Here is what I’ve been learning about tools:
- Become enamored with taking care of your tools not buying new ones.
- Buy the cheapest tool you need for a job. If it breaks or fails its intended purpose then buy a more expensive replacement.
- Completing a project from start to finish is the only way to see what tools you actually need. Planning is fraught with false assumptions.
- Youtube tutorials are a useful fiction. Watch them for techniques and explanation yet understand that the moments they don’t show are where all the laborious and detailed work is happening.
- Avoid forums where people argue about specifications and not real world results.
- If you are scared of the next step, practice it at a smaller scale. If you are still wary, talk it through with a friend.
- Modify your tools to suit your purposes.
- Be generous with your tools. Especially those that spend most of their lives sitting on a shelf.