I am considering an upgrade of my shop equipment and I’m looking for good/bad/preferences, recommendations for the following:
14″ bandsaw or larger
12″ joiner with hellical head
Planner 15″ with hellical head
Drill press, floor model
Router table/lift
I own a small, one person professional shop and rather than the “cheapest” I’m interested in performance and quality. A person said to me, “Buy your third tool first.” I tend to agree with this. However, I’m not willing to simply to buy the most expensive, but what will provide reliable, repeatable, good results. Your comments and suggestions will be greatlly appreciated.
George
Replies
Heavy Arn
Jump over to http://www.owwm.org forum and check out the comments on old heavy Iron. A bit extra work getting the equipment pretty again and tuned up. But well worth the effort.
But If you have somewhat deep packets, I would look into Powermatic. Really deep pockets ? Look into the European state of the art machines.
Woodpecker for router table, or think shaper/and power feeder for more production runs.
I just traded in an ancient powermatic 15" planer for one of the newer models with the helical head. It was worth it if only for the reduction in noise. It is soooo quiet. I know its not the heavy duty workhorse machine that the old one was, but it is nowhere near as finicky. Knife changes are a breeze, no adjusting rollers, pressure bars and stuff. Sounds like a jointer when it runs, not like the jet engine the old one sounded like. And, its footprint is so much less. For a small shop it is just great, so far so good.
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