William, have a look at Paul’s essential tools list

http://paulsellers.com/2011/12/my-essential-tools/

Well, I’d start off with some decent tunes of course. Music that keeps you company and provides a presence in the room. Guy Clark, Nanci Griffith, The Corries, Tom Rush, Happy Traum, all figure into my library.

And you’ll need a comfortable chair.

A water bowl and small throw rug so the dog (I suggest one of the Spaniel breeds myself) knows where he can stay out of the way.

That should get you started in the right direction.

I’m just starting out myself, and had a similar budget. So far, the tools I use most of all are the following:

Combination Square (Used for everything under the sun, just make sue it’s good and square or you’ll be in trouble)

Mortising Gauge (I bought this instead of a single marking gauge, as it can do single and double with one tool. They both sell for similar prices on ebay if you keep an eye open.)

Marking Knife (same one Paul uses)

Millers Falls #9 Plane (equivalent to a Stanley #4, made my whole workbench top with only this, the saw, and my chisels)

Woodriver 4-pack of Chisels (1/4″ 1/2″ 3/4″ and 1″, the 1/4″ and 1″ are my most used, though the 1/2″ was used for all the mortises on my workbench.)

A rubber ended mallet (needed for chiseling and assembling things without damaging the wood)

My workbench with vise (it makes my life so much easier to have a big solid bench to hold my work and a vise so I don’t need to find a way to lean, sit on, or otherwise wedge the work against something to cut, plane or work with it)

12″ Back Saw (filed for rip cut, 13 tpi, using Paul’s method. This is big enough I could cut all the parts of my workbench with it (pre-glue-up anyway. It’s still a bit rough aroudn the edges), and has fine enough teeth that I can still get a good surface out of it.)

Three EZE-Lap diamond stones, and a #5 2x slim saw file (coarse, fine and super-fine. These are essential for keeping the tools above sharp. You can build a saw vise like this one easily with very limited tools)

All the other tools I used to get started can be made with the above, for example, use a poor man’s router instead of a real router plane, the one new shiny tool I splurged on. I suppose I have used a few other things, like a cordless drill, a big flat granite tile that I used to check for flatness on things and to lap my plane bottom with sandpaper, a leather strop I use for final honing of my blades, but these can, for the most part, be improvised. Before I made my strop from plywood and scrap leather, I just used a piece of cardboard, and it worked almost as well.

Looking at the few more tools I have since gotten, the list above covers most everything I use regularly. If you have the above, you should be able to do almost everything Paul has done on this website with persistance and practice. Other tools may make things easier, but you can work around their absence if you need to.

I’m finding the most important tool is muscle memory, and that I can only get and improve by working through projects. I’m also finding that patience is a good ‘tool’ to have to keep you from working sloppily and making mistakes. Finally, having access to information about technique and forums that help and can answer questions is a more useful tool for learning the basics than just about anything. If this website and other forums and youtube channels weren’t around, I highly doubt I would have been able to learn anything nearly as fast as I have.

Anyways, that’s my two cents as a beginner in hand tool woodworking.

Start hitting up flea markets. You should be able to get a decent set of chisels, #4 plane and a couple saws, (panel and tenon) for less than $100… You also should be able to find files rasps combination squares and maybe a whetstone for cheap.

good luck!

Some excellent advice already but I think if you’re on a budget, one thing worth considering would be to focus on making one type of item very well to get you some skill-building. This reduces the number of tools you need and will boost confidence, and let you find out more about what sort of other pieces you’d like, then slowly add more tools to the collection as required.

For example, making boxes is a great start because you can get timber from most stores that only requires minimal milling so you won’t need a planer/jointer/thicknesser, or a collection of hand saws and planes. You also won’t need many clamps as boxes are small and can be clamped in the workbench vise, plus one or two small (24″) aluminium sash clamps from HF. Shaping tools are not required either, so you could spend some $$ on a nice dovetail saw from Veritas or Lie-Nielsen. The combination square is the most important tool in the shop – as long as it’s square, you’re in good shape (pun intended) but you could have a hunt around for a good quality one on eBay; Starrett are the best but they don’t come cheap.

I can recommend Narex chisels. They’re not too expensive and take a keen edge, although do require sharpening fairly often as they don’t hold the edge too well.

If you want to splurge on one thing, though, I’d say make that thing a set of three sharpening stones. You’ll use these for everything you make and they last a long time. Without sharp tools you’ll get frustrated very quickly. The EZE-Lap 8×3″ diamond plates (course, fine and extra-fine) will be a very worthwhile investment.

I’ve not used a claw hammer while building any of Paul’s projects. There’s barely any nailing done!

Hope at least some of this helps!

George.

I’m going to second the veritas dovetail saw, I have one and thoroughly enjoy using it. I also own the veritas cross cut carcass saw and it is my go to saw for citing just about anything except dovetails and small tennis. If you are inclined to buy only new, Lee valley has high quality tools, reasonably priced. You can buy any of the veritas line of tools, plus Narex chisels, that get good reviews. Also Lee valley offers free shipping specials occasionally throughout the year.