Figure my first post here should start with an introduction. My name is Charlie Belden and those from rec.woodworking and rec.crafts.woodturning should be familiar with charlie b. The folks in the Yahoo Robland X-31 group know me as charliebcz – charlieb was already taken).

At 54 I escaped gainful employment and jumped into woodworking with both feet after years of watching Norm. Was going to go with separate stationary machines – joiner, planer, table saw – but garage – er – make that shop space – was limited to a 2 car garage – sans cars. Then I stumbled on Paul Jordan’s review of the Robland X31 and called Laguna Tools for their video on the X31. After going through it three or four times I called LT and ordered an X31 – with the larger sliding table. I’m of the Buy Once, Cry Once School of tool acquistion.

LT held a machine for me for four months while I got the space ready – walls skinned with 3/4″ ply so I could hang anything anywhere, concrete floor epoxied, surface mounted electrical to make moving things around easier later, walls and ceiling painting (Navajo White semi gloss).

After uncrating the X31 and putting it together I had a bit of buyers remorse. The paint job had orange peel in places and a few dings, two of the shaper rings were scratched, as was the joiner fence, the table tops weren’t mirror shiny and there were coarse grind marks on the edges of the tables. I expected SHINY and a finish worth of fine furniture. Then several wiser old hands pointed out that cosmetics are nice – but it’s performance that counts. Turned out the X31 did all of its five, count ’em five functions quite nicely thank you (3hp TEFC 10″ table saw – with a real honest to god riving knife, 3 hp TEFC shaper that handles 1 1/4″ bore heads, 12″ three knife joiner, 12″ planer AND horizontal boring / mortiser with XYZ table – the latter three sharing a 3hp TEFC motor).

Add a loaded Makita LS1212 SCMS – with Beismyer (sp?) tables, 5′ left, 3′ right and two flip stops, General International 75-750M tilting head mortiser with XY table, Laguna Tools LT16SEC 2 1/2 hp bandsaw, retroed with LT’s ceramic guides, Delta 12″ disk sander, Delta BOSS oscilating spindle sander and Delta’s drum sander along with the JoinTech Cabinet Maker System router table and precision positionable fence and a JET VS mini/midi lathe and a JET floor model drill press and you’re good to go (except for all the hand tools that you discover are real handy if you want things to fit just so.

I will point out that I’m a Robland X31 aficienado (sp?) and even made the Haj to the Robland factory in Brugge, Belgium to see, and document how Robland sets up the X31. I’m also a very active member of Yahoo’s Robland X-31 users group and have, with the help of several members of the group, put together a set of X31 Set Up Instructions that were sorely lacking from both Robland and Laguna Tools. Some of LT’s tech support guys refer new owners to these instructions and I’ve gotten calls from owners from New Hampshire to California and a dozen states in between. I am not a Laguna Tools employee, nor a Robland employee and have no vested interest in either company.

As for woodworking, Norm got me into this, but Krenov, Nakashima and Maloof are my woodworking heros. I’m biased towards solid wood furniture making and have some nice wood stashed all over the place waiting for just the right project – but I enjoy trying all sorts of woodworking things.

I look foreward to participating in this group and hopefully contributing somethings useful.

charlie b

My woodworking site is at (all one line) if you want pictures, diagrams and illustrations.

http://home.comcast.net/~charliebcz/AlternateMainMenu.html