Homestead mailing list

[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> >No black-and-white answer for tools. The cliche answer is buy the  
> best you can afford.
> 

Almost everything on this farmstead is done with hand tools ... as well as 
90% of the work done in my cash business.  I'd modify the cliche to take the 
empahsis off of cost and put it on knowledge.  "Buy the tools based on the 
most 
knowledge" and ignore the money until it gets to be a factor, for example, 
you 
don't have any.

Some many years back I needed an extra long handle pointed shovel, the 
default tool for preparing garden beds here.  I got one at WalMart for $2.50  
(the 
same shovel was $3.50 this past season).  It and the two or three others I 
got 
so I'd have shovels for all and sundry and in every location have done the 
job 
quite well for many years and continue unabated.

I needed a specialized wood bit and at the WoodCrafter store I was comparing 
the $4 bit to the $36 bit.  I asked a knowledgeable person there if there was 
that much difference.  He asked what I was going to use the bit for and when 
the answer was to drill maybe four holes a week at the most,  he said get the 
cheaper one.  The other is made for industrial process to drill four holes a 
minute 24/7 for months.  I should live so long!

Having cut a lot of hay with a scythe, though, and having had cheapie blades 
and good (alas, expensive) blades, the cheapies are useless.  The blade 
simply 
has to be damasked steel and all of those even now of days are hand made.

Likewise bow saw and buck saw blades.  The ones at the garden center are for 
trimming a branch or two off the dogwood trees once a year.  They become dull 
in half an hour cutting firewood.  Fortunately real pulpsaw blades are still 
to be had if you know where to look and will reach a bit deep in the purse.

Sometimes the cheapie makes more sense and in terms of money spent for tasks 
accomplished if far and away the best.  Sometimes a very good quality, and 
usually, but not always, expensive tool is the only way to not throw the 
money 
down a hole.  So what we would best accumulate is not more tools and 
expensive 
tools, but more knowledge of the tools and the tasks.

James

   </HTML>