It's all hacksaws and hand files for him (and an amazing Yates-American Y36 36" snowflake bandsaw for the wood parts). The prices are commensurate with the quality of the work, I assure you
A basic smoother starts at $2k if I recall correctly, and they easily climb to the high four figures from there. He's an amazing artisan (as are you) with his craft honed over many many years.
That is truly impressive. I would love to see his shop and watch him at work.
Thanks! I was a bit intimidated as well until I tried a few simple parts such as making ferrules or brass escutcheons. The first tool I made which has a significant amount of metal work was a router plane. This got me hooked on shaping metal with files and tempering steel. Like anything else, skills grow through practice. I'm getting better but still have a lot of areas where I'd like to improve. My encouragement to anyone interested is to give it a try. There is a different sort of satisfaction that comes from using a tool you made.
