Beginner Woodworking Tools You Should Avoid

Over the years, I’ve bought tools that I thought would make my woodworking easier, only to have them end up collecting dust in the shop.

That doesn’t always mean they’re bad tools. What’s wrong for me might be useful for someone else, depending on the kind of work they do. But in each case, I’ll explain why the tool didn’t make sense for my woodworking, and what I think would be a better use of your money.

Handheld Belt Sander

The first tool on my list is the handheld belt sander.

Now, I don’t have anything against belt sanders. I have a stationary belt sander mounted in one of my workbenches, and I use it regularly. But there’s a big difference between a bench-mounted belt sander and a handheld one.

The bench-mounted version is great for sanding small parts. A handheld belt sander is really made for sanding large areas and removing a lot of material quickly.

That sounds useful, and that’s exactly why a lot of beginner woodworkers buy one. I did the same thing. I remember making my first cutting board out of oak 1x2s, and I used a belt sander to level the surface. It worked, but it took forever, and looking back, I should have used a plane.

I eventually made a bracket for that belt sander and turned it into a bench-mounted sander, which was actually a better use for it. But as a handheld tool, I see it more as a carpenter’s or remodeling tool than a woodworking tool.

It’s good for rough sanding, flooring work, or removing a lot of material fast. But for leveling a tabletop, smoothing a cutting board, or fixing an edge-grain glue-up, it can easily dig in and tear up the surface.

For cutting boards, I’d rather use a power planer. For tabletops and panels, the better answer is to improve the glue-up first: use good clamps, use cauls, keep everything aligned, and then clean it up with a hand plane.

A handheld belt sander isn’t useless, but for beginner woodworking, I think there are better places to spend your money.

Yes, this is the right kind of section length for a 6-item article. Here’s the next part in the same tighter style:

Vibratory Sander

Since we’re already talking about sanders, the second tool I’d put on this list is the vibratory sander. Some people call these quarter-sheet sanders, palm sanders, or finishing sanders.

As you can see, I have three of them. The reason I ended up with three is because I used self-stick adhesive sandpaper on them. Once you peel that sandpaper off, you pretty much have to throw it away. So by keeping different grits on different sanders, I didn’t waste as much paper.

The main reason I bought these was simple: I couldn’t afford a random orbital sander at the time.

Now, vibratory sanders can give you a fine finish. They do work. The problem is that they are slow. Very slow. They’ll get the job done, but they take a lot more time than a random orbital sander.

A random orbital sander will do the same job, but faster. Most of them use hook-and-loop sanding discs, so you can take the paper off, save it, and reuse it until it actually wears out. You’re not throwing away sandpaper just because you need to change grits.

The other big advantage is control. My random orbital sander has adjustable speed, so if I want a finer finish, I can slow it down and use a finer grit. If I need to remove more material, it still won’t be as aggressive as a belt sander, but it will remove material much faster than a vibratory sander.

Looking back, I bought the vibratory sanders because they were cheaper. But now, 99% of the time, when I need a sander, I grab the random orbital. The vibratory sanders mostly just sit there and decorate the workbench.

Handheld Power Planer

The handheld power planer is another tool I’d be careful about buying as a beginner woodworker.

It’s not the same as a belt sander, but it has a similar problem: it removes material quickly, and that can get you into trouble fast.

I really think of this as more of a construction or carpentry tool than a woodworking tool. I bought mine for a specific remodeling job, much like the second belt sander I bought. My wife actually encouraged me to get it, and I’m fortunate to have a wife who supports my tool buying because she knows I enjoy woodworking and she likes the things I make.

Still, for woodworking, this was probably a mistake.

The danger with a handheld power planer is not just that you’ll remove too much material. It’s that you can leave gouges, steps, and uneven spots in the surface.

There are a few places where it can work. If you need to straighten or flatten the edge of a board, it can do that. It’s faster and easier than a hand plane, and since you can adjust the depth of cut, you can be fairly accurate.

The problem is that it’s harder to hold level than a hand plane.

Where people really get into trouble is trying to use one on cutting boards or glued-up panels. If your glue-up isn’t perfectly even, it’s tempting to grab a power planer and knock down the high spots. But every pass can create another low spot, another gouge, or another step you now have to fix.

In that situation, you’re much better off using a hand plane. It may take more time and more effort, but at least you’re not making the problem worse while trying to fix it.

A handheld power planer is useful for remodeling and carpentry. I can think of plenty of construction jobs where I’d use one. But for furniture making, cutting boards, and general woodworking, mine spends far more time sitting on the shelf than earning its keep.

Got it. Since it’s an 8-item list, I’ll keep each item tighter so the full article doesn’t balloon.

Brad & Staple Nailer

I’m going to change directions a little here and talk about a tool I’ve had for a very long time: a combination brad and staple nailer.

When I bought it, I was standing in the store looking at brad nailers and combination brad/staple nailers. The price difference was only about a dollar, so I figured, why not get the one that can do more?

At the time, that sounded like a smart buy. The problem is that “more features” doesn’t always mean “better tool.”

The brads this tool uses are 18-gauge, which leave a small hole that’s usually pretty easy to fill. But because this tool also accepts staples, the opening it leaves is much wider. A quarter-inch crown staple leaves a much bigger mark than a tiny brad nail hole.

And that’s where I ran into the problem. If I’m choosing a brad nail specifically because I want a smaller hole, why use a tool that still leaves a larger mark than necessary?

I don’t like nail holes showing in my work. I’ll take the time to fill them, sand them, and clean them up. But if the hole is four to six times bigger because of the tool I’m using, I’m just creating extra work for myself.

Eventually, I bought a dedicated brad nailer. It leaves a smaller hole, it’s easier to hide, and it does the job I actually needed the tool to do.

The combination nailer works. That’s not the issue. The issue is that it made the finishing process harder than it needed to be. For woodworking, I’d rather have the dedicated brad nailer.

Cheap Chisels

Before I get into this one, I should say that I consider myself more of a power tool woodworker than a hand tool woodworker. But if you want to do really nice work, sooner or later you’re going to need hand tools. I learned that the hard way.

For years, the only chisels I had were the kind you’d find at a lumberyard. They weren’t the cheapest chisels in the world, but they also weren’t really made for fine woodworking.

They had heavy metal bodies, and they were decent enough for rough work. But the steel wasn’t as good, and with cheaper chisels, you can also run into problems like backs that aren’t truly flat. That becomes a real issue when you’re trying to cut clean mortises or do precise joinery.

A few years back, I got more interested in hand tool work because some jobs simply needed to be done that way. Cutting mortises, cleaning up joints, paring small areas, those are all places where a good chisel makes a big difference.

So I put a better set of chisels on my Christmas list, and my wife bought them for me. They came from a woodworking shop, not a lumberyard, and the difference was obvious.

The biggest difference is quality. Better steel. Better grind. Better control.

You still have to sharpen them. In fact, you should sharpen any chisel when you buy it. But once sharpened, a better chisel will take a finer edge and hold that edge longer.

The other thing I noticed was how much easier they were to use. The cheaper chisels were heavier and better suited for rougher carpentry work. The better bench chisels were thinner, easier to control, and much better for fine shaving and paring.

If you’re doing dovetails, finger joints, lap joints, mortises, or any kind of fine joinery, you need a sharp edge and a chisel that’s easy to control. Cheap chisels usually mean cheaper steel, and cheaper steel usually means more frustration.

If I had bought decent chisels sooner, I probably would have started using chisels sooner. That’s really the lesson here. Sometimes a cheap tool doesn’t just slow you down. It keeps you from learning the skill properly in the first place.

Cheap Sharpening Jig

Speaking of chisels, that brings me to the next tool I wish I had skipped: a cheap sharpening jig.

For years, I sharpened chisels and plane blades by hand, just holding the blade against the stone and doing my best to keep the angle steady. Eventually, I learned that I just couldn’t hold that angle consistently enough. Maybe some people can, but I couldn’t do it well enough to get the kind of edge I wanted.

So I bought a sharpening jig.

The design was simple enough. It clamped onto the chisel or plane blade, with a little wheel underneath so you could roll it across the stone while holding the blade at a set angle. The idea is good. The problem was the quality.

The one I bought was cheap, cast, and powder coated. The edges that were supposed to hold the blade weren’t sharp and clean enough, so it was hard to get the blade seated properly. More than once, I finished sharpening, looked at the edge, and realized I had ground more off one side than the other.

When I bought it, I honestly didn’t know what separated a cheap jig from a good one. They all looked pretty similar to me. But once I started using it, the difference became obvious.

The sharpening system I use now holds the blade much more securely, and I can set the angle accurately. I can even use a digital angle finder to dial it in exactly where I want it. That means every time I sharpen, I’m getting a more consistent edge instead of wasting time and steel correcting mistakes from the jig.

There is definitely a price difference between a cheap sharpening jig and a good one. But if you want your chisels and plane blades to make clean cuts, the edge needs to be accurate, consistent, and sharp. A cheap jig can make that harder than it needs to be.

Gimmicky Measurement Tools

Probably the biggest trap I’ve fallen into over the years is buying gimmicky measurement tools.

And that’s saying something, because I like measuring tools. I have a board in my shop where I keep several layout and measuring tools because I use them all the time. I like accurate layout, and I like my projects coming out the way I intended. To cut accurately, you need to measure accurately.

So yes, those clever-looking measuring tools catch my eye.

The problem is that a lot of them look much better in the ad than they do in the shop.

I’ve bought some of those tools from online ads, especially the ones that show up on Facebook, and a few of them turned out to be junk. One was a little T-square that looked wonderful in the video. It had angle settings, detents, and all sorts of promises built into it.

In reality, the metal was so thin that it flexed all over the place. It even ended up with a permanent wave in it after getting kinked. The detents weren’t accurate either. It looked like a precision tool, but it didn’t act like one.

I also bought another small setup tool that looked great in the ad. It was nicely machined, and the video made it seem like it would help me set up my table saw more accurately. But when it arrived, there were no instructions. I couldn’t find instructions online either. So what I ended up with was a nicely machined little gadget that I still didn’t know how to use.

That’s the danger with gimmicky tools. Some companies are more interested in getting your money than helping you work better. Good tool makers want your money too, of course, but they usually give you a tool that actually works and enough information to use it properly.

So be careful with tools that look too clever in the ad. If it promises to solve every measuring or setup problem in one little gadget, I’d be skeptical. A good square, a reliable tape measure, and a few quality layout tools will usually serve you better than a drawer full of gimmicks.

Low-Cost Drill/Drivers

The last item I want to mention is cheap or low-cost drill/drivers.

I’ve got quite a history with drill/drivers, mostly because they’re probably the handheld power tool we use most in the workshop. And because we use them so often, they’re also one of the tools we’re most likely to wear out.

My first drills were corded because cordless drills weren’t really around yet. Later, when I was working in carpentry, cordless drills started becoming more common, and I bought a Makita nickel-cadmium drill. I don’t remember if it was 7.2 or 9.6 volts, but I do remember that it was fantastic. It lasted until the charger finally died.

The problem was, I couldn’t find a replacement charger back then. This was before you could just jump online and find one in five minutes. So I went to my favorite cheap tool store and bought a cheap drill.

And yes, I knew it was cheap. At the time, I just didn’t have the money for a good one.

It lasted maybe a year.

So I bought another cheap drill. That one didn’t last either. Then I bought another one. You can probably see where this is going. I think I went through three cheap drills before I finally decided to spend a little more and buy a consumer-grade drill.

When you’re buying power tools, it helps to understand the difference between consumer-grade, professional-grade, and industrial-grade tools.

Consumer-grade tools are for people doing projects in the shop, garage, or around the house. Professional-grade tools are built for people like carpenters who use them every day on job sites. Industrial-grade tools are even heavier duty, though you don’t see as many handheld industrial tools. Those are usually bigger machines and can cost several thousand dollars.

For a drill/driver, I think it’s worth buying something decent because you’re going to use it all the time. That doesn’t mean every tool in your shop needs to be top-of-the-line. A reciprocating saw, for example, is more of a demolition or construction tool. If you’re only going to use it twice, spending hundreds of dollars on a professional-grade model probably doesn’t make sense.

But a drill/driver is different. That’s one of those tools you’ll reach for constantly.

The mistake I made was buying the cheapest drill over and over again instead of spending a little more once. I wasn’t saving money. I was just replacing bad tools.

So when it comes to tools you’ll use often, like a drill/driver or even a circular saw, think long term. Buy something reliable enough to handle the amount of work you’ll actually do with it.

For tools you’ll rarely use, you may not need to spend as much. But for the tools you grab all the time, cheap can get expensive pretty quickly.

Final Thoughts

So there’s my list.

Now, I don’t want you to take this as some rule carved in stone. This is my experience. Every woodworker has their own road to travel, and what didn’t work for me may still make sense for you.

Some of these tools may fit the kind of work you do. If most of your woodworking is really remodeling or carpentry around the house, then maybe a handheld belt sander or power planer makes sense. Those tools can be useful in that world.

But if your goal is furniture building, cutting boards, joinery, and cleaner woodworking projects, then some of these tools probably aren’t the best place to spend your money.

That’s really the point here: don’t buy a tool just because it’s cheap, and don’t buy one just because everybody else seems to have it.

I waited years to buy a random orbital sander because my vibratory sanders were “good enough.” Then I finally bought the random orbital and realized I should have done it much sooner. On the other hand, I also bought tools that looked useful and ended up barely using them.

There’s a balance between saving money and buying the tool you actually need. Sometimes that balance is hard to find, especially when you’re just starting out. But before you buy something, ask yourself what kind of work you really want to do with it.

If the tool won’t help you do that work better, cleaner, or more accurately, it may not be the bargain it looks like.

So think through your purchases, buy the best tools you reasonably can for the jobs you do most, and don’t be afraid to skip the tools that don’t fit your kind of woodworking.

I hope you find tools that serve you well, make plenty of sawdust, and hopefully make some good stuff while you’re at it.