Dave Bamber
Member
Well, after someone suggesting that there was a nice shop to buy hand-tools in nearby Yapton (Leeside tools), I decided to head out there yesterday as I basically have no decent saws.
Now I am a complete newbie in every respect. I've been building up my tool collection *very slowly* as I didn't know what I might need for making a guitar. However I've realised that building a guitar is not the only thing I want to make with wood, so getting a general 'collection' of usable tools has entered the agenda.
Why explain all this? Well, it shows why when visiting a second-hand tool shop I had no idea on 2 fronts:
1) Just how little old superior hand tools cost when compared to the modern hardware-shop 'disposable' equivalent.
2) Just how unlikely it was that I was ever going to leave a place like that until I had exhausted all the available cash I had on me.
Luckily for me, I only took £30 along, reasoning that if a rubbish brand-new 'disposable type' impact hardened saw could cost between £5 and £10 then a really decent re-sharpenable one could be as much as double that. How naive I was, and how naive I must remain on many yet-undiscovered fronts. :?
When I got to the store - well, wow. It was like walking into a parralell dimension, a parallel dimension where you don't greet each other every morning with 'Hello there, vicar, glorious morning isn't it?' but instead say things like 'Plane, vicar? Trysquare your turning gouge?', and so on... And it's not like they were expensive - this was a very very dangerous place to be with cash. Or a card. Or paper and a pencil to write an IOU....
Anyway - enough of this silliness, let's cut to the picture of what I walked out with:
Now, I wonder if the experts on here can identify what's in the picture...
Let's just say, by the way, that having eagerly used those saws in anger already, I am astonished that you can spend this little on something which makes the more expensive new equivalents look and feel like toys in comparison.
Now I am a complete newbie in every respect. I've been building up my tool collection *very slowly* as I didn't know what I might need for making a guitar. However I've realised that building a guitar is not the only thing I want to make with wood, so getting a general 'collection' of usable tools has entered the agenda.
Why explain all this? Well, it shows why when visiting a second-hand tool shop I had no idea on 2 fronts:
1) Just how little old superior hand tools cost when compared to the modern hardware-shop 'disposable' equivalent.
2) Just how unlikely it was that I was ever going to leave a place like that until I had exhausted all the available cash I had on me.
Luckily for me, I only took £30 along, reasoning that if a rubbish brand-new 'disposable type' impact hardened saw could cost between £5 and £10 then a really decent re-sharpenable one could be as much as double that. How naive I was, and how naive I must remain on many yet-undiscovered fronts. :?
When I got to the store - well, wow. It was like walking into a parralell dimension, a parallel dimension where you don't greet each other every morning with 'Hello there, vicar, glorious morning isn't it?' but instead say things like 'Plane, vicar? Trysquare your turning gouge?', and so on... And it's not like they were expensive - this was a very very dangerous place to be with cash. Or a card. Or paper and a pencil to write an IOU....
Anyway - enough of this silliness, let's cut to the picture of what I walked out with:
Now, I wonder if the experts on here can identify what's in the picture...
Let's just say, by the way, that having eagerly used those saws in anger already, I am astonished that you can spend this little on something which makes the more expensive new equivalents look and feel like toys in comparison.
do 'specially with money in my back pocket. You've now also taken the first tiny step down what is referred to in these parts as the 'Slope', and uncertain and rapidly descending slide into a financial 'black hole' from which escape is impossible. I vowed a couple of years ago that I could resist the perils of the dreaded 'Slope'...alas 
