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If you only had one woodworking tool?

8K views 63 replies 32 participants last post by  allpurpose 
#1 ·
No this is not a nightmare, just a fun little "what if" discussion.

What if you only had one tool to do woodworking with? What would it be?

Now for the sake of going down endless rabbit holes, let's set some givens and ground rules:

1. Obviously a shop-smith type thing is not what I meant by one tool, that's cheating...
2. Well assume that pencils, straight edges, tape measures, etc are a given.

Yes, I know everything can technically be done with just a chisel as some Youtube woodworkers have shown, but that just looked exhausting.

I guess what I'm really considering is like your circular saws, drills, jigsaw, routers, planers, table saw, etc type tools.

Please give a short reason why you chose what you chose, hopefully this will turn into a fun little thread. Terrifying to think of only having ONE tool to use but fun none the less.

Happy Posting,

Jeff
 
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#4 ·
I think it would depend on what I planned to make/build. If I was doing small crafts then it would be a bandsaw. Or a scroll saw. If I was building jewelry boxes or items like that, then it would probably still be a bandsaw. SCMS could be used but I would prefer the bandsaw. If my intended build is cabinets then a table saw or circular saw.

Sorry, that's more than one... sort of. :grin:

David
 
#5 ·
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#27 · (Edited)
One woodworking machine?

There's a reason they are called "hand tools" and "woodworking machines'. :|
Ok, if only one tool, for me would be a Japanese pull saw Dozuki:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Japanese+pull+saw+Dozuki&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

Next choice, a Japanese pull type wood base plane:
https://www.amazon.com/Daikichi-Japanese-Kanna-Plane-58mm/dp/B003EIG856
:vs_cool:
If I could only have one woodworking machine it would have to be a radial arm saw. By far the most versatile machine I know of. I like them so much I own 4, maybe 5 of them. Why? I found out about 5 years ago that you can remove the saw carriage from one and slide it onto the rails of a different machine, and the 10" RASs are the same as the 12" RASs in Craftsman's line. I own both sizes, but prefer the 12" because the motor is more powerful.

So, what's the advantage to that? You can setup one carriage with a dado stack, another with a 60 tooth crosscut blade, another with my special router carriage, and so forth and never need to change a blade. OK, that saves time, but also saves floor space since you can use the same table and arm for all the various operations. They are so cheap on the used market that you can afford to get several as I did.


https://www.woodworkingtalk.com/members/woodnthings-7194/albums/ras-router-modification/


Then there's all the different operations you can do with a RAS .... ripping, crosscuts, bevels, cove cuts and miters with a saw blade(S). Then a doda set for rabbets or dados, but limited in length to about 15" in crosscut mode, unlimited lengths in rip mode. If you have a molding head, you can make different shaped profiles for moldings. You can get a surface planer attachment for making a smooth surface on rough stock. I even saw a You Tube where a guy uses that to level out a surface like a top sided jointer by wedging up the low corner on a twisted board on a sled. That's nothing I would do today since I have a jointer and a planer, but I could do it if limited to one machine. It's very versatile. What about a grinding wheel? What about a sanding disc? What about using the opposite end of the arbor with a 3 jaw chuck as a horizontal drill or mortiser?

The speed is a bit too slow for routing at 4500 RPMs but a Forstner bit would be suitable if not too large.

What about this "modification" ......
https://www.woodworkingtalk.com/mem.../albums/panel-saw/17109-panel-saw-bill-small/


:vs_cool:
 
#9 ·
I'm not sure what my answer to your question would be, but I'll interject this. At the end of Ironman 3 Tony Stark ends the movie after having lost his lab/house and blown up every last suit he had. The last line is this quote. "You can take away my house, all my tricks and toys, but one thing you can’t take away – I am Iron Man.”


A carpenter is just part of who I am. If you take away every last tool I had I would still find a way to create what I need to. It's been said a true craftsman can make his own tools. I've had to start from scratch more than once. I believe there's some truth to that...
 
#10 ·
What if you only had one tool to do woodworking with? What would it be?
In all honesty, a narrow chisel. I can hit it with a rock to chop mortises. I can pare away material to make tenons. Stick it through a block of wood, and it's a router plane. Stick it through a differently shaped block of wood, and it's a rabbet plane. With sufficient time and care, it can cut, shape, smooth, and just about anything. Box joints, mortise and tenon, even grooves and dados.

I wouldn't WANT to, but someone with enough skill (and time, and good sharpening stones) could furnish a house. There'd be a lot of weird joints, and a lot of waste, but it really is just about the most versatile tool in the shop.

Yes, I know everything can technically be done with just a chisel as some Youtube woodworkers have shown, but that just looked exhausting.

I guess what I'm really considering is like your circular saws, drills, jigsaw, routers, planers, table saw, etc type tools.
Up until recently, I could only use my power tools in good weather, because I had to run a power cord from the house to power anything. So.... none of those things have been in my daily use. If I could have my hand tool kit plus one power tool, I'd go with a circular saw, I think. I can do everything I need to do with hand tools, but ripping long pieces of lumber by hand just sucks.
 
#11 ·
Shutter the thought, but a router can do almost anything, albeit cumbersome. Using 1/8 or 1/4 bit for through cutting on plywood, you could make a straight line rip jig. Making simple router jigs, you can easily make curved shapes such as circles and ellipses or just curved arches like in aprons for tables. If hammer and nails are not counted, you could tack strips of wood onto plywood and make all sorts of joinery inluding dovetails and box joints The possibilities with a router are endless.
 
#25 ·
I started a very successful furniture business in Mill Valley Ca, with nothing but my fathers crappy Crafstman jigsaw, and a surform for rounding edges. I used this jig saw and hand filed, sanded the edges of my first year of furniture making. I eventually moved my shop to Sauasalito. This was 1972, and I have one of my original chairs - it's a bit embarassing as the finish is crude, but tmy furniture rustic as it was sold well enough until I learned how to do woodworking. Then I learned how to join wodd, and do fairly nice woodworking. I was not an accomplished woodworker, just had some cool designs. I still use jigsaws to cut a lot of different wood projects, as my battery powered Ryobi can cut through a 2X4 through the 4" side without going out of plane. It keeps me from hauling around my mitre saw.
If I were building a house, I would choose a skill saw, but I did build a two story house with my crew using nothing but a hand saw. We could not get temp power for 3 weeks, and generators were not readily available. The power company came out and took pictures of us building with just a hand saw, but didn't hurry to give us power. We framed the house and dried it in in about two weeks with me sawing every stud, joist, and plywood piece of wood.
I am not crazy about using human powered hand tools, but I can use them. I admire people who can chop a bowl with an adze
 
#39 ·
It could be done, but I wouldn't want to try it!

Like with a table saw, you'd want to build a jig that lets you slowly move the blade into the bowl blank, and then rotate one of them. It's got to be a really sturdy jig, though, and a lot more of the blade on the RAS is going to be exposed.

(Or you could use a RAS with a power takeoff, and do most of the work with router or shaper bits. That would probably be a lot safer.)
 
#41 ·
How do you know you'd get an argument? You have yet to pose an answer to the question; as of yet all I have seen is your opinion of other folks' answers. Overall this seems to be a well behaved discussion, and kind of thought provoking to boot!

Might not hurt to give a real answer to the OP a try... but be ready for replies just like the rest of us got from you.
 
#47 · (Edited)
Easily my RAS, I've collected a lot of the attachments that Craftsman made for it and can cut, rip, dado joint, plane, sand and make mouldings with it. I set it up in the garage and used it to build the wood shop in the backyard and then I used it to make all of the tables and stands for all of the equipment and then moved it all in, it literally built the house it lives in.

I have limited space because I have a tiny shop (8x15) and the RAS does many things with only one footprint. If/when I get a big shop I'll probably buy a jointer, planer and shaper/moulder for convenience.

I want to add one point to the "dangerous RAS" discussion that doesn't get mentioned enough and that's the blade, it's absolutely imperative that a negative hook blade be on the saw if you're going to rip! When I hear of people who have had kickbacks I always wonder if they just put a regular table saw blade on the RAS and expected it to be OK. the negative hook of the tooth means that the pressure exerted from the blade is directed down and horizontally back through the wood to the push board, a positive hook puts the pressure UP which tends to want to lift the board and cause binding and kickback. It's fine on a table saw because the positive hook pushes the wood into the table on a RAS the pressure must be directed at the pushboard.

How many people on this forum have had a kickback on a radial arm saw and they don't know what blade was on it or it was the blade from the table saw

How many people on this forum have had a kickback on a radial arm saw that they know for a fact had a negative hook saw installed?

I'll bet that latter will be a much lower number.

I bought a good Freud negative hook blade for my RAS and it cuts like a champ, I can rip without any fear of kickback because I have the correct blade.
 
#48 ·
Or... how many people have had a radial arm saw for their entire adult life and have NEVER had a kickback? As you allude JayArr- the correct blade, a well maintained and tuned machine, knowing how to use the machine, and a carefully thought out setup will prevent an event from ever happening in the first place.

And by the way, a radial saw can/could do just about everything a drill press can do, as well as make the material shorter!
 
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