When I was a little kid, my mom used to dress me in these clothes called Garnimals. It was a brand of clothing that allowed kids to dress themselves and have some kind of matching look. Basically, if you wore your tiger pants and tiger shirt, the darned stuff would match. It was supposed to be fool proof…
While I can’t find Garanimals clothes for adults to help me dress in the morning, I have noticed that some woodworkers would like to have a Garanimals system for their tools. They tend to want to buy their tools in sets or from the same manufacturer to ensure they look alike. I mean, come on. If you mixed a green Festool track saw with an orange Fein dust collector… ugh…
Or, heavens forbid, you didn’t get your chisels all from the same set from the same manufacturer. I mean, could you see how the clashing could affect your work?
This week, tell us – do you have to match your tools, or does it even matter to you?
Oh but their are Garanimals for adults. LLBean, Eddie Bauer and Lands End path the way and have resulted in more than one .. “Hey! You’re wearing my shirt” at the office. A couple of months ago, I went to a meeting where I and the other woman in the meeting were wearing the same thing as were the to guys. When the 5th person showed up all she could say was “Is this a meeting of the Doublement twins??”
My shoes don’t even match…
Admittedly I bought a dewalt set so everything could share the same batteries,(and it was on sale.) In retrospect, I wish I hadn’t. Dewalt makes a fine drill, but makita makes a much better saw. (Well, the blade is on the other side, which I prefer…)
As I recall, you have a Festool track saw and a Fein dust collector. Oh, the shame 🙂
Color doesn’t matter much as I usually repaint them to blue anyway. Partially a security feature, partially because I like blue.
I figured this had to be an April Fools joke, so in that spirit, I answered with #1. I have a feeling most #1 answers may be ironic.
On chisels, part of the reason to buy sets is to get handles you like.
I have mostly Stanley and a few Lie Neilsen because they have nearly identical handles, but I have some nice paring chisels with very different grips that I didn’t buy as a set.
Two other reasons people buy sets come from the reason economists say we make purchasing decisions in general: Brand and Price.
We buy sets because we learn to trust a brand – we like the fit, finish and feel. And then we buy sets on price, because the brands we trust give us “more” for our dollar if we buy a set.