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> Again, I could go rent this stuff, but I want it delivered, and I don't want to pay a price that is pretty close to what it would cost to just buy the tool!

This is probably the biggest problem with a sharing/renting economy.

Manufacturing has gotten to the point where producing an object is so inexpensive, it's cheaper to buy than rent. But why should that be? At any given production cost, why isn't it still cheaper to produce fewer and let multiple people use them, either via a renting system or something else? You're making fewer objects and still satisfying demand, so why doesn't this save money?

The reason is the labor and real estate costs of administering such a system. You need people to staff the rental/sharing agency. You also need a conveniently-located (and thus expensive) building where people go to pick up and return the objects. Or, if you're doing delivery, you can choose a more out-of-the-way location, but now you're paying the labor cost of drivers.

Because the overhead of running a sharing system is so high, it's actually cheaper most of the time to allocate one of each object to each person, except for the most expensive objects.

  The reason is the labor and real estate costs of 
  administering such a system.

There's also the question of damage an incentives. If I own a nonstick frying pan, I've got every incentive not to scratch the nonstick coating, and if I do it won't hurt anyone but me. If I loan my nonstick frying pan out to 10 people and expect it to come back without any scratches on the nonstick coating, I'd probably be disappointed.

Yes, this is definitely a problem with rental equipment. Most rented tools I've used are in bad shape, though still usable on a one-off basis.

Rental companies tend to charge for excessive damage to the tools (if they bother to inspect the tools upon return). So that can help to align the incentives.

But it doesn't work as well with individuals lending to each other. Think of all the bad eBay experiences people have reported. The reputation system was supposed to solve that, but apparently it hasn't.

I take good care of my tools, and I wouldn't lend them to a stranger. Especially knowing that I'm not guaranteed payment in the event of loss or damage.

This is why a tool sharing service could work. Users would only be paying for the inventory management (an automated system, an app that keeps track of which tool is in which users' home), and - optional delivery - via an uber like service. They would willingly contribute tools they already own to the library of available tools. The capital used to buy the tools will have already been contributed by the users who own the tools they share. In exchange for sharing, they get to borrow tools they don't have. Those who have no tools to offer to the pool would have to pay a little more, and the service could use collected money from those who don't have any "credits" for contributing tools to purchase the most requested but unavailable tools to add to the sharing pool. There would be no central place where the tools are stored, they will just be stored in the homes of subscribers to the service.

> Uber for powertools - give it to me now!

The Home Depot in North America already rents out all those tools. You can usually do it for 4 hours or a day at a time.

I've done this for jack hammers, paint sprayers, post hole augers and concrete mixers. As long as you live near one then it works well.

The best thing about this is the price, very cheap. You can even rent minor tools like drills:)

I guess home delivery would be the next step?

I would not say that Home Depot is necessarily cheap for tool rentals. For example, I'm looking to rent a floor prep tool and it's almost 100 for the day (I'm cheap!).

> "and I don't want to pay a price that is pretty close to what it would cost to just buy the tool!"

Why not pay the full price for the tool + delivery (handled by some monthly membership fee, maybe) to keep it as long as you like, and then push a button on your phone and someone shows up from the service to "buy it back" and return it to the cloud. You'd essentially be paying a deposit to cover the item, and then get the money back when the service got it back.

I'd liken this more to the original "netflix-for-everything", with a dash of exec/uber-for-everything.

You could do this p2p without having to have a central storage of all the tools. Assuming the scale is large enough, there should always be things available that you want. That also covers deprecation in value. The central service could charge a small amount and handle disputes, etc, and come with ratings of how reliable someone is.

You could call it something like eBay.

A less centralized version of that would just be to make it really frictionless to resell things. So when I need the drill for once in a year, I pop uberlocalbuy, buy a drill from someone near me and either pick it up or pay for delivery. After I am done with it, there is an easy way to immediately relist the drill (possibly with an automatically computed depreciation of its value), and then the next person buys it from me.

That's basically eBay + a tool to automatically create listings.

I sort of see CraigsList as a rough version of this already. Buy a coffee table for as long as you want it, then sell it again when done.

I just went through this with a desk I built: https://twitter.com/jlongster/status/370760915735420928. I spent way too many hours balancing my tool budget. I had to do exactly the same thing: cut 4x4s with a circular saw. I also had to make several crappy jigs for various uses.

I would love a real tool rental service that had everything and at good prices.

EDIT: my 4x4 cuts were straight. I can't imagine trying to do a 45deg cut with a circular saw...

Home Depot has pretty cheap tool rental, I'm sure some other hardware stores do as well.

Home Depot's tool rentals are not cheap, they do not get delivered, and they are only for tools that are VERY expensive and usually large and bulky otherwise - things like stumpgrinders and trenchers, concrete saws and jackhammers.

Your desk looks really beautiful :) What species of wood did you use, and what did you stain it with?

Thanks! It's my first serious wood project.

I used red oak for everything but the legs, which are cedar. I didn't know this until now, but untreated 4x4s are hard to find, much less made of oak. I finally found some at the local specialty lumber factory, but they only had cedar and redwood, and cedar was cheaper. It stains so differently, but I think I got it come out ok. A benefit is that it's a soft wood and much lighter, so the overall weight isn't too bad.

I used General Finish's oil-based stains. First coat is Mahogany (where most of the color comes from), and the second coat American Walnut. When wiping off the second coat, it seemed to remove some of the first coat color sometimes, which was weird (I let the first coat dry for 24 hours). But it's mostly the Mahogany color.

I finished it with 4 coats of Waterlox Tung Oil Finish. That stuff is amazing. It's so easy to apply without any errors, and the tung oil really gives it a rich depth. It's also waterproof. The downside is you have to apply several coats.

Yeah, that's an important point. Tool rental exists now, but they use tools so powerful and rugged that they cost an order of magnitude or two more than your consumer-grade tool. And because of their high cost and the normal overhead of running any rental business, they end up offering rental for the same price as you can own a lower-quality lighter tool. And the lower-quality tools are still pretty good. They're a little light on power, and they will break after a lot of usage... but if you had a lot of usage planned you wouldn't be looking to rent either.

Unless you can rent from someone who undercharges for the cost of the wear and tear due to the high usage. People can be hard on rentals.

Here you go: https://www.1000tools.com - specific to tool rentals and very local.

(disclaimer: I started it)

I'm remodeling my house.

I bought most of the tools I use, eg framing nail gun and compressor. I have bought some tools used, like the PEX (plumbing) expanders. For me, buying is cheaper than renting.

I don't know how long I'll need the tools. And I've been very careful to buy models and brands with high resale value.

The contractors I hire often rent tools. Because they're pros. They know the task, correctly estimate the duration, get the job done, and return the tool. When the tool breaks, it's not their problem. And they can pass the rental costs thru to me.