14 Woodworking Tools I Should Have Bought Sooner

I’ve been collecting tools for 50 years, ever since my dad got me started in woodworking as a teenager. I still remember the first power tool I bought when I was 15: a Craftsman corded drill with a half-inch chuck. It was a monster, and it still works today.

But this list isn’t about the oldest tools I own. It’s about the tools that proved so useful that, looking back, I wish I had bought them much earlier.

Every woodworker’s list would be different. We all work in different ways, build different things, and solve problems differently. These are simply the tools that made enough of a difference in my shop that I regret waiting so long to get them.

Moisture Meter

The first tool I wish I had bought sooner is a moisture meter.

I didn’t buy one until I got a lathe, but once I started checking the moisture content of my lumber, I realized how useful it was for regular woodworking too.

When wood isn’t dry enough, it moves. That’s how you end up with warped tabletops, twisted panels, and glue-ups that looked fine at first but changed later. A lot of beginners bring lumber home, cut it up, and glue it together the same day without knowing whether the wood is ready.

A moisture meter takes the guesswork out of that.

Hardwoods are usually best around 6% to 8% moisture content, while softwoods are usually around 9% to 14%. For turning, about 9% is a good target.

Mine has pins that press into the wood, though non-penetrating meters are nicer because they don’t leave marks. Either way, it tells you whether that board is ready to use before you build a problem into your project.

Random Orbital Sander

A random orbital sander is one of those tools I knew about for years before I finally bought one.

I had sanders already, mostly quarter-sheet vibratory sanders, so I kept telling myself I didn’t need another one. But once I finally bought a random orbital sander, I realized how much time I had been wasting.

It removes material faster, does a better job of avoiding cross-grain scratches, and handles dust collection much better than my old vibratory sanders.

Another big advantage is the hook-and-loop sanding discs. I can switch from coarse to fine grit without throwing away perfectly good sandpaper. With my self-adhesive quarter-sheet sanders, once I peel the paper off, it’s done.

I still use my vibratory sanders now and then, but this one random orbital sander gets used more than all three of those combined. For the time it saves alone, I wish I had bought one much sooner.

Decent Set of Chisels

I’ve had chisels almost since I started woodworking, but for most of those years, they were cheap chisels.

When your tool budget is low, you buy what you can afford. I did that for a long time. But last Christmas, I put a better set of chisels on my wish list, and my wife bought them for me. They’re not the most expensive chisels out there, but they’re a good mid-range set, and the difference is noticeable.

With chisels, much of what you’re paying for is the quality of the steel. Better steel holds an edge longer, and that matters more than I realized when I was younger.

For years, I thought of chisels mainly as tools for hogging out wood, like cutting hinge mortises or fitting a lockset. I didn’t really appreciate their value for joinery until I started doing more finger joints, dovetails, and lap joints.

If you want accurate joinery, you usually don’t cut exactly to the line with the saw. You cut just shy of it, then sneak up to the line with a sharp chisel. That’s where good chisels earn their keep.

Looking back, I struggled with tight joinery partly because I was using the wrong approach and partly because I didn’t have chisels that made the fine work easier.

Drill Countersink Combinations

Drill countersink combinations don’t look like much, but they save a surprising amount of time.

For years, I avoided buying them because they cost more than a regular drill bit. A normal bit might cost less than a dollar, while one of these can be around fifteen dollars. At the time, that felt expensive for a drill bit.

But the old way of drilling for screws takes several steps. First, you drill the pilot hole. Then you switch bits and drill the clearance hole. Then you switch again to countersink. Then you switch again to drive the screw.

That’s a lot of wasted time changing bits.

A drill countersink combination does the pilot hole, clearance hole, and countersink in one operation. Once I started using them, I realized how much aggravation they saved.

It’s not a flashy tool, but it makes screw work faster and cleaner. For something that simple, I really should have bought them sooner.

Japanese-Style Saws

A few years back, I bought my first Japanese-style saw, and I wish I had done it much sooner.

I have two of them now. One is a general-purpose saw with rip teeth on one side and crosscut teeth on the other. The other is a dovetail saw. For several years, these have become my primary hand saws.

For me, they’re much easier to cut with than traditional Western-style saws. Not everyone will agree with that, and that’s fine. Some woodworkers prefer the saws they grew up using. But for me, Japanese saws made hand cutting more accurate and a lot less frustrating.

Before I bought them, I would go out of my way to make cuts on the table saw, radial arm saw, or even the scroll saw just to avoid making a hand cut. I didn’t trust myself to cut straight.

Now, if there isn’t a lot of cutting to do, I often find it faster to grab a Japanese saw than to set up a power tool.

For my work, Japanese-style saws have been a game changer. They let me make clean, accurate cuts by hand, and they’ve changed the way I approach smaller cutting jobs in the shop.

Marking Knife

A marking knife is one of those tools I didn’t even know about for years.

Unlike a typical knife blade, a marking knife has one flat side and one beveled side. That flat side rides right against your ruler, square, or straightedge, so the line is marked exactly where the edge is.

That matters more than it might seem.

If you mark a line with a pencil, the line is always offset a little from the straightedge. How much depends on the pencil. A mechanical pencil might be close. A carpenter’s pencil can easily put the line much farther away.

For rough shop projects, that’s fine. If I’m cutting 1x4s for storage, I’ll use a pencil. But for accurate joinery, especially dovetails, I want that line exactly where it belongs.

There are different styles of marking knives, but they all do the same basic job. They let you mark right up against your straightedge with much better accuracy than a pencil.

For fine joinery, a marking knife is the way to go.

Planer

The planer is the most expensive tool on this list, but it’s also one I wish I had bought sooner.

I have a DeWalt benchtop planer, although I don’t actually keep it on a bench. It weighs about 95 pounds, so mine lives on a stand and stays there.

As I started building larger projects, especially furniture and tables, I found myself edge-gluing boards more often. That made consistent thickness much more important.

Before I had a planer, I would glue boards together and then spend hours trying to level the surface with a handheld belt sander. I remember doing cutting boards that way, and it took forever.

With a planer, I can get my boards to the same thickness before the glue-up ever happens.

Ideally, it’s nice to have both a jointer and a planer. But if I had to choose between the two, I’d usually tell people to buy the planer first. I joint a lot of edges on the table saw, but I rely on the planer to get boards flat and consistent in thickness.

It’s not a cheap tool. Mine was one of the more expensive tools in my shop. But I use it far more than I expected, and for the kind of woodworking I do now, it was absolutely worth the money.

Impact Driver

Next on my list is an impact driver.

In my defense, impact drivers didn’t exist when I first started buying tools. They came along later, and once I finally started using one, it changed the way I drove screws.

The first big advantage is speed. Instead of constantly changing bits, I can drill the hole with one tool and drive the screw with the impact driver. That alone saves a lot of time.

The second advantage is power. For short screws, it may not seem like a big deal. But when you’re driving 3-inch or 3 1/2-inch screws, an impact driver makes a huge difference. A regular drill/driver can do it, but you may have to back the screw out, drive it again, or lubricate the threads. With an impact driver, you can usually drive it in one shot.

It also helps when removing long screws because you’re less likely to strip out the screw head.

Mine is a Ryobi, and it has held up well for me for many years. Ryobi is more of a do-it-yourselfer brand than a professional carpenter’s brand, but for my woodworking, this one has done everything I’ve asked of it.

Router Extension

The next tool is really more of an accessory: a router extension.

A router extension gives you extra reach when the bit needs to extend farther below the router base. A good example is bowl carving. If I’m carving a shallow bowl, I can usually get enough depth with the bit properly seated in the router.

But if I’m carving into a thicker piece of wood, say an inch and a half thick, it’s tempting to pull the bit farther out of the collet to get more reach. Don’t do that. I’ve done it, and I knew I shouldn’t have. It’s dangerous.

A router bit spinning at high speed needs to be fully secured. If the collet isn’t gripping it properly, that bit can come loose, and that is not something you want flying around the shop.

The router extension solves that problem. It chucks into the router and gives me about two more inches of reach while keeping the bit safely held.

It’s not an expensive accessory, but it makes certain routing jobs safer and more practical. I wish I had found it sooner.

Digital Height and Depth Gauge

The next tool is a digital height and depth gauge. I use mine mostly as a height gauge.

This is especially useful for setting the height of my table saw blade. If I’m cutting a half-lap joint, for example, I want that blade height set accurately. This gauge straddles the blade and lets me dial in the exact height I need.

I also use it at the router table to set bit height, especially when I’m making a partial-depth cut.

You can do something similar with digital calipers, but it’s not as easy. Calipers don’t give you the same stable surface over the blade or bit, so you end up fudging the measurement a little.

This tool is inexpensive, plastic, and still very accurate. For setting blade and bit heights, it has made setup much easier.

Digital Angle Gauge

The other digital measuring tool I wish I had bought sooner is a digital angle gauge.

I use this mainly for setting my table saw blade angle and my miter gauge. The scales on a table saw or miter gauge can get you close, but close isn’t always good enough for joinery.

With a digital angle gauge, I can set my miter gauge to 45 degrees, 30 degrees, or whatever angle I need, and know I’m actually there.

It’s also useful for setting the table saw blade itself. If I’m making a mitered box, for example, I can set the blade accurately for that 45-degree cut.

Accurate setup is a big part of clean joinery, especially when the table saw is involved. This tool is simple, inexpensive, and easy to trust because you zero it before using it. Once it starts from zero, I know the angle it shows is the angle I’m setting.

Transfer Punches

The next item may seem like an odd one for woodworking: transfer punches.

Machinists use these all the time, and I knew about them from my engineering days. For some reason, I never thought of them as woodworking tools. I figured there were other ways to mark a hole, and there are. You can use a drill bit if you have to.

But this little set was inexpensive, and it has become one of those tools I wish I had bought sooner.

A transfer punch lets me mark the exact center of a hole. If I have a hole in a piece of hardware or another piece of wood, and I need that hole location transferred to the next piece, I choose the punch that fits snugly, set it in the hole, and tap it.

That gives me a centered mark just deep enough for the drill bit to start exactly where it needs to.

It’s simple, inexpensive, and not fancy at all. But like a lot of good measuring and layout tools, it improves accuracy. And better accuracy saves trouble later.

Automatic Center Punch

Talking about transfer punches brings me to another one: the automatic center punch.

I’ve had one of these for years, but for a long time, I only thought of it as a metalworking tool. When I learned to drill holes in metal, I was taught to use a center punch first. But I never really carried that habit over into woodworking.

That was a mistake.

An automatic center punch is spring-loaded. You press it down, and it snaps a small indentation into the wood. That little mark gives the drill bit a positive starting point so it doesn’t wander.

So while this wasn’t a tool I didn’t own, it was a tool I wasn’t using the way I should have been. I wish I had been using it in wood from the beginning.

It’s especially handy when you need holes to land exactly where you marked them.

Right Angle Drill

The last tool on my list is the newest one: a right angle drill.

I didn’t even buy this one. My daughter and son-in-law gave it to me, and I ended up using it the very next day.

I had looked at right angle drills for years, but I kept getting by with one of those little right-angle attachments that goes on a regular drill. Those attachments work, but they can be a pain to use.

A right angle drill is made for tight spaces. I can use it to drill holes where a regular drill won’t fit, or I can put in a driver bit and use it to install or remove hardware in cramped spots.

It’s not something I use every day, but when I need it, there really isn’t a good substitute. Now that I have one, I’ve found plenty of uses for it.

Final Thoughts

So that’s my list of tools I wish I had bought sooner.

Could I add more? Sure. I probably wish I had replaced my table saw sooner. I wish I had gotten into turning earlier, too. But I tried to keep this list focused mostly on tools that have been genuinely useful without all being expensive.

The planer was the big-ticket item here. Most of the others are much more affordable, and some are under $20.

That doesn’t mean every tool on this list is right for every woodworker. It depends on the kind of work you do. But every one of these has made my work easier, more accurate, faster, or safer in some way.

The main lesson is not to get stuck thinking only in terms of the tools you already know. There are always new tools and accessories out there. Some are gimmicks. Some are a waste of money. But some really do make a difference.

The trick is finding the ones that help the way you work.