Doing Things Wrong

Basic Tools

Well, it's that time of year again, time to renew the web hosting. And for those of you that don't know, that has become a lot more expensive than it used to be. Fifty dollars a year is now several hundred. Not to mention the price of domain names has gone up ten-fold.

And I just found out that the nice folks at PayPal disabled all my Support buttons, and I never got a notice (although that may be my fault.) In any case, it is all working again now, so if you would like to make a small donation to help defray these costs, it would be greatly appreciated.

For a minimal woodworking workshop, I would say:

  • hand drill & basic hand tools
  • small drill press and accessories
  • scroll saw or jigsaw or both
  • belt sander, handheld or benchtop or both
  • dremel & accessories ( or my little Harbor Freight Grinder )
  • a big toolbox that you can fill with files, rasps, scrapers, sanders, drill bits, and everything else
  • vacuum cleaner with a hose ( steal from wife )

None of these need to be expensive - Ryobi, Skil, and Black & Decker will do just fine. Even Harbor Freight, although I have doubts about the longevity of their power tools. The results you get depend a lot more on your skill with the tool than how much you paid for it.



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This is a real Danelectro Silvertone 1452 from the 1960s. When I got it, it was a sad box of parts. Some hillbilly had stripped it, by rubbing it on the sidewalk, I think. The fretboard had delaminated, and the old repair had simply made the problem permanent. I repaired the neck and fixed all the other issues, replaced the lipstick tubes, which had split, and clear-coated the whole thing in modern poly. I was not able to fully repair the neck, there's just not enough wood left, so I don't keep it under tension. The pickguard is stained dark for contrast. I cleaned tarnish off the old metal bits with oven cleaner, and replaced all the corroded fasteners with shiny new stainless ones.

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