The Essential Woodworking Toolkit: The list!

The word essential here may be a little misleading as if I am telling you that you have to have all of these things. Perhaps a more accurate but less catchy title should be “The bare essentials of woodworking”. This kit list is by no means everything you need (you can always build upon this) nor should it be inferred that you cannot woodwork without any of these. This list is what I would pack in my tool box if I was travelling somewhere to start, build and finish a project just using hand tools.

So, the full list is at the end of this post, by all means skip ahead and have a look. I am hoping to spend a little time expanding on each item or collection of items on the list to explain how I choose what works best for me in these blog posts, but as we go through the list I will keep the definitive list at the foot of each page for reference.

If you have attended one of my beginners courses, this list is also on the follow up document I send out as a reminder of what we’ve covered during the course. And before you skip to the end and start feverishly searching online tool suppliers to buy your new tool kit, I want to share my tool buying rules:

1. Buy what you need as you need it (its pointless buying every tool under the sun only to realise you don’t really use some of them for your projects), generally if I find myself during a project saying “I wish I had a…” at least 3 times then I probably need one;

2. Buy the best you can afford – cheap tools are cheap for a reason;

3. Buy from people who know what they are talking about. I buy woodworking tools from woodworking tool suppliers. I don’t generally buy them from large DIY chains or supermarkets because they may look like woodworking tools, but they don’t always act like woodworking tools!

So this is it, the list, by which I mean "My List". Other woodworkers lists may be different, other woodworkers may need less others may need more.

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So a good place to start with hand tool woodworking is with the following:

• Panel saw – long saw for long rip cuts, quick cross cuts, and general wood dissection!

• Back saw – this is a general term for a smaller saw with a rigid spine ideal for smaller joinery cuts these can also be called tenon saws, carcase saws and dovetail saws – if the choice is available a crosscut saw tenon saw and a nice little dovetail saw would be ideal for most joinery techniques.

• Chisels – I would start with 2 chisels – a wide chisel around 26mm or 30mm wide and a narrower chisel around 16mm wide.

• Hand plane – either a No 3 or 4 sometimes called a smoothing plane and a No 5 also known as a Jack plane (the No. 4 is shorter than the No. 5 but both will do similar jobs) are good starting points. You can do get away with just having one or the other but if you had both, even better!

• Block plane – handy for refining smaller parts or finishing off edges.

• Marking Knife – anything from a scalpel type knife to more ornate marking knives will work well – but marking with a knife will give your woodworking more accuracy.

• Square – this is where I would recommend buy the most expensive one you can afford – a cheap square will unfortunately more often than not be out of square!

• Marking gauge. Ideal for marking parallel lines, marking gauges come in all shapes and sizes.

• Drill – either an electric drill or if you want to be an entirely unplugged woodworker, “egg beater” drills and hand braces work just as well as their electrical counterparts.

• Sharpening set – Oilstones, water stones, diamond plates or scary sharp – whichever you choose make sure everything is sharp.

• Pencil. Kept behind one’s ear for the authentic woodworker look.