I’m quite the woodworking hobbyist. I have spent countless dollars and countless hours in my home wood shop. Working on my latest project and tending to some more menial tasks, my mind started to wander. I just finished reading a book that spends chapter after chapter singing the accolade of one antique tool after another. Antique tool collecting is quite a hobby in itself. Many a woodworker visits the local flea markets in search of old tool treasures.

And that’s when something dawned on me as I fired up my cordless power drill to sink another screw.

It dawned on me that we are likely seeing the end of real antique tools. Since about 1985, tools have all become powered. Bulky battery packs now adorn nearly every tool. Tools that were once bound by a cord are now powered by alkaline.

I really think that we are going to see the end of the antique tool as we know it in the next 10 years. The tools made today lack the character of the tools of our fathers. Many of these new power tools can not be kept over a lifetime, no matter how well you tend to them. After 5 years, 10 if you’re lucky, that power drill, or cordless router will need replaced. Planned obsolescence?

Who would look at the tools you and I use now, the bright yellow DeWalt, the bright red Ryobi, the lifeless gray of Porter-Cable, and think them a collectors item in 2030?

What would make it an antique? If it still runs? If the battery can still hold a charge?

I have a shelf of old tools my uncle and my father gave me as I was moving out of my apartment and into my first house. I refuse to use them out of reverence. They have been tended by my uncle (who past 3 years ago) and my father since they were my age. Polished, kept dry, stored in their boxes for 25 years until I become their owner. I can’t fathom how many projects they have been used on over the years.

The power tools we have today, while much easier and better at their task, don’t have the quality of something that becomes an heirloom. Ultimately, they are high-pressure plastic with parts that wear down.

What concerns me more than the antique tool collectors hobby passing into history, is the memories that will no longer be passed from father to son. My dad and my uncle took on some amount of pride the day the assembled my first real tool box for me and stuffed it full of tools. They got to tell me about this project and that - the leaky gutter that ruined my aunt’s flower bed, the birdhouse hanging from the tree - and laughed.

How will that event take place? When my son is moving into his first house, what will I be able to assemble for him? What tool box will I be able to create? What memories will I be able to pass? A 19.2 volt battery?