Woodturners of today are the welcome recipients of catalogues filled with tools of all descriptions.
The styles and purposes vary tremendously and make fascinating reading.
However, the time comes for needing one of the tools and the choice arises to buy or make the tool.
Surprising many turners is the ease by which many of the tools or a worthy substitute may be made in the home shop.
Equally surprising is the time that may be saved by making a tool rather than purchasing it.
All wood turning tools are a variation on the theme of cutting tip, shaft and handle.
Sometimes these are integrated and sometimes separate pieces.
Tips are often made to be inserted into a shaft.
This involves the typical woodworking skills of drilling holes and either gluing tips in place or fastening them with set screws.
Materials for making tips vary from high speed steel cutting inserts such as are used in the metal turning industry, to high speed steel planer blades.
In particular, scrapers are often made from planer blades with the cutting or rather scraping tip being ground into one end of the blade and a tang on the other.
Files are good steel but should never be used for making wood turning tools as the process of making a file leaves it brittle and a catch while turning may turn it into dangerous missiles in the shop.
Shafts may be round, flat or square depending upon the tool desired.
Cold rolled steel is inexpensive, easy to work and readily available.
It can be drilled to hold cutting tips and easily inserted into a handle.
The nature of the steel involved makes it unsuitable for tips as it can not be hardened to retain an edge.
Handles are an opportunity for the turner to shine.
In fact many woodturners buy tools unhandled and make their own even though the savings are minimal.
It allows for personal choice and expression in the tools that are used.
Purchasing tools allows for three methods, phone, on-line and in-store.
For all intents and purposes the first two are effectively the same.
Calls are made or order forms filled out and then the tools are awaited.
Receiving the order may take days or weeks depending upon the location of the supplier, time of year for shipping and the shipping methods involved.
All this assumes that the items are in stock in the first place.
Buying in-store has its own time pitfalls, some of which are quite enjoyable.
Of course there is first the journey to the store which varies tremendously in time depending on how far you live from the store.
Realistically it will vary from twenty minutes each way to over an hour.
Any more and most are back to the on-line shopping.
Added to this is the more enjoyable time in the store itself with the pleasure of looking, holding and dreaming over lots of tools and accessories.
While this may lead to the getting of all sorts of nonessentials, local businesses need to be supported too.
When these times of travel and of waiting are examined, the time to make a tool can seem short indeed.
Couple it with the satisfaction of a job well done, money saved, and time in the shop instead of on the road, and the idea of making a wood turning tool looks like a great time saver with benefits attached.