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You will need about £500 ($1000) of tools if you buy the real things, but much can be achieved with very much less .......
Computer and microphone, with free recording and FFT software such as “Audacity”, available off the web. Have a look here to see what the options are and how to do it.
A thicknessing gauge that can reach inside the back when it has the sides or bouts on. This is perhaps the tool, along with the small thumb planes that I use most. It cost about £65 ($130) on eBay, new.
There are various plans for making your own from wood etc, but I found that I just couldn’t get the accuracy with a homemade (wooden) version to reach into the back when it has bouts on. Here’s one guys idea ..... and another using part of a motorcycle and a dial gauge ..... But if you only do thicknessing on new plates then simple home - made gauges using levers can work well.
A good craftsman’s knife, and sharpening stone.
A good set of chisels, and/or gauges flat and curved.
Rasps.
A kitchen balance or scales, with better than 1 gram accuracy.
Shown here with a jap saw.
Thumb planes: they give you blisters after a few hours, but it’s an occupational hazard. I have only 2 at the moment: one flat bottomed, and one with a convex base for thinning the insides of the plates. It has a 10 mm blade.
A small plane with about 1 1/4” cut: to tidy up the top of the bouts and blocks.
G lue-pot for animal glue: I use a baby-bottle warmer from a junk or a charity shop, set at 55 - 68 deg C, a mid range setting. I calibrated this one. The pearl animal glue + water goes into the small pot - the kind used in hotels for marmalade or jam. When not in use I keep the mini-glue pot in the top of the fridge to stop mould growing in or on the glue. Do not use it on toast, it tastes disgusting.
A ‘Dremel’ type hand-held router. This is a “Power Craft” Combitool sold by Aldi in the UK for less than £20 ($40), with a useful flexible drive shaft. 10k to 35k rpm, but only 160 Watts.
I use this, or its bigger brother to grind down the over-thick bouts (sides) of factory fiddles using a cylindrical sanding head shown.
I will also use this for routing for the purfling soon with an adapter to keep the distance from the edge and the depth constant , and cutting to a depth of ~1.5 - 2 mm.
A Drill press. A basic model can be bought new for about £50 ($100), and is indispensable, it may be worth paying more - some very useful hints here at Pete Shugg’s Power Tool page about drill-presses. He loves the the Safe-T-Planer cutter too: see later.
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