to stuff all of them in your attic untill there are so many planes that your ceiling will collapse and kill you in your bed, which you duly deserve"

Pekka, who had to go to his workshop and count his planes :wink:

 

[Alf]

Pekka, who had to go to his workshop and count his planes :wink:

I did that once. My family thought I'd gone on holiday...

 

[Pekka Huhta]

Pekka, who had to go to his workshop and count his planes :wink:

I did that once. My family thought I'd gone on holiday...

Pheww, I'm done counting planes. What were we talking about and why my keys don't fit into the front door locks any more? :wink:

Pekka

P.S, I found use to a #55 today, to my great surprise. Pictures to follow