Before heading back to SE Asia, I needed to accumulate the bare minimum tools needed for woodworking by hand. The class I attended at Homestead Heritage recommends 10 tools in particular, and this is where I started:

  • combination square
  • set of chisels
  • strong layout knife
  • combination marking/mortise gauge
  • small dovetail or gent’s saw
  • tenon saw
  • small hammer for joint assembly
  • solid joiner’s mallet
  • smoothing plane
  • flat-bottomed spokeshave

I found most of these things either at Woodcraft, on eBay or in my great-grandfather’s old tool chest. I’m not going to worry about getting a nice layout knife yet, since my box cutter will do a decent enough job I think. And until I feel the need to use otherwise, my rubber mallet will suffice for all my malleting/joint assembly needs.

I’ll keep the “My Tools” tab at the top updated, but my guess is that I won’t accumulate any more tools in the near future. But then again, as one galoot already told me, the term “starter set” can be a very ambiguous and constantly-changing term!