If you're anything like me, and I'm not saying you are, you will go through several stages in your evolution, or devolution, as a Galoot. Here's my take on this process...
Okay, maybe you have a few power tools (maybe a LOT of powertools), some books and a growing curiosity about hand tools. Perhaps you have a plane or two, which is how your interest in hand tools got started in the first place, and some chisels, a backsaw, and maybe even a scraper. You're weary of the level of noise on rec.woodworking and you see continued references to OldTools and the Porch and gee, there just don't seem to be as many Neanderthals posting stuff any more. So you locate the path to the Electronic Neanderthal site and stumble on the directions for subscribing to the OldTools list. You find your way to the Porch and you lurk for a while. There comes a time when you want to ask a question and you realize that you are expected to post a short biography. You delurk. Everybody says hi. You pull up a chair. You become one of Us.
The jargon flows thick and fast on the Porch. You realize that you need some help with the acronyms and cryptic terms everyone is throwing about. What the heck is a SWMBO for example? People write knowledgeably about #4's and #5's and a whole bunch of other numbers. You realize that you don't know much and resolve to catch up. You start to acquire the necessary reference works.
For years you have looked at the glossy woodworking catalogs with their pricey brass-backed saws, planes, chisels and the like. You bought the minimum necessary to get the job done. Now you read gloats from Galoots and realize that there are usable tools out there in the flea markets, antique stores, and garage sales. You start looking and asking around and stumble on your own local flea market and maybe an antique store or two. You join the Hunt for Tools. You find an older Stanley #4 or #5 (or Sargeant or Millers Falls equivalent) for less money that the catalogs demand for the inferior modern versions. You bring your old Stanley home and key it out. After keying it out you realize that the plane is over 100 years old. You sit there with the venerable tool in your hands and wonder how many Galoots of yore used it and what they were like. You are hooked. There comes a day when you return to your car with your first $2 or $3 antique chisel and you rub the grime off of the maker's stamp. You see the name Buck or Witherby or W. Butcher and realize that it isn't going to end with just one of these...
Heck, if you are lucky, you might even find yourself falling through a timewarp and into Tool Heaven.
There are more than 700 individuals that post or lurk on the Porch and you realize that some of them live not far from you. One of the regional meetings of the MidWest Tool Collectors Association or a regional association has a meeting within driving distance. You decide to go and meet some real live Galoots. Maybe you get an email out of nowhere inviting you to dinner with the GM himself.
The for sale (FS) lists on the Porch keep coming and coming and you are treated to a veritable smorgasbord of tool dealing. It's Tools-A-Go-Go with a vengeance and, even more astonishing, many of the dealers follow what is known as the OldTools Standard. They don't require money up front, you just email them with your request and, if you are first in line with a solid offer, they mail it to you. If you like it you keep it and mail the payment plus the postage for shipping the tool. You faithfully follow through on your half of the bargain and make the payment (you _better_ make the payment). Hoo, boy. That was like, _too easy_.
You keep checking your local flea market, antique stores and dealer Web sites (pss't - check out Tony Murland's Toolshop). The bargains continue to crop up and you increasingly become a better educated consumer. The FMM's give you a reference point and when you see something priced significantly below retail you have a hard time leaving it on the flea market table. You make up a wish list and start collec.. er, acquiring tools in a semi-systematic manner. You become a flea market commando. You explain the alarming increase in your Galoot playthings to your SWMBO as necessary and ultimately limited in scope. You lie out your ass. Your hoard begins to grow into a Magnetic Anomaly. Braces? Yes you need a couple of them. Easily a couple. What the hell, live a little. Half a dozen. Planes? Gotta have the smoothers, jacks, and jointers. Ya gotta. Couple of each, easily. Load up on the #5's. What the heck. Got a #8 yet? Get cracking ya big Galoot before the Normites figure this out and strip the antique stores and flea markets! Rabbet planes, router planes, scraper planes, shoulder planes. Check. Saws? Dovetail, tenon, rip and crosscut are added to the list and find their way to your hoard. Check. What, no miter box? You realize that you _need_ a miter box. Check. You find breast drills and smaller eggbeater drills, Yankee drills and maybe a post drill. Check. Moulding planes? Of course and maybe a #45 or #55 too...
You discover that almost none of these tools you have accumulated is ready to use immediately. The chisel and plane blades have been ground ..ah.. creatively by former owners and the bevels need some grinding. The soles of many of the planes need some lapping. Braces need oiling and cleaning. Auger bits need sharpening and tuning. Many of the tools are rusty to some extent and you begin to look for ways to clean them up. You keep hearing about something called electrolysis which you gather has nothing to do with removing leg or facial hair. You need help. You need ScarySharp(TM) (psst - check out the variant known as QuickLap(TM)). You go through the process of deciding just how much you should tamper with your Historical Objects in the process of restoring them to a usable condition. You begin to spend increasing amounts of your precious shop time reconditioning tools rather than using them. You enter a self-made Purgatory of metal filings and sore fingers.
Somewhere in the middle of this, you buy a tool that you really have no direct use for and begin to wonder if you maybe aren't becoming a.. a.. (go ahead and say it, it's OK) collector. Whew! Yes, you face the fact that you like some type of tool, whatever it is, and now must decide if you are going to acquire more of them even if you don't really need them in the shop. You are on your own here, I can't help you. Millers Falls planes, Disston saws, and Yankee tools were my downfall.
Eventually you resolve your personal crisis one way or the other, sharpen up enough tools to carry you for a while, get the workbench done and start becoming a productive member of society again. SWMBO is happy. Anyway, that's what they tell me. Personally I'm still back there somewhere cleaning up tools. Say, I'm out of 2000 grit SC autobody sandpaper. Got any to spare? Do I smell WD-40?