Craftsmanship in Wood

Last fall, a momentous event occured: we bought a house and I now have dedicated shop space. For a time, I've continued working out of the co-op shop that's been my woodworking home for some years now, but it's becoming clear that the way forward lies with getting my own collection of machines in order. My first task is to get my head around what I need, in what order, for my work. Thoughts on that, in some rough priority order:

• Power. There's a separate sub-panel in the shop, but it may not be sufficient. May also want a 3 phase power converter; I doubt it will be practical to have utility-supplied 3 phase, but need to investigate here.
• Dust collection. Ceiling height is an issue; it's relatively low. I can possibly add height if I'm close my opening ceiling drywall. Alternative: build an adjacent, external enclosure for the dust collector, which also serves as noise reduction.
• Jointer
• Planer
• Table saw. I have a lot of workflows that leverage the table saw for both crosscutting and ripping right now; it's a tool I'm used to. I've had little experience with a well setup resaw-type bandsaw to know how far that could get me with "precision" ripping.
• Drilling. I have a decent drill press, but may sell it. I'm thinking of upgrading, e.g. to a Mill-Drill type unit w/ DRO that will work well for my workflows. These have a tradeoff that the quill movement is often vastly lower (say, 2" vs. my current 6"), but add a huge amount of Z travel with the head on a dovetail. My goal is something much more precise than my current drilling setup, with the opportunity to add some versatility, ala "Chibi Zimmermann FZ-5V".
• Small bandsaw, setup for adhoc shaping work. Just too useful and versatile. Don't expect to resaw, seem to be plentiful on the used market.
• CNC. I need to go revisit Chris' old posts on the topic, and do some soul-searching here as well. In my case, success will mean a fair amount of producing repetitive parts: I'm expressly designing a small set of designs intended for reproduction. Something which takes the load off of the most grossly repetitive and error-prone steps would be a boon. I've worked around this so far with improved jig-building...
• Horizontal belt sander. These have been occasionally quite useful for certain tasks, refining shapes, quickly flattening hardwood end-grain, etc. I'd like to avoid one. Good dust collection here is hard, and many of the tasks can be handled efficiently by a shop well set-up for hand tool work, which my co-op never really was.

A router table isn't on here, because I've finally got a fairly wonderful setup: cast iron table w/ a big Milwaukee router and a nice lift. <3 <3 <3

An interesting observation on small mills: many of them, including the one I linked above, lack a depth stop for quill travel. This puts a serious damper on repeated drilling/boring operations, which I'm currently doing quite a bit. It looks like this would force me up a size class, which certainly comes with benefits, but also at a significant price jump, especially when adding in DRO.

Another option that's come up in my research is to seriously consider a "pro" level combination machine, such as the SCM minimax line, e.g. the minimax cu 300c and related models, such as the lab 300p. I'm well aware that a combo machine will have significant tradeoffs, yet this may be an option that brings with it much higher machine quality than I might otherwise budget in. Thoughts on 1) this approach and 2) SCM and the minimax line would be appreciated.

Congrats on the new house John! Remember to take lots of pictures (and share!) as you get set up.

G'Day John,
My hearty congratulations on the house purchase. It sounds like you not only have a dedicated workspace, but also a healthy budget with which to fill it - I'm profoundly envious!

And as Matt says: Let's see those pictures as the lumps of iron accumulate.

Regards

Derek

Round One: Ye Olde Craigslist has borne fruit, by way of a 12" jointer with a helical head, shown here in its old location. I'm now officially safe from accidentally getting tangled up with a J-P combo machine. Due to time constraints (i.e. be first in hand with cash), I ended up paying a bit more than I would have liked for a crane truck, but still no complaints about the overall deal.

It's currently sitting on pipes in my rather disordered shop. I'm looking into options for moving it around. An engine hoist may factor into this, and/or some Zambus casters. Fortunately, the bottom castings have slots for casters which are easily accessible from the sides.

I also picked up a very gently used 14" bandsaw last week, which I expect to be a fair bit better than any bandsaw I've personally used to-date. Pics later; it's still disassembled due to some travel.

It's a good feeling to move closer to one's goals - congrats on the new acquisition!

Cool! I'm eagerly awaiting the start of a jointer acquisition. ^^

Congrats John, look forward to seeing what comes out of your future shop.

I've been keeping an ear to the ground for interesting used machinery locally, a stream which had been running pretty dry until a little over a week ago. Now it's raining cast iron. Today I took delivery of a 20" planer with a Byrd Shelix head. So that tilts my shop firmly over to the helical head vs. Tersa camp, I suppose.

The planer is 3 phase, so I'll need to get a power converter. I've been contemplating including some three-phase equipment in the shop; this just tipped the scales.

The terms 'slippery slope' and 'opening the flood gates" come to mind