So many counter questions to that! Do you want to? What is it you want to do or make? Where are you taking your advice from? What are they trying to achieve? (Most people online are trying to make money, me included, read my blog post on why we’re all here)
Let’s look at it from some different angles:
You CAN spend a fortune on tools - if you browse my website, wander round the local or online hardware shop, DIY shop, tool stockist there are plenty of things that you can think “I REALLY need that”
If you watch videos on YouTube or search the internet for “how to do’s” you can easily think you need a way higher level of equipment than you have.
I’m not going to stop you if you have the cash and want to buy stuff but it’s not necessarily a “must have” that you spend lots.
When I was a kid, power tools as we know them now didn’t exist. You could get an electric drill, possibly a circular saw and I recall my dad had a “workcentre“ that allowed him to use his electric drill as a drill press, a sanding table, a table saw. I set it up years later and it was pretty much awful not to say inherently dangerous at all these tasks.
But the incredible range of power tools and even battery power tools that are available now did not exist.
The majority of work was done with hand tools
You can still buy the majority of hand tools that were around in my dad’s time (and my grandfather’s) and you can still use them to do a good job.
But equally you can also spend and waste money on hand tools. Why? Because some have become very specialist and niche (some hand planes and hand saws, chisels etc) These will therefore cost you significant money but are generally very high quality. And then balanced against that there are very cheap hand tools that you can completely waste money on, because they are just rubbish.
Over the years I’ve purchased both expensive and cheap and had failures and successes in both areas.
Ok great, I’ve not really told you anything that helps you guide your decisions. Fair point, read on:
What is it you’re planning to do?
If it’s a one off, never to be repeated small job - you might as well buy cheap because you’ll probably get away with it. And throw the tool/s away at the end.
If it’s anything other than that, buy the best that your budget will run to, up to what I’ll call mid range. Once you go above mid range you start getting less improvement for more cost. To give an example: If you buy a £1 no brand screwdriver from the bargain store the tip will likely bend and break in no time. If you buy a £5 name brand one from a DIY or tool store it will more than likely last you years (as long as you use it for the purpose intended). If you buy a £25 one from a high end brand, you most likely won’t get any longer life out of it but you will be way more upset and out of pocket when you lose it or it gets “borrowed” from you.
What quality of finish do you want to achieve?
Generally, if you want a fine finish to a task, you’re likely to need higher quality tools and more of them.
Lets take an example of adding a shelf into a kitchen unit.
You can do this on an average UK kitchen unit because they often have the holes for the shelf pins (that the shelves rest on) pre-drilled. So no extra work there. All you would have to do is cut the shelf to fit. But then the question of finish comes into play. You get some melamine faced chipboard from the DIY shop, measure it up, mark it out and cut it.
As a shelf it does the job but if you’ve cut it with a handsaw the melamine surface is almost certainly chipped down the edge and will show a jagged dark line down the side of the shelf.
You might say “I don’t care, nobody but me will see it”.
But equally you might say “I’m not happy with that”. To improve the finish then, you need to get rid of the chips.
First important point is that let’s hope you allowed for this and cut it bigger than needed!
Then all you do is take sandpaper and a block and sand the edges off. Or a plane, or a surform. It's doable. You just need to think ahead and that's the bit that we, as DIYers, don't always realise. Because we don't have the experience.
Let's talk power tools for a moment
Exactly the same "rules" apply. For the same shelf job, if you only possess one circular saw with a general purpose blade, or a jigsaw, or a sabre (reciprocating) saw. You're not going to get a perfect finish on the edge of a sheet of melamine. You'll need to sand or plane it down.
If you have a plunge saw, or a table say, or a cabinet saw with a sharp blade of a high TPI (teeth per inch) then you'll get a much better finish. But you'll have spent (much) more money getting there.
You can apply all the rules above above to any job
You can do most jobs with the bare minimum of cheap tools. And the quality of finish will be related to the quality of the tools AND THE EFFORT YOU PUT IN. There will be an element of skill depending on the complexity of the job and the "tricks of the trade" that professionals use but the most important component is always effort.
You can get a higher quality of finish EASIER by spending more money and buying more tools. But you're probably going to have to make more effort elsewhere to make the money to buy the tools!
So, do you need to spend a fortune on tools? NO!
You need to buy what you need for what you want to do.
But if you WANT to spend a fortune then go to it! Just do it sensibly and still keep in mind only the tasks you need to do.
Enjoy!
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