Info-to-Build-On Tool Ownership by Raoul Hennin October 25, 2005 Building a collection of durable, meaningful tools is an identity statement.

In construction, tools have special significance, not generally understood. The quality, organization, and condition of tools reveal character in craftsmanship. Tool ownership instills potential and defines capability. People who own and use tools come to understand the true cost of ownership in terms of dollars, maintenance, and friendship. Friends always want to borrow tools - it is, after all, part of the definition of friendship, not to mention family.

My parents gave me a leather-handled Estwing hammer on my 12th birthday, "It's important for you to have your own tools." That year, I had chopped an extension cord with an axe, dropped a hatchet in the privy, and abandoned a hammer and a bow-saw in the woods - Dad's tools. For many years thereafter, I continued to see nothing wrong with borrowing his tools for whatever practical purpose that arose. When a tool broke or disappeared, Dad could often trace it back to me, even if he was the one who was using it when it broke. There was familial stress.

At some point, his persistent, eye-brow refrain, "Get your own!" began to sink in. The prospect of assembling a respectable collection was overwhelming, but my parents offered encouragement with tool-oriented Christmas and Birthday presents. Eventually, I came to relish the opportunity to spend money on tools. I bought a table saw, a router, new chisels, mallets, hammers, saws and planes. I bought a tractor and built a barn to house my tools.

There is no more liberating sensation than breaking a tool of my own. I have only to answer my own conscience (and maybe, to some extent, my wife's inquiries). With much practice, I have learned how and why tools break at my own, and Dad's, expense. I have become more careful with tools. My favorite tools are the survivors of my own abuse - the Record block plane that shaved a dry wall screw is still my best and favorite block plane, after much shoe-honing.

On occasion, I find myself using a tool that is simply too big to own personally, like the Mack truck and crane to raise my barn a few years ago. On the final bent-raising, one of the aging hydraulic hoses, buried deep in the knuckle boom, spontaneously erupted with scalding hot oil, sinking my timber frame bent back down to earth. It took me half a day to locate, purchase and replace the hose. I washed the oil off every surface, but Dad immediately smelled a rat - only a hot oil bath could have made the truck so shiny clean, and the new hose stuck out like a sore thumb. Remarkably, I was not blamed when several other hoses burst soon thereafter.

Dad himself has taken to renting tools he does not wish to own. He recently rented a 3-yard, articulating 4x4 loader to move clay from a pond he had dug. After a few hours use, he decided he did not like the way it handled, "it does not want to work." This judgement presented an opportunity for me to learn how to drive a serious piece of heavy equipment. Try as I might, I could not get the the thing stuck. It sunk to its axles, but its design engineers had done some amazing things with traction control, posi-traction, and hydrostatic drives.

Dad maintains all the power tools in our timber frame shop. In repairing the tools, he provides ample performance review to anyone brave enough to admit knowledge of a particular tool failure. After all, tools don't just break, people break them. When it comes to the finer work of timber framing, we each maintain our own complete set of hand tools, uniquely arranged in particular satchels, bags, and carts. It is rare to see tools changing hands in the shop: a split second of indiscretion, momentary contact with concrete, can ruin an hour or more of honing. In some cultures it is considered rude to look into the toolbox of a fine craftsman. I asked permission to take photos of tool collections in use and on display in the Shelter Shop, but, please, be discrete in actually looking at them:

Old, bad habits, like borrowing, die hard. In August, during a 5-day timber framing class, I caught myself borrowing a 1-1/2" chisel that I should have owned long ago. There was confusion and frustration as borrower became lender and we asked eachother repeatedly 'where's that 1-1/2" chisel?' By the end of class, the chisel inevitably needed sharpening. I can imagine what musings must have run through Dad's mind as he resharpened his chisel.

Our tool store, conveniently located next door to the workshop, reflects our enthusiasm for tool ownership. In 20 minutes I had purchased and sharpened my new chisel and returned to roughing out brace pockets. I am proud of my ability to maintain my tools, and I am still working on my collection. Now, if I could just get organized...