Reply by tirebob

While I agree that great hand tools will not make a great woodworker, I believe you should have at least one really premium tool (or at least experience it) so you will know how a tool is supposed to perform, so then when you are buying vintage tools etc, you will know where you are at versus where you need to be. If you don’t know something is performing like crap, you might tend to blame yourself for things that are related to the tuning of the tool, and if you don’t know what good is, you won’t know what bad is either. This leads to frustration and frustration leads to giving up. Don’t be scared to buy premium tools if they fall within your budgets. There is nothing wrong with that at all, but if your budget is a little tighter, don’t be scared of quality vintage stuff. Just know what you are buying and how it should perform…