A recent post on Reddit brought this to the fore once again. It isn’t remotely uncommon if you just keep your eyes out, but it is something that really needs to be said.

Maybe you’re just not at a point in your life where woodworking is something you ought to be doing. That’s something guaranteed to make a lot of people mad.

Whether or not anyone likes it, woodworking, at least fine woodworking, isn’t a  cheap hobby. You get lots of people trying to get into it who then spend all of their time complaining that they can’t.

Of course, this is true of a lot of hobbies and the modern world doesn’t like the fact that you have to have resources to engage in things, but that’s the way it goes. You’re not going to be able to collect classic cars on a shoe-string budget. Get over it.

Returning to woodworking, these people don’t have the tools. They don’t have the space. Everything is too expensive. Everything they make looks like crap. Then, they take to social media to whine endlessly about all of it. Why? Because their ideas about reality don’t coincide with how reality actually is and they can’t stand it.

While the last one  can be worked on, the first three are more difficult to overcome. This is where I see people trying to make do with shoddy tools, not intended for more than hacking up dimensional lumber from the home center and complaining that they just can’t make anything that looks good. No, you’re probably right. You can’t, at least not unless you spend a lot of time constantly fine-tuning all of your tools because they’re just not made for what you’re trying to do. Good tools cost money. They require a place to put them because they tend to be large and heavy. Either you are in a place in your life where you can do it or you’re not. You have to decide that for yourself.

That’s not to be a tool snob or say that you have to spend a hundred thousand dollars on tools. You don’t. That doesn’t mean you can do it on the extremely cheap though. Your skills matter and the quality of your tools will impact the quality of the work you can put out. Accept it. Strive to improve with what you have and have realistic expectations of the results. It’s not that hard.

The post in question said that they lived in a rented house, they had a small shed and a carport on the property, but the shed was only big enough for storage and wasn’t insulated and all the tools rusted and all the wood warped.

Of course it does! This isn’t adequate for what you’re trying to do. Granted, this is what this person has at this moment and that’s where you have to make some rational decisions.

Tools left in uncontrolled humidity are going to rust. That’s how physics works. Wood left without equilibrium will warp. If you’re not able to provide a proper environment, these are the results that you will get. Can you work around it? Maybe. It depends on what you’re willing to do. Can you stop it from happening? No. The laws of nature don’t bend to your desires.

The same is true of raw costs. Wood isn’t cheap, especially decent wood that most people want to build furniture out of. If you want cheap home center pine, go for it. It’ll look like crap and won’t last, but that’s as cheap as you’re going to get unless you’re hunting down pallets, which, at least IMO, look even worse. Still, your call, do what you want. By the time you get beyond the home center though, you have to expect that you’re going to be paying a pretty penny for your wood, especially if you’re working with exotics. That will not go away.

All of the people online who are trying to get the cheapest saws they can manage, either because they have no cash in hand or they have no room to store, those people are not going to get far in the long run. It can get you so far but not much beyond. My father, he made due with a crappy direct-drive table saw strapped to the top of a rolling cart. He did some good work, but was inherently limited in the size and complexity of what he could do. Those crappy job site saws that people love to get because they’re small and cheap, they’re not made for the accuracy or repeatability that fine woodworking requires. They are made for dragging out into the mud and hacking up 2x4s for putting up wall framing. It’s not going to be good enough. If you want to do better, you’re going to have to up your game.

That’s why most quality woodworkers, they’re not young. They’ve worked an entire lifetime, had well-paying careers, amassed a load of tools, own a place that they can make a credible workshop and can afford to spend the money that needs to be spent to get the job done. I think a lot of people are fooled by the YouTube crowd who aren’t really buying their own tools, they are being given them for free by manufacturers who are looking for online advertising. You can’t think you’ll be able to do that honestly. I’d love to see YouTube woodworkers who get no support from manufacturers. They’d look like Steve Ramsey over at Woodworking for Mere Mortals, making due with what they have.

It’s really time that people got a grip on the reality in which they live.