Starter Kit

Ok, say you want to take classes with me but you got no tools.

You are in Chile, so there is no woodcraft or whatever to go buying. You need ebay, buyee and a month and a half wait.

What to get? Two saws, two chisels, two hammers and two planes. Why two? Why not.

First of all, you want sharpening stones. Sharpening stones are like wine in the party, you drink em all, and you want more.

I use naniwa, king, suehiro and nameless stones. Get them cheap and get them coarse. You can live the first 6 months sharpening only till 3000, your skill is anyway not good enough to use 6000 or 12000 at it's full potential so why bother. If you got money get them all and sharpen, sharpen and sharpen till they wear. You want them wide, that's for sure, so at least 60mm wide. And at the very least, 1000 and 3000. Or something like this which in the long term will be a 6000 stone only since the 800 wears faster, way faster. Get a heavy chino/japanese diamond stone too, to flatten them, or sandpaper and glass. Again, low skill needs low gear. You don't want to pull 3microns shavings just yet.

These are the saws you want:

Dosuki 230 in ebay link

and a ryoba (EDIT: I've tried this one now and man it's a sweet saw and can be sharpened. Best you can get for 20usd that I know of.)

Then some hammers

Some kanna

This is a particularly nice combination: hira-kanna, conejo plane, scraper for the sole and short block plane.

and two  or 3 chisels

Or 10 if you are buyeeing.

You don't need to buy em new, you can get in buyee in big chunks and we repair them in classes. (I run out of old chisels to fix, they are all cool now.) Same with saws and kanna.

If you want to buy in buyee the best is call your friends and get lots of tools at the same time so you pay less commission and internal shipping.

Those basic tools will let you make the exercises of the first 3 days of classes at least, make some wooden lay out tools, practice lots of sharpening and you end up with a kind of usable kit for a few hundred usd.

If you want to get something in buyee, and not sure if it's worth it, drop me a line and I give you my "expert" (aka I spent lots of money on it) opinion, takes just a minute for me and can save you from a stupid buy. (Which reminds of this beautiful set of saws I saw the other day...)