When you’re first starting out, you need to pick up common, useful tools and get to work making shavings.  I’d like to suggest three planes that will handle the vast majority of woodworking tasks and are also a cheap and easy to find.

In some places, the collectors’ market has driven up the price of vintage tools to the point where they cost too much.  Outside of America, there are many countries where mass-produced, metallic planes never existed at all and woodworkers have to choose between ancient wooden planes or super-expensive American premium planes that have to be imported at high cost.  For people in either of these situations, plane-making is the only realistic way to have some decent tools.

Most production shops are very power-tool focused, which makes complete sense.  But I find that those shops are SO power-tool focused that they might not have any hand tools.  And since I mostly taught myself woodworking and I do a lot of operations by hand, working by machines only leaves me feeling like I’ve got one hand tied behind my back.