Scrapers are great tools, and very easy to use, but developing the knack for squaring and polishing the edge, and then using a burnishing rod to turn the "hook," definitely takes a bit of practice.
Get the
Stew-Mac tool:
Invalid Link Removed. I use it and it's just too awesome not to own. It's totally worth what they want for it even though it's just a hunk of wood with a carbide dowel stuck in it. You still have to square your scraper's edge up about every 25th burnishing, but a decent file and a sharpening stone can do that in about 2 seconds.
To the OP: Some drum sander drums can be installed in a drill press chuck. You lock the head in position and turn it on like you were drilling and you can get away with not having a drum sander for a while. Probably a very long while.
If you're going to make basses, the drill press is more important than the band saw. You can not drill a perfectly straight, vertical tuning machine hole by hand. I've tried; the bubble level on the back of a hand-held cordless drill is less than worthless for this task. Even a cheap $99 bench-sized drill press is better than no drill press, so if you have a work space you likely have space enough. Even better: hit up local garage and/or estate sales. You'd be
surprised at what you might run into (I got my 74 tele bass for $75 this way).
Brad point bits. Spend the money on good ones, but again even cheapies are better than none. They have knives on the sides that slice the wood fibers before drilling them out and that makes them give
awesome holes. Be sure to always place a sacrificial block of wood underneath the thing you're actually wanting to drill to avoid tear-out on the bottom edge. If you don't find brad points anywhere, use the scrap wood trick on top of the target piece, too (be sure to properly mark the hole locations!!!). Tear-out on holes makes woodwork look bad.
Spade bits if for some reason you don't like roughing pockets with the router, but I prefer the router for that because ... well, just because I do, and because it's easier to hold more accurate depth with a straight router bit with a bearing on it in a template than it ever would be by marking your drill press with masking tape
Disclaimer: I work as a machinist but went to school for cabinetmaking (amongst other things).
