A lot of such advice is fairly situational and enthusiasts have a tendency to assume everyone is in their same situation. “Buy the big one it’ll do more” is pretty good advice. If you’re interested in doing the things it can do, and have the space for a decent sized dedicated shop. But for a lot of people, especially anyone apartment bound or garageless. Multiple smaller tools is a hell of a lot more practical and hand tools often do what a big machine will in a smaller cheaper package.
You see that a lot these days. Go looking into any sort of practical clothing, even if its “yo what are good socks?” And information is all clogged up with advice about outdoorsy technical cloths for very specific cold weather environments (almost exclusively the Pacific Northwest and Vermont). Sure cotton kills in a survival situation, but not on the way from the subway to your office on NYC summer day. And not everyone is into ultralight backpacking.
Ran into it again looking into sausage making. I’ve done it before and stuffing through the grinder just ruins the sausage and turns it into a 3 person job. Any place with info is all “buy a $200 sausage stuffer! And don’t bother with a 5lb one. When you’re making those 25lb batches and processing whole animals you really appreciate the 15lb electric wizbang one”.
But I’m not doing any if that, and figuring out if there was a sub $50 way to do it that was worth a shit took a while (Jerky gun is apparently the way to go).
