I was in the shop this morning, putting shit away where shit goes, and somewhere between the third coffee and a mild argument with a stubborn drawer that wouldn’t close, I started thinking: what are the real MVPs here? Not the obvious stuff. Not wrenches and sockets and the basic artillery that any functioning human being needs to get work done. I mean the things that changed the game. The things you didn’t know you needed until you had them, and now life without them seems barbaric.
So I made a list. I thought about it for a few more hours, drank some more coffee, and decided the world deserved to see it. Here it is:
1. Festool CT36. When I bought this thing, the $799 price tag felt like a personal insult. My old Craftsman shopvac cost less than a hundred dollars and worked fine, and here was this German contraption demanding nearly a grand just to suck up sawdust. I thought I’d lost my mind. Now? I use it every single day, not just as a dust extractor but as a regular shop vac, and I cannot imagine operating without it. It is bulletproof. It is versatile. It is more convenient than any other shop vac on the market. It is the kind of machine that makes you realize everything you owned before it was a cheap, temporary lie… It retails at $1000 now and I’d still buy it again if mine broke.
2. The BF/MFT. I built this 4×8 shop table mostly out of curiosity. I knew it would get used on woodworking projects, sure, but I had no idea how deeply satisfying a large format island workbench would become as just a general surface for existing in the shop. If you have the square footage, build one. You will not regret it and you will never go back.
3. Vintage Craftsman Drill Press. Tools from the 1940s make me genuinely happy in a way that is difficult to explain to a normal person. The build quality, the look, the sheer density of the things. But the 103.231.40 earns its place on this list for a simpler reason: it works, and it never stops working. I have no reason to ever own another drill press. This one will outlive me.
4. The Roboreel. This one comes loaded with history. A bunch of us in Austin got sent one to review. I got mine, my friend got his, and then, in a move I still cannot explain through any rational framework, the company’s own representative started talking trash about each of us to the other. Months later the company was dead. Bankrupt. Gone. And yet, in some cosmic joke that the universe apparently thought was very funny, the Roboreel turned out to be one of my favorite things in the entire shop. I use it every day. The company that made it cratered spectacularly and I still cannot stop using the damn thing.
5. Bouton Safety Glasses. Years ago I bought vintage style safety glasses for one reason: I refused to wear the Brian Bosworth eyewear that floods the market. Then I took the Boutons to my optician and had him put my prescription in them. That was about a decade ago. They have given me zero problems, zero reasons to think about them, and that, frankly, is the highest compliment you can pay any piece of equipment. The best gear is the gear you forget you’re wearing.
That’s the list. Things I don’t technically need, but would now find barbaric to live without. You got something like this? Post it. I want to know what you’re running in there.
