15-20K for shop overhaul. Need ideas and what would you buy?

[SawDustB]

If you're planning and setting up the shop, have you thought about what you're doing for a workbench? If you decided to do something like the guild Roubo or the Benchcrafted shaker bench, you would probably want to budget space and $ for the wood and hardware. That could easily eat up $1.5-2k. 

[Guest]

10 hours ago, Ronn W said:

Drill press is a must. 

Curious why you say that.  In my last 5 projects (coffee table, desk, armoire, bath vanity, occasional table) I have used my Drill Press one time - and that was to use it as a vertical lathe to shape a cove some drawer pulls (which I could have done on my spindle sander, but it was burried under a pile).    It seems like a handy DIY, tinkerer, handyman tool but for building furniture I have not found it to be necessary.  My HCM gets more work, and it hardly gets any work at all.  

[Ronn W]

1 hour ago, Mike. said:

Curious why you say that.  In my last 5 projects (coffee table, desk, armoire, bath vanity, occasional table) I have used my Drill Press one time - and that was to use it as a vertical lathe to shape a cove some drawer pulls (which I could have done on my spindle sander, but it was burried under a pile).    It seems like a handy DIY, tinkerer, handyman tool but for building furniture I have not found it to be necessary.  My HCM gets more work, and it hardly gets any work at all.  

I never though much about it either until I got one but the ability to drill true holes and repeat holes is nice.  I use it most for building jigs and other misc projects where inserts or dowels need to be accurately locations and square. I guess it depends on your specific needs.

[Llama]

I'm with Mike on the drill press. Never had one. Never wanted one.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Guest]

16 minutes ago, Ronn W said:

I never though much about it either until I got one but the ability to drill true holes and repeat holes is nice.  I use it most for building jigs and other misc projects where inserts or dowels need to be accurately locations and square. I guess it depends on your specific needs.

Got it - it just reinforces my point that you can't anticipate which machines will be useful.  Everyone is a little different.  Beyond the tablesaw, jointer, planer, bandsaw and router table, everything else is highly variable based on someone's workflow and preferences.  Even within those 5 there is some room for debate.  Assuming a tight budget and foot print I'd probably take 2 bandsaws over a bandsaw and tablesaw.  

 

[bgreenb]

21 minutes ago, Mike. said:

Curious why you say that.  In my last 5 projects (coffee table, desk, armoire, bath vanity, occasional table) I have used my Drill Press one time - and that was to use it as a vertical lathe to shape a cove some drawer pulls (which I could have done on my spindle sander, but it was burried under a pile).    It seems like a handy DIY, tinkerer, handyman tool but for building furniture I have not found it to be necessary.  My HCM gets more work, and it hardly gets any work at all.  

Yeah, I'd definitely not call drill press a "must" but I'd also value it more highly than Mike does.  It's definitely a "must" for certain projects (Roubo), but that's the case for almost any tool.  

As a general matter, I fall pretty much on the side of Mike in the overall discussion.  I think dropping a pretty vast sum like 20k all at once to fill your shop up is probably foolhardy.  I think you're better off spending some of it on the absolute essentials (more below), building some projects, and then spending more to complement with the nonessential tools once you know a little more where your interests are going and what types of projects you like to build.  It would be a shame to spend almost a grand on a fuji sprayer and then find out you really love hand applying ARS or you only like building small pieces where the sprayer is almost certainly overkill.

Here's my own personal taxonomy.  Note that I don't include any handheld tools (routers, drills/drivers, ROS, etc., because they're staples and, even though you can definitely run up a bill buying them, they cost very little in the context of woodworking tools).  

Absolute, no question, 100% essentials:

Jointer, planer, dust collector.  For the jointer, this is one of my rare disagreements with @Mike. - I'd go 8" minimum and I personally plan to upgrade to at least a 12" at the earliest opportunity (i.e., as soon as my grizzly dies).  Planer, a DW735 is more than adequate and may never need to be upgraded.  But bottom line, I think a 6" heavy duty floor model jointer and a benchtop planer are absolute bare minimum 100% essential machines if you plan to be serious about woodworking.  Dust collector:  harbor freight is fine if all you care about is keeping your shop clean.  Good luck using a jointer or planer without one. 

Very very very close to being essentials in isolation, but you absolutely must have one or the other:

Bandsaw and tablesaw.  I personally would rather have a table saw if I could only have one, but many (most?) disagree.  But again, if you're serious, you absolutely need one or the other.  

Not strictly essential, but damn close:

Router table, SCMS.  You don't need a SCMS if you have a table saw and crosscut sled, but it's still nice to have for longer pieces.  If you don't have a table saw then you need a SCMS.  Router table isn't strictly necessary but it's so versatile and makes so many things easier that it's damn near essential.

Nice to have 1:

Tracksaw

Drum sander

Lathe (I'm talking about furniture building here, obviously if you're a turner then this is essential)

HCM

Nice to have 2:

Domino

MFT

Drill Press

Spray unit

Pure Luxury:

Pretty much anything else festool

Pretty much any other stationary machine

Again this is my own personal taxonomy, I'm sure there's plenty to quibble over and plenty of personal preference imbued there.

[Denette]

If you're planning and setting up the shop, have you thought about what you're doing for a workbench? If you decided to do something like the guild Roubo or the Benchcrafted shaker bench, you would probably want to budget space and $ for the wood and hardware. That could easily eat up $1.5-2k. 

 

This, this, this. The importance of a reliable way to hold pieces securely while you work them cannot be stressed enough. Don't assume that all your cash will need to go into tools as such - shop fixtures are important too!

[drzaius]

Even if you're an all out power tool woodworker, a good solid bench is still right at the top of things you need to have.

[Guest]

I just don't find myself needing 7-8" wide furniture parts all that much.   Either i need narrow parts rails, stiles, legs, etc or I want 10" wide+ parts for panel glue ups.  Hence my statement that an 8" jointer is not that much more valuable than a 6".    I'd love a 12" jointer, but an 8" just does not excite me. 

But I do mostly agree with Brian's classifications. 

 

[Chet]

1 hour ago, Ronn W said:

ability to drill true holes and repeat holes is nice

The ability to do this came in to play quite a bit on the Barrister book case that I did.  But it wouldn't take a big floor model just a rinky dink bench top model will work.

[Cygnus A]

2 hours ago, bgreenb said:

Yeah, I'd definitely not call drill press a "must" but I'd also value it more highly than Mike does.  It's definitely a "must" for certain projects (Roubo), but that's the case for almost any tool.  

As a general matter, I fall pretty much on the side of Mike in the overall discussion.  I think dropping a pretty vast sum like 20k all at once to fill your shop up is probably foolhardy.  I think you're better off spending some of it on the absolute essentials (more below), building some projects, and then spending more to complement with the nonessential tools once you know a little more where your interests are going and what types of projects you like to build.  It would be a shame to spend almost a grand on a fuji sprayer and then find out you really love hand applying ARS or you only like building small pieces where the sprayer is almost certainly overkill.

Here's my own personal taxonomy.  Note that I don't include any handheld tools (routers, drills/drivers, ROS, etc., because they're staples and, even though you can definitely run up a bill buying them, they cost very little in the context of woodworking tools).  

Absolute, no question, 100% essentials:

Jointer, planer, dust collector.  For the jointer, this is one of my rare disagreements with @Mike. - I'd go 8" minimum and I personally plan to upgrade to at least a 12" at the earliest opportunity (i.e., as soon as my grizzly dies).  Planer, a DW735 is more than adequate and may never need to be upgraded.  But bottom line, I think a 6" heavy duty floor model jointer and a benchtop planer are absolute bare minimum 100% essential machines if you plan to be serious about woodworking.  Dust collector:  harbor freight is fine if all you care about is keeping your shop clean.  Good luck using a jointer or planer without one. 

Very very very close to being essentials in isolation, but you absolutely must have one or the other:

Bandsaw and tablesaw.  I personally would rather have a table saw if I could only have one, but many (most?) disagree.  But again, if you're serious, you absolutely need one or the other.  

Not strictly essential, but damn close:

Router table, SCMS.  You don't need a SCMS if you have a table saw and crosscut sled, but it's still nice to have for longer pieces.  If you don't have a table saw then you need a SCMS.  Router table isn't strictly necessary but it's so versatile and makes so many things easier that it's damn near essential.

Nice to have 1:

Tracksaw

Drum sander

Lathe (I'm talking about furniture building here, obviously if you're a turner then this is essential)

HCM

Nice to have 2:

Domino

MFT

Drill Press

Spray unit

Pure Luxury:

Pretty much anything else festool

Pretty much any other stationary machine

Again this is my own personal taxonomy, I'm sure there's plenty to quibble over and plenty of personal preference imbued there.

Very nice write up. I appreciate it.

[bgreenb]

2 hours ago, Mike. said:

I just don't find myself needing 7-8" wide furniture parts all that much.   Either i need narrow parts rails, stiles, legs, etc or I want 10" wide+ parts for panel glue ups.  Hence my statement that an 8" jointer is not that much more valuable than a 6".    I'd love a 12" jointer, but an 8" just does not excite me. 

Yeah I hear you, and I don't think your argument is without merit.  And in fact if I had my entire shop erased right now and were starting from scratch I would pay up for 12" without thinking.  That said, I'd offer two arguments in favor of the 8" over 6:

1.  As you note, it doesn't really come into play for anything except panel glue ups.  Most full size furniture requires at least one significant width panel.  I'll call them "case panels", which would typically be 15-20" and "table top panels" which would be anywhere from 15-40" and up.  To me, an 8" jointer allows you to make those case panels with 2 boards instead of 3 and the top panels with 3-4 boards instead of 4-5 boards.  This is incredibly valuable to me.  The 8" jointer plus the "jointer trick" letting the board overhang allows you to flatten a 10" board with essentially a single plane iron width fairly easily, and that means pretty much all case panels are 2 boards, which again I think is very valuable.  A 6" jointer even with the jointer trick you're still gonna need 3 boards for most case panels and almost all table tops.

2.  This only applies to rough lumber, and IIRC, you buy most of yours s3s, so this likely doesn't apply to you...but when you have furniture parts < 6" (rails, stiles, legs, etc.), it's nice to be able to flatten the entire board from which you're pulling those parts so that you can clearly see all the grain and get the absolute best piece possible, rather than having to bandsaw out rough parts and thus limit yourself a priori.  

But yes, I do agree that the jump from 8-12 is orders of magnitude more significant than the jump from 6 to 8.

[bgreenb]

6 minutes ago, Cygnus A said:

Very nice write up. I appreciate it.

 

6 minutes ago, Cygnus A said:

Very nice write up. I appreciate it.

No problem.  To give you a more pointed response to your original question, I think all your selections in your initial post range from "defensible" to "excellent."  My only quibbles:

You're nuts to buy the PM2244 over the supermax, as others have noted in this thread.

Router table:  get the incra setup.  Happy to provide more detail if you'd like, but I've been through two router setups and a lot of research and IMO the incra setup is head and shoulders above the rest.

Bandsaw:  tons of people are happy with the laguna 14/12 and absolutely think that's a defensible choice.  But if I were only going to get one bandsaw I'd probably want something bigger, like the PM1500, or even bigger than that (full disclosure:  i own a PM1500 and a separate rockwell 14" bandsaw for tight curves).  

Jointer:  I would consider paying up for a 12", for reasons I stated above.

But again I think all your specific choices are absolutely defensible.

[Cygnus A]

3 hours ago, bgreenb said:

Router table:  get the incra setup.  Happy to provide more detail if you'd like, but I've been through two router setups and a lot of research and IMO the incra setup is head and shoulders above the rest.

 

Which incra parts specifically? Entire table / fence lift? I already have the Jessem router lift built into my Sawstop extension wing. I will likely move it to a standalone table and/or built into a torsion box outfeed / assembly table.

[bgreenb]

2 hours ago, Cygnus A said:

Which incra parts specifically? Entire table / fence lift? I already have the Jessem router lift built into my Sawstop extension wing. I will likely move it to a standalone table and/or built into a torsion box outfeed / assembly table.

If you have the Jessem lift, you're halfway there already.  The Incra lift is actually made by Jessem - it's almost the same exact lift just painted a different color.  Strictly speaking, the incra version is better because the insert plates are magnetic and automatically sit flush with the table, whereas when I had the jessem lift, I could never get those red plastic inserts to sit completely flush.  Not worth swapping out the lift if you already have it though.  The rest of the Jessem stuff leaves a lot to be desired though.  That was the setup I had before, and I got rid of it and got the Incra.  Here's what I have and would recommend:

Fence:  http://www.incrementaltools.com/INCRA_LS_Super_System_17_Range_p/ls17wfncsys.htm

Table:   http://www.incrementaltools.com/24_x_36_Offset_Router_Table_Top_p/rt2436os.htm

You can use your lift with that.  I personally built a cart for mine rather than buy the stand, which has worked out fantastic for storage and portability.  But that's up to you.  I don't have a photo handy, but I 100% direct copied mine from @Eric..  E, can you post a photo of your/my router table setup?

[Eric.]

 

 

 

 

I've long since removed the fan.  Ineffectual and unnecessary anyway.  The airflow from the DC provides plenty of airflow to keep the router cool and move the dust to the port.  There's a 4" port on the back of the cabinet and a "ramp" leading down to it.

[bgreenb]

Thanks E. Yeah I built basically an exact copy of that except with fewer drawers and not as...pretty

 

Looks like Eric got the bigger table, OP, so consider the size before you purchase. 

[Cliff]

I think there are a ton of good points made on here. For me, I gotta agree with the idea that dropping 20k right away is going to get you things you may not really need for years. I'm pretty good at this. That's why i'm just now using tools I've had for 12 months. I got another several that I won't be ready to use for another year. And things I really need I can't really afford because I spent all my billions on that other stuff. I think if I had to start over I'd get a 20" planer, 12" jointer, a sawstop PCS, festool track saw, laguna bandsaw, drill press, domino, couple of festool sanders and like 2 routers. I'm not even sure I'd get a router table because I just don't use it that often. I'd probably try to build one. I'd still get my LN block plane, but thats it. I have still not used the LAJ and router plane, barely used the shoulder plane. 

Personally I'd still get the HF dust collector, super dust deputy and a wrynn filter. I do most of my shop stuff with the garage door wide open, and the wind blows pretty often. Catching every speck of dust is a luxury for me.

[Coop]

2 hours ago, Eric. said:

 

 

 

 

I've long since removed the fan.  Ineffectual and unnecessary anyway.  The airflow from the DC provides plenty of airflow to keep the router cool and move the dust to the port.  There's a 4" port on the back of the cabinet and a "ramp" leading down to it.

I figured you as a Starbucks kind of guy and not Folgers? Kudos

[Eric.]

1 minute ago, K Cooper said:

I figured you as a Starbucks kind of guy and not Folgers? Kudos

I hate Folgers but I choked it down for years.  I'm kind of off-and-on with coffee these days.  Usually just hit QT in the morning.  I think all coffee is basically nasty to one degree or another.  I ain't payin' five bucks for something that I won't enjoy when I can pay two bucks instead.

[krtwood]

Won't somebody tell this guy to buy a shaper? 

[jmaichel]

I would think it is reasonable to say that you enjoy woodworking on some level seeing how you already have some tools and already plunked over the money for a Sawstop. I see no problem with going all in if you have the means to do so but like Eric said 20k goes quickly. I am mostly a hand tool guy these days but do have experience with machines, so take what I say with a grain of salt. My recommendations are what I would do if I was in you situation.

12" Grizzly Jointer G0609X -3K (the 8" pm is tempting but for about the same price I would rather have a 12" machine.)

15" PM planer with the helical head 3.1K (I have seen mixed reviews on a lot of the Grizzly Planers, I would rather go with the PM. I know you already have a planer but I assume it's a benchtop model. I just don't see the point of keeping a benchtop model when you have 20K to spend on new tools. It is honestly one of the most used tools in any shop.)

PM1500 3K (Again when you have 20K to spend on tools the 14-12 just seems to big of a compromise. I would much rather spend money here and get something that I know can handle heavy resawing.)

Router table setup 1.5K roughly ( I like the Incra setup like Eric built for his shop.)

DC 3.5K (I don't know enough about DC to make a good choice here but I would budget between 3-4K for the entire setup)

Drill Press $700-$800 (I would consider a Jet or Grizzly instead of opting for the 1.4K PM2800B. If you are going to build a bench they are worth they are worth their weight in gold. I built a lot my bench without one and wish I hadn't.) 

Festool TS-55, CT26, Domino, ETS EC 150, accessories -3.5K-4K

Bosch 12" Miter Saw- $600

This leaves around 1K for mobile bases and other accessories. I would then spend the better part of a year building a solid bench and several other pieces of shop furniture. I would then reaccess my tool needs and consider adding drum sander and possibly a 14" bandsaw and maybe a couple other smaller tools. I have several hand tools already, so at this point, I would be done buying tools and just replace when required. I would hope that all the big machines would last me for the next 25-30 years. At this point, I would be between 64-69 years old and ready to stop woodworking altogether. 

That was fun! Good luck!

[shaneymack]

^^^ This is fantastic. Perfect plan of action, i couldn't agree more.

 

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[Gixxerjoe04]

Even if I had 20k to drop to revamp my shop, I probably still wouldn't spend the $1,500-2k to build a roubo, my 2x4 base mdf topped outfeed table works pretty good for $50 haha.  Of course I'd probably make it a little nicer, but I guess I'm cheap and see the roubo as a luxury and not a necessity. 

[bgreenb]

1 hour ago, Gixxerjoe04 said:

, I probably still wouldn't waste the $1,500-2k to build a roubo, 

Just when I thought it might be a dull day at WTO

I'd give up or downgrade any tool I have before I'd give up the Roubo (assuming it's a question of cost).