The vise swap that made me eat my words

Tbh I spent 2 years swearing my old post vise was fine, then I borrowed a friend's machinist vise for one weekend in his shop and the difference in how clean my scroll ends came out was so obvious I sold mine on Craigslist by Tuesday, has anyone else had a tool you dismissed for ages just click for you once you tried the right version?

2 comments

2 Comments

elizabeth_bailey2627d ago

The line about selling yours on Craigslist by Tuesday made me laugh because I did almost the same thing with hand planes. I used a cheap big box plane for years and kept telling myself the tearout was just part of working with figured wood, that I needed to sharpen better or take lighter cuts. Then a guy in my woodworking group let me run a few boards through his old Stanley and the shavings came off in one piece with almost no sanding needed after. I felt like such an idiot for all the hours I spent fighting that other plane instead of just asking to try his sooner. It is funny how we get loyal to tools that are holding us back, and we make excuses for them instead of admitting the tool is the problem. My wife still brings up how fast that plane went up for sale once I knew what I was missing.

morgan91527d ago

Is a vise really worth getting this worked up over? I've got a cheap bench vise that's held up for a decade of twisted metal and it never once made me want to sell anything. @elizabeth_bailey26 blaming a plane for tearout is a bit much too, half the time that's just dull iron or rushing the cut. Tools matter, sure, but folks act like the right one magically fixes their hands. My grandpa built furniture with junk he found at flea markets and nobody could tell the difference. Sounds less like the tool was holding you back and more like you just wanted a reason to buy a new one.