First power tool you ever owned?

My first power tool was a circular saw and drill I bought with my employee discount at a store where I worked as a young man. I finally gave up on the circ saw.

The one tool I still have is an estwing 13 oz hammer I received from a family friend who was a finish carpenter back almost 70 years ago. He took me out as a helper a couple of summers. He didn't like a heavy hammer. I remember he had a manual miter box on which he cut trim. I'd love to have had that device. Solid and precise, no plastic. We hung a LOT of doors. His son was a contractor and had him do finish work. He later had a shop with a beautiful old table saw. I don't recall that he had a router, but he had a few Stanley hand planes. He was very precise in his work, and today, I realize that he was using his fold up rule as a story stick. I still do very careful inside cuts using story sticks and folding rules.

I'm sitting here looking at an old project, 10 feet or cabinets with two book cases flanking an open spot for the TV. Those cases are so square that there's only 1/16 inch difference in width, top to bottom across the whole 10 feet. Funny how those tools bring such great memories to life once again.

My father's father had a cabinet making business so I was always interested in the machines he had. He had one motor that he had put on a track so that he could share it through just sliding it to whatever machine and belt he needed. Almost like the days when you would drive your machines by a water wheel. From what I recall all his tables were made by hand and when he passed away I was still pretty young. I told my dad that I would like his tools but as usual that fell on deaf ears.

I had used my grandfathers band saw to make a modern styled chest set out using walnut and white pine or maybe Douglas Fir. My father suggested the wood species because he had bought some that had been sitting in his father's basement for years. Looking back that was a terrible choice just because soft vs hard wood and moisture. Of course all the squares that made up the board started coming unglued from different rates of expansion but what did I know I was in 7th grade. It probably should have had a frame around the outside to help hold it together but nothing was going to save it and eventually I just tossed it out.

Years later I bought my first power drill. A Black and Decker with an orange cord and a black plug. How iconic. A steel body with a chuck key and the only accessories were drill bits. It wasn't reversible nor was it variable speed. But it changed how quickly I could drill a hole from what my father bought me which was a push drill that only had bits maybe up to an 1/8th of an inch. He also bought me a Kennedy steel tool chest with a handle on top not that you would ever be able to carry it anywhere it would be too heavy if you had tools in it. He also bought me a level, a hammer and a Diston cross-cut saw. So outdated. I soon realized that a drill was probably not as important as a circular saw and so I bought my first Craftsman 7 1/4" cirucular saw that was sold as a 7" but it could fit an extra 1/4" blade. I still have that saw today and I still use it because it has a cord it can cut forever whereas my 19-volt C3 set's circular saw moves pretty slow only has a 5" blade I think which will cut 2x stock. It doesn't last long or cut deep but for a quick cut without requiring and setup it's great.

Before my grandfather passed away he had purchased a Craftsman lathe and a motor some older chisels that he cleaned up and sharpened, micrometers and dividers that was built to attach to my fathers workbench as a Christmas present for me. I was too young to really understand what to do with it but I had it and I would play with it. For me it needs to be functional. I need to use it because I have a need for legs or something round to be part of another project. I'm not the type to make pens or vases just because I have a machine. I lost the lathe when I moved from Harrisburg to Philadelphia. I forgot it was down in the basement standing against a wall. The basement was tiny so there was really nothing kept in it except the washer, dryer and the lathe. I was always impressed that my grandfather went to such expense for me as he really didn't have any money doing mostly work for a bunch of family that would get him to work for free. He started making grandfather clocks of which mine was the first and it sits here in my living room and up until about a year ago still had worked until an unfortunate winding accident had damaged a spring and bent the pendulem holder during COVID. I tried fixing it myself but it's tiny delecate work and I'm more of a framer than a finish carpenter. It's very hard to even get to the part that needs to be repositioned and I already snapped a second spring trying to get my fat hands in to the works. I also tried to get someone to work on it but I never even got a call back. My granfather also repaired wooden instruments mostly splits in the wood on the front or back violins, violas and cellos finally deciding to make a few harpsichords. One of which also sat in my house for many years accumulating dust when my father finally decided to donate it, I think it was some part of the Hershey Company. I remember spending entire days tuning the thing. It used plastic hammers with tiny little picks that would push past the string and pick it similar to a guitar. However the picks often would get stuck dropping back down across the string because they were so light. Thinking about it now I would probably have added some lead weights to them so it would have worked better.

Anyways, my B&D electric drill and I soon found that I was more into mechanics than wood working although both had some time in my life. If I needed a shelf it was cheaper to build one than buy one. In those days there weren't many DIY places to buy a shelf kit that was remotely reasonably priced. Anything that had to do with organization was very pricy much like today tool organizers, etc are way overpriced for what they actually are but you have to make a choice to spend your time making organizers for your tools or actually making something that everyone could enjoy. I had heard of IKEA but there were none close. Furniture was incredibly pricy of course it wasn't made from partical board and the more European decor that I desired was hard to find and often required trips to major cities and of course shipping was an expensive when they had to cross 3 state lines to deliver it.

Until Lowe's had a $99 Freud Router sale during Christmas I didn't even know what a router was. I had herad the name but really didn't understand what they did and they were expensive compared to other tools. My grandfather had a shaper which is essentially a router upside down in a table, just more powerful, but I never had a reason to use the shaper. It was the $99 price that caught my attention and Freud was a quality name but what I didn't know was they were no longer making the routers and they had no add-ons for these routers to make them functional and for whatever reason their bolt pattern was different than everyone elses. I tried to use it but without the accessories it was just wasn't functional. I used it once to make some molding to hide the edges of my replacement windows. I tried to use if for a garage door I'm building to cut morticess but without an edge guide it became too unpredictible to use with any consistancy.

I just bought a new router so I could get the other parts and in fact I splurged on all the accessories up front to assure they were not going to be missing when I needed them. I soon found out that my depth guage on my new Bosch 1617 wasn't long enough to work. I called Bosch and told them of my problem and drew up images and took pictures of their design flaw. Only to get that they would send me out a replacement depth guage. I immediately emailed them back and said if this was the same depth guage sold with the router it wasn't going to fix the problem because it wasn't long enough. They finally understood and told me that they had no replacment that would solve my problem and they would take it into consideration but they weren't going to add roughly 4" to the depth guage which would have problably been a simple fix. They just needed to change whatever machine was making the depth guage to allow 4" more in length. They didn't see it that way. I went and spent almost as much as the router cost to have a local machine shop make me a depth guage that would work. I just got it back last week and it looks great. I haven't used it yet but it fits fine so it should work fine. It's not like it's going to be a structural problem because it really doesn't do anything but stop you from pushing down.

It's been painful buying yet another router that had problems. It was suggested that I buy a Triton which I did go over to Home Depot to check out but they didn't have a one on the shelf. I can't send the Bosch back because it had been past the 90 day cutoff. Who knew I was going to have a problem with the depth guage of all things and had it been round I could have found most anything to work in it's place but that stupid flat side and the screw on bottom made it impossible to use anything else. I'm guessing they knew that. I thought a router was going to make my life better but it seems the exact opposite happened. Both have added stress into my life that I certainly didn't need and while the first one cost me $99 I didn't get my money's worth out of it and the second one I don't even want to think how much I've spent on just getting it to be functional for me and I hope it's going to do what I need.

My first power tool was a Craftsman 16" scroll saw. I had just been reassigned from my first Army duty station in Augsburg, Germany, to our first stateside duty station in Warrenton, VA...Vint Hill Farms Station. This was 1990. Now being in VA, we started attending craft fairs/shows and seeing a lot of the woodworking wares being sold. My wife's new line quickly became, "couldn't YOU make something like this for me?" Needless to say, challenge accepted~!

So, we were living in a 2-bedroom apartment with no place to do any kinds of projects, except the kitchen table. I needed something fairly quiet that wasn't too messy. Seeing crafters using them in their craft fairs spaces, a scroll saw seemed like a great choice since their work was what my wife seemed to be drawn to. The hose of our vacuum cleaner worked out great as my first dust collector~! 😀
Flash forward 30 years...I'm Army-retired (since '06) and am looking forward to retiring from my 2nd job from in Jun/Jul '24. No longer am I restricted to working out of a single-car garage or 12'x12' sheds, as my workshop is now a 30'x40' pole barn. As of late, I'm considering turning my long-term hobby into a small business to make use of the free time I will have in just over 19 months~!
Sounds like fun, huh? We'll see...

...and by the way, that scroll saw is still in my shop's tool lineup. At a tool show last week, I was tempted to replace it with a new Dewalt scroll saw, but since the Craftsman still works like new, I figured I'd hold on to that money and redirect it toward a future CNC or laser engraver purchase~!

DesertRatTom said:

That's a nice idea. FYI, you will love Schedule C (profit or loss), but you must make some money after a couple of years or the IRS's 82,000 new auditors will come visit you. Keep careful records, receipts, a separate business account (check book preferred) and never mix personal and business money.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I've got several friends at work that have turned their various hobbies into businesses, so you can imagine all the "free advice" that's coming my way. As I get closer, I'll either hit up the JAG office for guidance and/or find a CPA for the actual advice that's safe to follow. ;-) I'm one of the dinosaurs that still keeps an actual physical check register for my checking account, so that won't be any adjustment for me at all.
As for turning a profit, I already own about all of the tools needed for a good startup (thanks to my wife for endorsing/co-funding my hobby over the years) and I believe (will confirm) there's an allowance for pro-rating what I've already invested. I'm hoping that the business side of things will enable me to add a CNC and Laser Engraver to the shop. Also, I've had numerous acquaintances that have expressed interest in items that I've previously built and other items they're interested in having, so it looks like I have a potential customer base awaiting me.
Best laid plans, right?!

My first power tool was a Millers Falls drill, the whole body was made of a hard plastic of some sort. Only problem was the motor wasn’t very powerful (I think about 500 Watt), and so was heavily geared, restricting it to a no-load speed of 500 rpm. No hammer action, but could still drill holes in masonry to hand up artwork. In those days, a UK company called Rawlplug (still exists) used to make a steel handle into which a carbide drill bit could be inserted - the handle could be struck with a hammer to break up a piece of hard masonry which held up progress. No SDS!
Got by for about 5 years, before I got something bigger and better, thereafter only occasional use. I had it for more than forty years until it was stolen some years back. Does Millers Falls still exist? My father had a construction company, some of his tools were Millers Falls. Others were original Skilsaw (sidewinder) and Stanley.

My second tool was a Black and Decker jigsaw, which was cheap in every sense of the word. In those days I could not afford to replace tools on a whim, but I was glad when it finally packed up and I threw it out. Still managed (with difficulty) to cut some pieces out which are still in daily use.