Good online store for affordable woodworking tools?

[rwkeating]

Locally, if I want to buy say a marking knife and a mortising gauge all I have is Woodcraft (I'm not going to find these at Home Depot, Lowes or Ace.) Woodcraft has good stuff, but their prices seem high (if I'm wrong, tell me.) Is there an online store where I can save some money, still buy decent quality woodworking tools and not get killed with shipping charges?

Time to update a few smaller tools. Here is my current "Flintstones" mortising gauge

Scribe

• rwkeating
• Dec 7, 2015

 

[chinjazz]

Locally, if I want to buy say a marking knife and a mortising gauge all I have is Woodcraft (I'm not going to find these at Home Depot, Lowes or Ace.) Woodcraft has good stuff, but their prices seem high (if I'm wrong, tell me.) Is there an online store where I can save some money, still buy decent quality woodworking tools and not get killed with shipping charges?

Time to update a few smaller tools. Here is my current "Flintstones" mortising gauge

Scribe

• rwkeating
• Dec 7, 2015

Subbed! I’m always looking for new sources

 

[Scoops]

Invalid Link Removed

 

[HaMMerHeD]

Amazon.

They have a good range of everything. You can get a $1200 festool router or a $20 cheap Chinese import, and everything in between.

 

[buldog5151bass]

Woodcraft has good stuff, but they are not cheap.

Harbor Freight quality is hit or miss, but you can't beat the prices. I have an 8" disc sander that I've been using for three years in my bat business. Better if you can get to the store so you can see what you are getting.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

I actually had a thread going on this a while back. If you are willing to scrounge around online, you can really find some deals. Grizzly.com carries some luthiery tools, also Philadelphia Luthiers. I bought a few Axemasters cheap fret files off eBay, serviceable, but nothing like Stewmac quality. The “safe” edges were crudely ground and unpolished. Had to do that myself, but my labor is free, I guess. That and nut files don’t seem to be available cheap. I’ve been looking for a set of good nut files used, they occasionally pop up on eBay.

Edit: The obscenely inflated shipping is what soured me on Stewmac, my wife orders enough clothes, cosmetics and female paraphernalia from Amazon that having Prime is worth it, saved s log of money on postage, and it’s at your door in 48 hours.

 

[rudy4444]

The folks at Highland Woodworking are great, and they have a nice on-line monthly "magazine" on their website. They featured my shop in one their July 2016 monthly shop spot.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

Don't forget ebay and local flea markets. When it comes to classic hand woodworking tools, you can often find old used ones for cheap if you look around. Clean them up, fine tune them, and they become lifetime tools. Most of my hand tools, like chisels, planes, spokeshaves, etc. were bought used.

If you want to buy them new, then yes, check Amazon first. There you'll get a quick view of the range of what's available, from cheap imports to top end "wealthy hobbyist" tools. As with most other things, the cheap imports can usually be made to work acceptably. But they are not the best. Do you actually need the best? Or is a tool that works acceptably good enough? How fussy are you, and how much do you want spend?

 

[rudy4444]

I actually had a thread going on this a while back. If you are willing to scrounge around online, you can really find some deals. Grizzly.com carries some luthiery tools, also Philadelphia Luthiers. I bought a few Axemasters cheap fret files off eBay, serviceable, but nothing like Stewmac quality. The “safe” edges were crudely ground and unpolished. Had to do that myself, but my labor is free, I guess. That and nut files don’t seem to be available cheap. I’ve been looking for a set of good nut files used, they occasionally pop up on eBay.

Edit: The obscenely inflated shipping is what soured me on Stewmac, my wife orders enough clothes, cosmetics and female paraphernalia from Amazon that having Prime is worth it, saved s log of money on postage, and it’s at your door in 48 hours.

StewMac does have their own version of "Prime" with unlimited free shipping with no minimum if you want to pay the annual fee for the "StewMax" membership.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

StewMac does have their own version of "Prime" with unlimited free shipping with no minimum if you want to pay the annual fee for the "StewMax" membership.

Yeah, but you are still left their inflated prices! I bought a fret slot cleaning tool identical to what Stewmac sells for $34.89 for $22 elsewhere, a pretty typical example. It was literally the same tool with a different brand name stamped on the side. Stemac re-brands a lot of stuff they buy from other manufacturers, and jacks the price. The Colortone line of oil and water based colorants, for instance, is made by a company called Vivitone. They sell to Stewmac, who puts a different label on it, capitalism 101 I guess. No doubt Stewmac sells some very high quality tools, and if I were a full time Pro luthier, i'd probably suck it up and buy all Stewmac, but if it's a hobby with a budget.... look elsewhere first, then buy Stewmac if the alternatives are really not as good. Sometimes they aren't, I've bought my share of crap that looked good on ebay or amazon. Another trick is to re-purpose tools intended for something else, just tacking the word "Luthier" on a tool name seems to magically increase the price. I bought a "jewelers hammer" at harbor Freight I use as a fret hammer, works great, stupid cheap. Once you start looking at stuff with an eye to how it could be used for Luthiery, it really opens things up.

 

[Big B.]

I use woodcraft a good bit as they are local but when ordering things I often order from Rockler Woodworking. They also have brick and mortar stores much like woodcraft but unfortunately we don't have one in Austin. They carry a similar inventory to woodcraft but I like their Rockler branded line of tools and accessories. Often the prices are a bit better than woodcraft and the quality can be better too. I just ordered a couple of heavy duty bench vises for a new workbench in my shop and after checking out the vises at woodcraft and the online reviews I decided to go with the Rockler vises instead and it was a smart move. Both the design and construction of the Rockler vises are noticeably better for the same price. In the long run I paid 50$ more simply because of shipping but after seeing these vises in person the extra money was well worth it. I also find their router bits in particular have great cutting edges and really smooth spinning bearings.

 

[rwkeating]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll start looking into them.

The reason I was looking for one place (store) was due to shipping costs. On Ebay or Amazon you may find one tool here and one tool there, but if they are from different sellers you have shipping to pay on each one.

I love the idea of buying used, but if you need something now and it isn't available now, you are kind of stuck.

 

[HaMMerHeD]

Yeah, when I browse Amazon I filter for Prime only. Then I dont have to worry about shipping or waiting.

 

[rwkeating]

More followup: @Bruce Johnson, I don't need the best, just enough to get by without wasting money on junk.
@Big B., There is a Rockler Woodworking two towns over from me. Cool! I hadn't heard of them.

If I bought enough to make any of the "prime" services worth it, that would be one thing, but I can't play "the more you spend the more you save" game

 

[D-Smith]

Locally, if I want to buy say a marking knife ...[/GALLERY]

Specifically to that question, if you don't already have one buy any decent pocket knife, Swiss Army works great, with a 3" long blade. Works perfectly as a marking knife. I find having both edges beveled is a lot easier to use than a bevel only on one side like a traditional marking knife. But if you wanted to you could always grind the dual bevel off and re-bevel on just one side. I posted a picture a while back using one to mark the nut location on a neck.

Like Bruce said, ebay for good old tools. What else specifically?

 

[LeanGreen]

It really doesn't pay to go cheap on some woodworking tools: squares, chisels, planes, etc. But check out Lee Valley. They sell very good quality hand tools at what I'd call reasonable prices.

 

[rwkeating]

What else specifically?

I hope with just the marking knife and mortising gauge that will be it for the next build. There are plenty of other tools I could use, but I need to draw the line somewhere.

 

[Beej]

I hope with just the marking knife and mortising gauge that will be it for the next build. There are plenty of other tools I could use, but I need to draw the line somewhere.

Don't you mean mark the line?

Nyuk nyuk nyuk...

 

[Bruce Johnson]

Speaking of drawing lines, I personally never got into using marking knives. I have a couple somewhere in the drawers, but I never liked scratching lines in the wood. They are hard to see, and you can't erase them. I use fine 0.5mm and 0.7mm mechanical pencils for all my marking on wood. On dark woods, I use the Fons & Porter Mechanical Fabric Pencil; a mechanical pencil that uses special white lead:

https://www.amazon.com/Porter-Mecha...ords=fons+and+porter+mechanical+fabric+pencil

On metal, I scribe the lines using a standard Starrett 70A Scriber, one that I found at a flea market many years ago.

Lee Valley has lots of fine tools, but those are what I consider to be high end. I wish I could order half their catalog, but I'm not in that financial class.

Most of my favorite chisels I bought for a buck or three at flea markets. Good old name brands that I cleaned up and carefully sharpened. I do have some Sandvik chisels that I bought new for under $10 which are very nice. And I have a set of Marples gouges that I bought new many years ago.

I have a row of decent Stanley planes that I bought used at flea markets and on ebay (back in the day). I don't think I spent more than $20 for any of them. They are nice old ones, a little too battered to be collector grade. I tuned them up and they work great, but I really rarely use them.

Same with spokeshaves and drawknives and many of the other classic hand woodworking tools. Over the years, I've acquired a bunch of them, but they don't get much use. Collecting and messing around with old woodworking tools is a hobby in itself. And selling fine woodworking tools to men who have hobby money to spend is a big business. But in the practical world of manufacturing wood products as a business, they are usually too slow for most jobs. I mostly build basses with power saws and routers.

My main hand tools are files. If you want to spend some money on hand tools, I recommend that you buy a good collection of files.

 

[b3e]

Just a few things I can share from my little experience. Some tools a great to have new, like dovetail saws or handsaws. You can get them used and when you know what you are doing, restore a lot of them. I myself gave up on one after flattening the blade, cutting new teeth to 12tpi, when the handle proved to be unusable and I couldn't find the right screes to make a new one and attach it. A pretty inexpensive gents saw by PAX is doing fine in my tools tash now and I would go with any PAX saw instead of resurrecting and old Disston or similar.

But.. you can't beat the steel from the past and maybe we have a sentimental attachment to it here in Europe, but you hear among woodworkers a lot about old Sheffield steel. And there is really a lot of them in the form of chisels and gouges out there. They sharpen very well and easy, yet hold the edge a decent amount of time. You will be able to buy a lot of 10-12 chissels and gauges on ebay for the price of 3-4 new ones often and they will be lovely tools.

Also old braces and auger bits - work like a charm if you look for the right ones, you can easily get try squares and other measuring and tracing tools like this, and so on. They will just need your attention.

New tools can be also a gem, I own Veritas planes and they are very well made, but an old Stanley setup well will do the job just as good. I found it confusing for example to choose between A2 steel or PMV-11 in Veritas tools. In the end they do exactly the same job and to be honest, old Bailey blades sharpen better for me than PMV-11, but it is probably my biased opinion.

Anyway, there is no best tool. The best is the one you own and the quality of work depends on your precission and how well you can maintain your tools. I would personally probably choose older tools over new ones if I can find the right one, because of sentimental reasons and often a lower price tag.