Woodworking On The Cheap

Over the last few years I’ve owned and used a few different tools for literally cutting corners. This is a collection of things to consider, and some notes I’ve made along the way with regards to the venerable miter saw / box.

When I was first setting up shop I was doing a lot of trim work in my home. Since moving in, I’ve replaced or refinished all the baseboard, door and window casing, and even a little crown molding. I needed a miter box, or a miter saw. Then I got into real woodworking, and the first project I ever built was a rocking chair for my one-year-old (at the time) niece. To pull off the rocking chair, I purchased a cheap-o bench top table saw. It’s ability to cross-cut was horrendous. Since I was doing a lot of trim work at the time I made the rocking chair, I started looking around at miter saws.

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When I first started woodworking (and home improvement / renovation jobs) it became apparent that I needed a miter saw. I had just purchased a Delta Shopmaster table saw (what a horrible mistake that was!) and thought I was well on my way. One of the problems I had with that table saw, was that it’s miter gauge was atrocious, and the blade, no matter how hard I tried, just wouldn’t adjust parallel to the miter slots. So my answer to cross-cutting was to get a miter saw. I didn’t have the money for a power miter saw, and at the time I thought I would spend a little now, and save up for one of those fancy sliding compound miter saws.

I made a lot of mistakes early on. But spending just a little on a solid, versatile miter saw was one of the things I did right. I’ve been very happy with my Stanley 20-800. For the price, I don’t think you can beat it.
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Since February there haven’t been any updates here at woodworkingcheap.com. Rest assured it’s not because we’re not busy.

Rather than making noise on the website, we’ve been making noise and dust in the workshop!

In the next few weeks we’ll be sharing personal hands-on reviews with miter saws and sanders, sharing designs for “squirrel cage” blowers (which we used in a shop-made air filter), and chronicling a kitchen and bathroom cabinet refacing project with shaker style frame & panel doors. Stay tuned, we have a lot of material in the pipeline!

I’ve heard it said that only rich men can afford to buy cheap tools.

There very well may be some truth to that, but try convincing my wife. While she’s really supportive of my hobby (I make things for her too), she’s as much of a hawk on the bottom line costs of things as I am. In this current global recession we’re both starting to really tighten the belts up even more. That’s not a bad thing.

But this statement that only rich men can afford cheap tools… For some reason, it irks me. I suppose my problem with the statement is that it relies upon the definition of ‘cheap’ so heavily. Certainly most anyone can afford inexpensive tools, but cheap tools or tools that are poorly constructed, poorly engineered, or fail at their primary tasks you’ll be buying time and time again. If you substitute the word shoddy for cheap in the old wise axiom, then I whole-heatedly agree.

So I suppose I need to clarify a position. Woodworking on the Cheap is more about getting quality results without much outlay of cash. We’re all working wood inexpensively, or inexpensive woodworking. Maybe I should have picked that as a name.