renov8er

I've thought about this kind of a purchase order list idea for many years. My first power tools were just a cheap circular saw, jigsaw and corded drill. The need for a table saw forced me to turn that circular saw upside down and plunge it through a small piece of plywood that I built a stand for. The first generation of Vise-Grip's "Quick Clamps" was used to fasten a straight-edge. After buying a better quality circular saw, I left that one in the stand and it lasted me for years. The first major tool investment was a good cabinet saw with a Forrest blade. Buying a bandsaw as one of your first big purchases may be called for if fine furniture is your main preoccupation, but I'm just looking into getting one now after building make-do furniture for years along with a whole house - including cabinets. I got a decent set of chisels this past Christmas (after leaving post-it-notes in the Lee Valley catalogue) but cheap ones have been fine so far. The fine furniture I want to tackle now is a luxury, not a necessity. Sanders, routers, drill press, planer, - even chainsaws have been far more necessary (Okay, so the chainsaws were for a couple log houses - but still got a bit of use for the last stick-built). I used a simple jig with a router to level the top of of Fine Homebuilding's "New-Fangled Workbench" in 1999 - a great, easy bench to build by the way. But, after thinking about this again, the tool I find most useful is not a power tool at all but a simple hand sanding block which fits belts from belt sanders. I use it much more often than my block plane.