I Have a Tool Jones

I have to admit to a tool problem, put a new tool in hand and my pupils dilate, my breathing becomes heavy and labored, reason takes a vacation....it ain't pretty. It's one of the reasons my shop is full of little used tools. Ninety percent of my tools are well cared for and sharp tools ready to be used on whatever the project. The other 10% are in the process of being made ready or they are defective for some reason. But most of the tools are seldom used except for a core kit and that core kit is pretty small.

I would guess on most projects out of well over a hundred chisels I might use a 1/2 dozen, one of the pig stickers, a 1/8", 1/4"or 3/8", and a 1/2" bench chisel, and one of the paring chisels. Same story with saws, a 26"or 28" Atkins or Diston X-cut, one of the dovetail saws, a carcass X-cut, and a large tenon saw will take care of 99% of my sawing needs. Add in a router plane, a plow plane, a rabbet plane and one of the smothers plus a small wood stock planes. The misc stuff like a couple of marking gauges and marking knifes, dividers, dovetail markers, a mallet, a brace and a box of bits and I have all the kit needed for 95% of what I do.

That's a total of less than 50 individual tools and with that kit I can build almost anything if I add in a couple of bench appliances and a longer plane or two. And the truth is that is a damn generous kit.

I just came back from the shop where I roughly counted the tools on the wall behind the bench and those on the bench. there were over 200 individual tools, not counting scrappers, extra irons, straight edges, winding sticks or rules. I didn't count the tools on the west wall and cabinet, the east wall and cabinet, on the sharpening bench, nor in the tool room. My guess is well over a thousand hand tools stuck in various nooks and crannies around the shop.

If you stop and think it's pretty dumb because every one of those tools need care, used or not, and being very generous I need maybe 100 different tools. All I can say is somebody is a sucker.