Recommended Hand Tools
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Our philosophy is simple: buy the right tool the first time. Incrementally upgrading is almost always a net losing proposition. These recommendations are “buy-it-for-life” tools.
If you are working on a strict budget, skip the optional planes and the mortise chisel. If you already own power tools for dimensioning, you can also skip the large panel/rip saws and stick to the joinery saw set.
Sharpening Supplies
If you’re going to work with hand tools, this is your true #1 priority and you must not defer learning to sharpen properly. It’s the most important skill in hand tool woodworking, barre none. There are a billion ways to skin this cat, but this system is fast, reliable, and keeps you working rather than constantly sharpening.
Grinding
Budget A 200 or 350 grit diamond stone with a Veritas honing guide.
Premium A Rikon Low-Speed Grinder paired with a single 180-grit Spartan CBN Wheel from Wood Turners Wonders. You can opt for a variable or full speed grinder, however a lower speed gives you more margin for error and heats a blade more slowly. The difference in grinding time is only significant when grinding a great many irons at once.
Warning: Never use factory-stock aluminum oxide wheels. They are garbage, they wear quickly, tend to shatter, and easily overheat your blades.
Lapping (flattening iron backs)
Must have Buy blue zirconia 6" belt sander belts and lay them flat on a piece of float glass. Pro-Tip: Get a square Magswitch 165lb welder's magnet, clamp it to the plane iron or chisel, and drag it in long strokes laterally down the abrasive. You will lap the back flat at an unbelievable speed.
Honing
Must have A diamond stone. CBN hand hones from Wood Turners Wonders are also excellent.
Polishing
Budget Green compound or 0.5–1 micron diamond paste on a strop.
Premium Shapton Glass Stones. An 8000-grit stone is a good stopping point for a finished edge; a 16000-grit stone is an extreme luxury.
Stone maintenance
All around Water stones require frequent flattening. The DMT Dia-Flat 95 is the gold standard lapping plate for this job.
Maintenance
Right after sharpening, maintenance. You must care well for your tools. You need to protect your tools and your sharpening gear from corrosion.
Anti-corrosion for sharpening
All around Honerite gold. Mix this into your water sprayer to eliminate corrosion on your diamond lapping stone, and rust bits forming in iron particles in your water stones.
Protective wax
Budget A light periodic wipedown with oil.
Premium Renaissance wax.
For waxing a plane sole in use, use a brick of candle wax.
Oil
Must have Jojoba oil is my favorite but 3-in-1 works as well. A light rub down with oil every few days at the end of a working session does wonders. Ballistol can also double as your protective oil. Use sparingly.
Cleanup
Must have Air compressor & blow gun: this is by far the easiest way to clean your planes. Blow them clean each day when you’re done.
Rust removal
All around Sandflex is a product used to remove corrosion from your iron. I recommend buying all 3 levels of grit and working up through them when removing corrosion. Alternatively, you can use an oil with scotchbrite pads. I would avoid steel wool, it just ends up everywhere.
All around Ballistol is by far the best solution we have found for dealing with corrosion that won't clean up with Sandflex.
Workholding
You need a bench, most of all. You should build your own if you have the time and interest. The Nicholson Bench and the Anarchist's Workbench are excellent affordable options. If you want to buy a nice bench without investing a ton of time, Sjobergs is the standard, but I suggest finding a Roubo bench builder.
There are two premium bench building options I recommend.
- HNT Gordon - their bench kit features their holdfasts, tail vise, non-racking jaw vise (hands down the best vises on the market, these two), along with some other accessories. They are pricey but worth every penny - we use them in our home shop. These can be fitted onto nearly any bench.
- Benchcrafted - marginally less expensive than HNT and requires building a Roubo, which is an extremely difficult bench to build compared to most others.
You also need things to hold your things on the bench.
Moxon vise
Budget Build a Moxon vise from a kit (let us know if you need help!) that can be clamped to the bench.
Premium Buy one of our custom Moxon vises. Ask for information.
Surface clamping
All around Veritas wonder pups: these hold work flat on the bench and allow you to easily block in boards for sanding.
All around Holdfasts: Veritas surface clamps and screw-type holdfasts are excellent and indispensible for utilizing dog holes on the front of your bench for working long boards, or for holding boards firmly on the face for heavy planing.
Marking & Measuring
Marking gauge
All around Veritas marking gauge.
Premium Colen Clenton.
Combination square (6" and 12")
Machinist square (3" or 4")
Must have You need an extremely precise square for tool setup, and validating the squareness of adjustable squares (sometimes they're defective beyond use!) PEC again.
Marking knife
Must have The knives we carry made in partnership with Roberts Fine Tools.
Dovetail markers
Must have Veritas 1:6 and 1:8 markers.
36" steel straightedge
Must have Veritas 36" Steel Straightedge: outrageously precise and very affordable. Straight edges have near infinite uses.
Tape measure
The brand doesn't matter, but only use one brand and product line throughout your shop to avoid compound measuring errors.
Dividers
Must have Dividers: 4" is great for small projects, 8" is a good all-rounder, 12" is useful for larger pieces.
Mechanical pencils
Must have Zebra Pen DelGuard Mechanical Pencil 0.5mm are the best I've found for marking joinery. They are extremely durable, and the 0.5mm point makes clean lines for making cuts as it is slightly narrower than the kerf of a dovetail saw. For rough marking, the Pica pencil is ideal at 0.9mm.
Lamp
You want a lamp for hand joinery. You need precise control over light. Get the lamp along with the dog hole adapter and you have an easy-to-move lamp right at your bench.
Boring & Fastening
Drills
A vintage egg beater (if you want to skip power tools entirely) or a vintage brace. A brace will provide far more torque than a modern power drill.
Augers
Budget Vintage Jennings or Irwin pattern bits.
Premium Wood Owl Tri-Cut Augers are the gold standard. Only buy the specific sizes you need. (Note: You will need an adapter to use modern augers with a vintage brace). If you're building a bench, you should probably buy both 3/4" and 20mm augers for making dog holes.
Rubber hammer
A red/yellow Thor or Iron hammer is great for chopping with chisels without damaging the handles.
Plane setting
All around Veritas plane setting hammer.
Chisels
Bench chisels (1/4", 1/2", 1", 2")
Budget Suizan wood chisels (WC family).
Premium Veritas PM-V11.
Mortise chisel (3/8")
Essential if you plan to chop traditional mortises by hand.
Future additions: You may eventually want paring or dovetail chisels. Japanese chisels are usually the most cost-effective option for these specialty profiles.
Saws
Crosscutting (wide boards)
Budget Suizan 9.5" ryoba for general cutting.
Premium Pax Panel Saw.
Splurge Bad Axe Tool Works.
Ripping (hand ripping boards)
Budget Suizan 9.5" ryoba for general cutting.
Premium Pax Rip Saw. Skip if you already dimension with power tools.
Splurge Bad Axe Tool Works.
Joinery
Budget Suizan 6" Silver Back dozuki for dovetails.
Premium Veritas joinery saws and the Veritas rip tenon saw.
Splurge Bad Axe Tool Works.
Coping / fret saw
Knew Concepts Fret Saw. Do not buy vintage here. Nothing comes close to Knew Concepts. (We carry this fret saw right at the store!!).
A note on vintage saws: Like vintage planes, they can be a huge money pit. If you prefer vintage, let us know and we can connect you with a trusted supplier who restores them properly.
Hand Planes
Avoid bargain-hunting old planes unless you are prepared to do a great deal of restoration and buy a few duds before finding a winner. If you prefer vintage, ask us for help - we often stock vintage planes, and can source them from reputable dealers and restorers.
Core bench plane (#4, #4 ½, #5, or #5 ½)
Pick one. These are highly versatile. The larger your typical projects, the larger the plane you should buy.
Budget Suizan 2" Japanese plane.
Premium Veritas (The Custom 4 ½ is an excellent premium option due to its configurability), or HNT Gordon.
Trying / jointer plane (#6, #7, or #8)
Budget Suizan 2.4" Japanese plane.
Premium The Veritas Custom #7 is our top choice. Any equivalent from Veritas or HNT Gordon will perform flawlessly.
Block plane
Budget Suizan 1.7" plane.
Premium Veritas DX60 (best ergonomics) or HNT Gordon (excellent front knob control).
Router plane
Budget Vintage.
Premium Veritas Large Router Plane (Best on the market, wide variety of blades). Middle: Veritas medium router plane.
Shoulder plane (3/4" or 1")
Budget Vintage.
Premium The Veritas Large Shoulder Plane is exceptional. Splurge: Buy both the medium and large Veritas shoulder planes, plus the Veritas hand jointer jig.
Optional planes (combination & shooting)
Budget Vintage for a combination plane.
Premium Veritas is the top recommendation for both. Splurge: The massive set of combination blades and the incredible Veritas shooting board.
Joining
You will inevitably need to glue things together. We keep it simple.
Wood glue
Budget Titebond I. Lower open time, not waterproof.
Premium Titebond 3 has a long open time and is extremely durable once cured. If doing many projects, a gallon is much more economical per ounce.
Clamps
All around Dubuque Bar Clamps, which can be had at an excellent price in 10 packs.
All around Dubuque cam clamps.
Very nice to have
Premium Veritas Edge trimming plane. These planes are great at cleaning up an edge before gluing. They tend to produce better results than even my best glue line rip table saw blades.
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Fells Hardwood Supply, Hutto, TX. We serve Austin, Round Rock, Cedar Park, Georgetown, and the greater Austin metro.