Your comment is golden! And you're right; it's interesting when I come across a title that says "build xyz simple jig" then the first thing I see is a full size planer and bandsaw. SMH

The kicker is how these “poor man’s” methods are more reminiscent of the original fabrication for these tools. Nowadays, most people can’t conceive of making things without power tools, and it’s going to get even worse with 3D printing and CNC mills, in the future most people won’t have any idea how to make anything with their own hands or perhaps that it’s even possible.

It really helps to look at traditional woodworking videos from time when they didn't have powertools. They were much more creative back then (with their tools), because they had to be. You'll also notice that it's not that difficult to work with hand tools if you use the correct tool for the correct job and if you know how to work with the grain of the wood.

And I can never find my damn dinosaur

​@@DERICKBLAIR4 So you miss the most important poor man's tool. No spokeshaves for you until then.

Until you buy the hand planes or the steel stock lol. Both are expensive in my area, even used rusted up junk that needs a lot of tlc is over priced around here.

Anthony E. that's so unfortunate! Where do you live? Here where I am there are people who try to sell junk for a bunch of cash too. I've learned a few tricks in the last year to find the good deals.

Anthony E. I agree with that as well. I'm just starting out as a wood worker and I'm broke. But I've found if you get creative you can make things happen. Garage sales, junk shops, antique stores, harbor freight, make your own...

absolutely! thats TRUE wealth, not having to depend on businesses selling it to you, but being ready to do your bit for your community by yourself not depending on any thing but your own skill and knowledge.

PoorKidOne I bought a Lie Nielsen plane a few yrs ago because every "PRO/MASTER" woodworker on youtube said they were the best. Thats long sold for a purchase of a gun lol. My $10-50 old stanleys from antique stores and yard sales perform just as well or better with after market blades ($35-50 for those). If you don't mind putting in the effort you can buy the steel from somewhere like metal supermarket and make them yourself even cheaper. I have purchased old corrugated stanelys in #3, 4, ,5 . All cost me less than $50 I have a flat sole 7 that I got for $15 at a yard sale and an atkins cabinet scraper for $5. I had a few old marples chisels i bought 20ish yrs ago for $2 a piece but when I needed a "complete" set I bought a set of narex from lee valley. The marples are better but I will admit not by much. The narex will need work if you hate the look of machine marks on your chisels lol. The marples didn't have that. And if you take notice to what paul says about clamps. His are el cheapos. No need to spend a 1/2 yrs worth of car payments on bessy (and the like) clamps. A cheap clamp will put the pressure on your workthat is needed. I hear oh but bessys don't flex. Im thinking if you are putting so much pressure on a clamp that flexing is causing a issue you are putting to much pressure on it. I can squeeze two glued edges together by hand to squeeze out most of the glue. A cheap clamp will do it 10x more than i can by hand. People that spend money on brand name clamps and tools in general are also the suckers that overspend buying an apple phone just to text talk and watch videos but want to say I own an Iphone lol. My phone is a samsung note 3. Got it when they first came out because my note 2 took a swim in the tub lol. Still works fine and its funny when people at work find some funny video on their social media with their Iphones and come running to me because they want to see it on a bigger screen. Then they watch it and a few are saying why doesn't it look so fuzzy like on my phone or a few say how come its not buffering every 10-15 secs (thats your provider) but i say because its not an iphone lol . Anyway when it comes to tools you can buy the tool cheap and upgrade/work on it to make it perform as much as its 2x-3x-4x cost premium tool. Now Lie Nielsen has come up with a marketing scam that scoket chisels are the cats ass. Sure they are if they are for timber framing but not building furniture and chest and boxes. If you are beating on a chisel so hard for small work that you think you need a socket chisel. Nothing you make will turn out well anyway as you need to work on your skills. If you had the patiences you could make a crap load of tools from a trucks leaf spring.

TY, I just checked and switched the resolution upwards.

Stuart Osborne If you learn how to put a Lee Nielsen logo on your homemade tools, then you can pocket the approved funds for your big tool budget!

Include the labour cost.

Imagine if she sold the ones you bought for what you said you paid for them.

Richard Allsebrook. If you like this approach, Two other You Tube channels I find with a similar laid-back approach are, Mustie1, for mechanical fun, and Pask Makes, who also does woodworking and other craft skills. Enjoy.

You're right, Paul was blowing it cold; You're right on all your points!

Thanks for all your help and advice.

buggsy5 - I was thinking the same as I was watching, esp. regarding the hairdryer blowing the heat away from the steel. Still an excellent video & instruction.

"buggsy5" knows exactly what he is doing! Cheers mate!

Also don't drop it in oil but holding with a piece of wire put in straight into oil to avoid warping, and move side to side so the surface is agitated with the oil.

Can you harden the steel in a propane barbecue?

Wade Patton -- since you're coming from the metal side, can you talk about heating the blade to 'cherry red' (It didn't look red in Paul's video), and then about baking it in a 375F oven for 45 minutes? Metal work is new to us wood guys. Thanks!

The camera adjusting to brightness etc may make it look colder or hotter than it looks when you are next to it. If you just do that and let it cool down slowly, it would have annealed the metall, meaning the metal is soft. It would be easy to sharpen, but it would not hold an edge very well. So you get it to cherry like red hot and quench it in water or quenching oil (If knew to this and not equipped for it absolutely go for the water unless you want to set everything on fire!). What you did now, if the procedure was successful, you changed the metalls christall structure and made it harder. You can test this y trying to cut it with a file, if hard, the file should not cut but just skate over the metall. The problem now is, this hardened metall is super brittle and would easily break (it really shatters into pieces), so you put it into an oven for a while and not as high a temperature as before. This is called tempering, it releases internal stresses in the material which have been introduced by quenching it (the outside cools faster than the inside, thus the outside pulls on the inside material.) Now you got a hard material, but with less internal stresses, so it does not break as easy.

Metal works like wood? Well as a hobbyist in black smithing and woodworking I think you are full of shit so to speak. When I try to upset wood it splits and spits out chunks of heavy splinters. When I use fire to heat it so I can bend it, it turns to ash lol. And metal is not really more predictable than wood unless you are using it cold. Now if you are talking about cnc you don't have to worry about tear out with metal as its run cold. But when you get into the structure of metal and shaping it in traditional methods you have as many worries about the structure as you do wood. I have made blades from the same steel stock and the first 3 or 4 came out perfect and the next 2 wood be a lesson to be learned and then make 2 that were "predictable" and then get another section that was a nightmare. If i were to take that same stock and just use the removal method as most blade makers do these days I would not have a blade that went to the "garbage". Now where wood and metal is way different is even with just removal to shape you still have to worry about tear out with wood. (unless just using sanding).

James O'Connell - It doesn't look 'cherry red' because he's out in the sunlight and its very bright outside compared to the blade. If he were working indoors you'd definitely be able to see a bright red glow. Furthermore, to oversimplify heat treating steel: Usually, metal blanks come "annealed" which means softened. This allows you to shape and cut the steel more easily so it doesn't destroy your tools. When you harden a piece of steel, you're changing the structure and "locking" the molecules in place when you heat and quench (submerge in oil or water). This makes the steel very hard, and able to be extremely sharp, but also very brittle, meaning that pieces are likely to chip off, or the entire blade may even snap if subjected to enough pressure. Baking it in the oven is called "tempering" which brings back the hardness a bit, and makes it a bit less likely to chip and break.

James O'Connell You need to know what type of metal you have before you can find out how to heatreat it. He never says what he is using. Could be D2, or 01, ASP, probable 01 seeing as though he used Oil to quench it

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