[TheForge] Build it or buy it

[RIES NIEMI]

One of the reasons I read the forge postings is the incredible range of
approaches to working with metal to be found on it.
When Shannell Sugrue posted his photos of a homemade cnc plasma cutter, it
made me think about the wide range of reactions to building your own. While
I have built several tools in my shop, including an english wheel, a treadle
hammer, and recently a large hydraulic press, they have all been mostly
fabrication projects- not really full fledged building of machine tools from
the ground up. While I probably could, at this point, muddle my way through
building almost anything- a pick up truck from scratch maybe? well, if I
built my own V8 i kinda doubt it would last very long.
But because my particular focus is on making finished products, I usually
buy my tools, particularly if I have a job that needs and will pay for them,
which I have been lucky and persistent enough to usually have.
Some people I know collect tools as an end in itself. I certainly can see
the attraction of that, but in my own life I have decided to forgo that in
favor of other things- I really like making stuff and sending it out into
the world, but I also like the ability to take the kids to see the new harry
potter movie, or to read the sunday paper on the couch. So I dont spend
every hour of every day out in the shop. So I buy grants tongs and swage
tools instead of making my own. Sometimes I feel guilty about it- It would
be more true path to make all my own tools, and the pride of making a tool
from scratch is certainly great. But for me, (and this is only me, everybody
has their own approach) I am more interested in making what I make- be it
furniture, or a fence, or a sculpture, than in making every tool that makes
it. So I spent 10,000 bucks on a plasma cutting system, but in turn it
enabled me to take a $100,000 commission, and lots more in the ten years
since then. Yes, I probably could have made my own, although you gotta value
your own time in the equation, and so it would have cost a little more than
$300. But at the time, I had a big fence to make, and that took me a solid
year to do, with no time to be building machines. That doesnt make me
respect someone who can build one from scratch any less- in fact more.
Again, I guess my point is how amazed I am at the different ways people
work, how some of the folks on this list continually amaze me with the way
they do things, and how much I can learn from that variety.
Ries