Tools you didn't think you needed and now cannot live without

Dedicated horizontal belt grinder, Disc grinder with Neilson Hub and Tool Rest, Rotary Platen, and Surface grinder. LOL and 6 precision high speed bench drills.

Pretty much shit I wouldn't want to live without for making pocket knives.

I've certainly done it with much less, but those are the tools that take the tedium out of the job and keeps it fun.
 
With ya on almost everything here.

I LOVE my height gauge and surface plate. Genuinely lost without them. Need good calipers, too. All shall be pried from my cold, dead hands.

Love my disc grinder.
Love my John Perry handle broach.
Love my lil' Rusnok mill, but wish I had a bigger one...


Things such as variable speed on a grinder shouldn't even get mentioned. I don't even understand why such a thing as single speed would exist at this point. Sort of like saying "yeah, I love oxygen" in my eyes. ;)


i4Marc said:
Carbide faced file guide

Calipers

Hand files with safe edges

Granite surface plate and height gauge

Shop press
Click to expand...
 
Matthew Gregory said:
With ya on almost everything here.

I LOVE my height gauge and surface plate. Genuinely lost without them. Need good calipers, too. All shall be pried from my cold, dead hands.

Love my disc grinder.
Love my John Perry handle broach.
Love my lil' Rusnok mill, but wish I had a bigger one...


Things such as variable speed on a grinder shouldn't even get mentioned. I don't even understand why such a thing as single speed would exist at this point. Sort of like saying "yeah, I love oxygen" in my eyes. ;)
Click to expand...

A height gauge is definitely on my short list.
 
Carbide file guide and good calipers are the top of my list. Diamond files are used on almost every project. Good quality abrasives. While expensive, they are cheaper than using cheap abrasives.
 
Drew, I'm lame, I know, but I do almost everything with Vernier tools. You can get excellent stuff on eBay for cheep, because no one wants to read them in an era of dial or digital, they don't break, there's no batteries to fail... just no way in hell I'm using a shitty Chinese tool if I can get a PRECISION Japanese tool for similar - or less! - money.

Bought two new old stock 8" Mitutoyo calipers a couple weeks back for $37 each, shipped...

knife to a gunfight said:
A height gauge is definitely on my short list.
Click to expand...
 
Matthew Gregory said:
Drew, I'm lame, I know, but I do almost everything with Vernier tools. You can get excellent stuff on eBay for cheep, because no one wants to read them in an era of dial or digital, they don't break, there's no batteries to fail... just no way in hell I'm using a shitty Chinese tool if I can get a PRECISION Japanese tool for similar - or less! - money.

Bought two new old stock 8" Mitutoyo calipers a couple weeks back for $37 each, shipped...
Click to expand...

Matt, I love good tools also. I have a Brown and Sharpe dial caliper on my height gauge but I use a bunch of cheap harbor freight digital calipers as scribes when I'm lazy and just want to mark the edges of a profiled blade to grind to before heat treating and to scribe marks on the spines of tangs that I want to layout for some file work. I lay the cheap ones all around the house and shop to get a rough measure on things. I wish I could have found the deal on Mitutoyo calipers you found. Good for you. I will say that the cheap calipers seldom outlast their own battery but I don't cry when I drop them on the concrete. Larry
 
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I could honestly live without my mill, but I wouldn't do hidden tangs if I had to slot guards without it honestly. The surface plate and height gauge is one I forgot, but definitely on my "can't live without" list.
 
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