Small-space woodworking: what power tools are most useful for neanderthalers?

[Gene Davis]

That is, if you use any at all. I am wrestling with having to go small, into the SW Florida garage I'll have when we move there. I have discussed in other threads here the situation with humidity and temperature, so this new thread is to address the kit of tools, bench, and storage for a small-footprint hobby.

So, unless you are a total samurai, and are completely off-grid, tell us what few minimum power tools make most sense to someone wanting to do modestly-sized projects, such as casework and furniture.

I own a bench I made, just like shown at this page. https://www.popularwoodworking.com/projects/toms-torsion-box-workbench. It is a heavy monster and has served me well for almost 20 years. I'd like to take it and have it be the main piece in my small space.

I own a cordless drill and impact driver, and those have got to remain in the kit. I also have a Festool Domino 500 and the RO125 5" sander plus the vacuum that connects to anything Festool. Everything I've made since I got these two tools three years ago has been done using them, so they're keepers.

So what else? I sold the planer, the jointer, and the bandsaw yesterday, and the contractor-style tablesaw is going to be sold, even if I need to reduce the price to almost nothing. There's simply no room.

I own a jigsaw, three routers, a small benchtop router table, a belt sander that's a wreck but works, a power planer, a biscuit joiner, and a circular saw dedicated to track-cutting, along with the track set. If I get clever with overhead storage in the small space I'll have, I think I'll have room to store these things for having when needed.

Oh, and clamps. I've a bunch but there will be plenty of wall space for hanging them out of the way.

[steven c newman]

The Dungeon Shop has a Drill Press, a Grinder, A sander(3) and a Bandsaw. A circular saw does come in handy. used to have a lathe...it has since died. I still keep a "tailed" router around, for things my handtools can't quite do.

[Jim Koepke]

For my money the bandsaw is the most helpful. The jigsaw you mentioned may be able to take its place for some tasks. Any serious re-sawing is where a good bandsaw is useful.

A lathe is also helpful for legs, spindles and tool handles.

Other than that an all hand tool shop is able to do most work quite well.

My shop has few power tools. The router is seldom used these days, last time was about 5 years ago. My drill press and De Walt hand drill get used often as do the lathe and bandsaw. Less used is my belt sander and the random orbital sander. My circular saw hasn't been used in years.

Recently my old bandsaw was replaced with a newer model that can re-saw a touch more than 12". It has been love since first use.

jtk

[Frederick Skelly]

If you're going to work with sheet goods, your circ saw and track should be a lot of help. (You might find you want to upgrade to a full up tracksaw downstream.) If you want to work solid wood, I'd try to fit in a small bandsaw for ripping solid stock, and put it on wheels. If you are going to need to thickness your material, I'd try to squeeze in a lunchbox planer (to avoid having to plane to thickness by hand). Or buy S4S lumber if you're gonna work in standard thicknesses (3/4").

For jointing and finishing, hand planes are your friend. For moldings, keep one of your routers. Else, explore using molding planes - I do both.

Thoughts on things you might not need to keep:
* If you have a domino, can you ditch the biscuit jointer - I always thought they did the same sort of things, with the domino being far better?
* If you have hand planes, you could ditch the belt sander.
* Do you really need 3 routers? Is one sufficient for what you build?
* If you get good with planes, you could conceivably sell the power sander and vacuum.

All this is what I would do - your mileage may vary.

Best of luck on your move!
Fred

[Gene Davis]

The money I got for the stationary tools already sold is burning a hole in my pocket, and I was thinking, I know this is heresy here in the 19th century, of the Festool MFT/3 table with one of their tracksaws, and ditch the Porter Cable and EZSmart track setup I have now.

And yes, the biscuit joiner is going. The Domino took over the place when it came in the door.

[Steve Tripp]

I have a bandsaw and circular saw that I use fairly often, but other than that I have a benchtop planer, benchtop drill press and scrollsaw that see very little use.

[Christopher Charles]

Hello Gene,

What kind of work do you aspire to do?

If I were downsizing, the last thing to leave the shop would be my bandsaw (it is 18” and a good one) and a planer. Well those would go before my bench... And I’d be happy to sell my ts before my scroll saw, but that’s bc I do some veneer work.

So again depends on what is important to you...

Best
C

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Gene

The essential power tools, in order:

1. 8" Half-speed bench grinder: hollow grind all your blades and make it easier to keep everything sharp. Get a 180 grit CBN wheel if you can.

2. Floor standing drill press. This takes up very little space and is great, not only for drilling holes accurately, but polishing and buffing (I use it a lot for that).

3. Bandsaw: Ripping boards. Resawing, obviously, but together with a jointer plane, you can thickness your boards much more easily.

4. Festool tracksaw: crosscutting with a small footprint. Festool as it has good dust collection.

A power router is a wonderful tool, just noisy and messy (I do not use one much, but they are wonderful for morticing). Do not reject the ROS, either. There are times when you will find them the preferred tool. However, as soon as you use these, you need a dust collector. Incidentally, the Domino is fantastic (I used the 500 to build a kitchen this year), but do not throw away your biscuit cutter - the domino creates a deep mortice and tenon, whereas a biscuit is shallow and wide. That is better for mitre joints (closer to a spline).

5. Dust collector: my choice is Festool CT26E. I have had a Fein in past years, but the Festool is better. Hepa filters are not negotiable.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[john zulu]

The Dungeon Shop has a Drill Press, a Grinder, A sander(3) and a Bandsaw. A circular saw does come in handy. used to have a lathe...it has since died. I still keep a "tailed" router around, for things my handtools can't quite do.

I have a similar workshop too!

[john zulu]

I am not sure of the projects you are under taking. What size do you have for the new location workshop?

[Prashun Patel]

I think a bandsaw first. It is versatile, and well suited for a small space. Put it on wheels.

You may find later that prepping stock later is a big pain. In that case you may look at some combo machines.

[John Llewellyn]

When I down sized from a 30' x 25' garage to a 12' x 14' room in my basement I found I had to down size my equipment size and amount of tools needed for my choice of projects.

I believe the right tools are the ones that allow me to do the woodworking projects I choose. I no longer have a table saw, router table, a full size CNC machine (we built), a thickness sander (we built) and a full size dust system.

What I kept was thickness planner, band saw, miter saw, 4" jointer, table top bench sander, smaller CNC machine (we built) small dust system, and an assortment of hand tools.

We have the ability to get most stock cut to size by a local wood shop. I don't believe in keeping tools we use once a year. I also found jigs, that can get you through the once a year chores.

I guess a shop is best laid out for the job you choose to do. I have just retired from my daytime job andl make guitars, boxes, toys, signage, as a hobby.

Good luck on down sizing, it was a chore that I had to do alto of "what am I going to build", sounds like you are in the same boat.

John

[Robert Engel]

I would help do know the dimensions of your workspace.

90% of what I do is casework, furniture and cabinets.

Hard to advise because it depends on your methods of work. For example, I mill my own lumber, something you will no longer be able to do, which IMO is going to be a pretty big factor for you. So I can't imagine ww'ing without a planer and jointer.

That being said, you'll be working with surface lumber :(

IMO a tablesaw is an absolute must for any ww'ing shop. Other than I think the bare minimum is a bandsaw, drill press, track saw (or some type of track system), hand held router, jigsaw, sanders and various drill/drivers.

But then again, it all depends on your methods of work. I seems you are limiting yourself to hand tools.

[Matt Lau]

Why not get a tracksaw and build a Paulk workbench?

With your skills, it should be easy.
Also, it's much less expensive and more flexible than a MFT (I'd imagine, I don't have one).

In terms of tracksaws--I really like my Makita. I've heard that some guys didn't like their TS55 because it doesn't have as much power.

In terms of tools, the ones I'd least like to give up:
1. Drill press
2. Bandsaw

But then again, I mainly do smaller projects. The Drill press is very handy for dimensioning wood using a Safety planer or Gilbert Disk and sandpaper.
The bandsaw saves on much grunt work. I think Stan's is a lunchbox planer...but your planex probably works fine.


The money I got for the stationary tools already sold is burning a hole in my pocket, and I was thinking, I know this is heresy here in the 19th century, of the Festool MFT/3 table with one of their tracksaws, and ditch the Porter Cable and EZSmart track setup I have now.

And yes, the biscuit joiner is going. The Domino took over the place when it came in the door.

[Matt Lau]

btw, how small is your space?
What projects do you want to do? Casework? Guitars?

If you're festool-based, I can not imagine a better optimized system for your work.
The MFT is probably a pass though, the MFTC and Paulk Bench seem much better designs IMHO.

[John Sanford]

I've given a fair amount of consideration to how I would outfit a shop in the bay of a toyhauler. For stationary/benchtop tools I came up with a quality 14" bandsaw, a lunchbox planer, a drill press. The flexibility of the bandsaw gets it a spot. The accuracy of the DP and the sweat savings of the lunchbox planer earn them tickets. Total footprint on those is about 8 sq. feet. I'd go with a Paulk style workbench topping my motorcycle lift (voila, adjustable height work bench w/ some weight), tracksaw, router with drop-in router table, high end QUIET vac with cyclone and ROS. Portable hand tools involve little space, so I'd have what I have now, just not as many. I'd have a smallish, QUIET compressor for pneumatic fastening AND motorcycle stuff. There's a very high probably that I'd do a flip-top cart for the lunchbox planer, and have the Rigid Oscillating Belt/Spindle sander on it, although it may end up being the home for a bench grinder instead/also. A nice good sized (36-44") mechanics tool chest combo would house most/all the hand tools and portable power tools. I'd probably try to figure out whether I could shoehorn a lathe (full size or Midi with bed extension) in.... Pretty much everything except the drill press would be on wheels, and I might very well swap out the floor standing DP for a benchtop model that can go on a cart, simply to get the storage space of the cart.

What would be "lost" relative to my current shop is the cabinet saw with sliding table, the assembly table, the rolling cart, the stack of sawponies, the SCMS & cart, the jointer/planer, the rolling clamp rack, the lumber storage, the monster bandsaw and monster split top Roubo. Most duplicate power and hand tools wouldn't make the toy hauler, nor would the welder, big honkin' vintage vise and most other metal workin' stuff. I would almost certainly add a Domino.

One thing to keep in mind is that generally "taking up minimum space" and "organized for maximum work efficiency" are diametrically opposed. Hopefully you've got a fair to excellent grasp on where you are most comfortable on the spectrum between the two, as well as how your space will relate to the spectrum.

[Matt Lau]

I would sort of agree, but have always been working in very small spaces (under my desk at dorm room, or on my bedroom floor).
My current power tool space isn't super big (it's a 1.4 car garage), but tools have filled up the area quickly.

IMHO--and how I'm planning to structure my tools--I want everything on casters, and have the heights at comfortable levels for the job.
I'd like to have the tools nestle together when stored, and pull things out as needed....sorta like this guy's apartment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB2-2j9e4co
Also, this is pretty amazing: http://www.finewoodworking.com/readerproject/2010/03/27/tokyo-dungeon-workshop

[steven c newman]

Maybe I should re-post that nickle tour of my Dungeon Shop?

[paul cottingham]

I think Dereks recommendation are spot on. I would add a planer as well.

[Stewie Simpson]

I think some of you guys need to re-read the OPs post.


I sold the planer, the jointer, and the bandsaw yesterday, and the contractor-style tablesaw is going to be sold, even if I need to reduce the price to almost nothing. There's simply no room.

[Pat Barry]

Heres all i need: Jig saw, a good circular saw, a short and long clamp on straight edge, small and large router, portable router table, battery powered drill screwdriver, ROS, shop vac, portable task light. That's it, that's all I need, oh, and this benchtop drill press, that's all I need.

[Matthew Hills]

Since you already sold your big stationary tools and you have a set of core tools, I'd recommend waiting until you get into a couple of projects in the new shop and identify the pinch points where you're wishing you had an apprentice...

matt

[Brian Holcombe]

My kit has changed a bit as a professional and cutting out some of the more time consuming areas but frankly your current set of machine tools is plenty. Spend the money burning a hole in your pocket on some good hand tools and have at it.

Don't build a gigantic workbench that consumes a good chunk of your shop and is immovable. Build a hefty, narrow but decently long workbench that can be moved or knocked down.

[Jim Koepke]

I sold the planer, the jointer, and the bandsaw yesterday, and the contractor-style tablesaw is going to be sold, even if I need to reduce the price to almost nothing. There's simply no room.


I think some of you guys need to re-read the OPs post.

Most of us likely saw that. Before mentioning the sale he also asks:


tell us what few minimum power tools make most sense to someone wanting to do modestly-sized projects, such as casework and furniture.

He didn't mention whether selling his bandsaw was a matter of not being able to move it or a space problem.

In my opinion, even in a limited space, a good bandsaw is a versatile tool worth making room to have on hand.

My old bandsaw was a 10" Rockwell with 6" re-saw ability albeit slow. It was amazing how much it could do for all of its limitations. My current bandsaw has incredible abilities compared to my old bandsaw.

In the big picture this thread will be around for a long time. Though the answers may have been directed toward Gene Davis (the OP), people other than Gene will likely stumble across this thread with the same question Gene originally asked, "what few minimum power tools make most sense to someone wanting to do modestly-sized projects, such as casework and furniture."

jtk

[Hasin Haroon]

In my hand tool shop I have a bench top drill press (wouldn't do without it) and cordless drill/driver. If I was to go hand tool only completely, I'd keep a (high quality) bandsaw and a belt sander & spindle sander, along with my aforementioned drill press.

I have a separate power tool shop, and have a fantastic table saw and a pretty good planer, both of which save me a lot of time. I don't have a jointer, as I prep one side and one edge of my stock by hand to be finished by the planer and saw.

[John Walkowiak]

If I had to choose only one power tool to break down lumber to work with hand tools it would be my Bosch jig saw. They offer a wide assortment of blades that will smoothly and quickly go thru even 2" thick hardwood. Add a straightedge and you're good for breaking down sheet goods or ripping long boards. It will scroll cut as well as a band saw. Fits in a case the size of a briefcase.
If you have the room a Shopsmith with accessory's will do a lot. Late model second hand ones are relatively cheap and plentiful.
Good luck!

[Frederick Skelly]

In my opinion, even in a limited space, a good bandsaw is a versatile tool worth making room to have on hand.

In the big picture this thread will be around for a long time. Though the answers may have been directed toward Gene Davis (the OP), people other than Gene will likely stumble across this thread with the same question Gene originally asked, "what few minimum power tools make most sense to someone wanting to do modestly-sized projects, such as casework and furniture."

jtk

Well said Jim!

[Jim Koepke]

Thanks Frederick.

jtk

[Stanley Covington]

That is, if you use any at all. I am wrestling with having to go small, into the SW Florida garage I'll have when we move there. I have discussed in other threads here the situation with humidity and temperature, so this new thread is to address the kit of tools, bench, and storage for a small-footprint hobby.

So, unless you are a total samurai, and are completely off-grid, tell us what few minimum power tools make most sense to someone wanting to do modestly-sized projects, such as casework and furniture.

I don't mean to throw cold water on the discussion, but based on the original post, and then seeing the direction the thread has taken, I must ask the blazingly obvious question: "Why any powertools?"

If you are a "Neanderthal," then by definition powertools are not necessary. Dispute this point if you want to look silly.

If you have some on the side (I have some hand powertools like everyone here), then that is fine. But consider if this forum is really the proper place for a lengthy discussion focused solely on powertools.

There are other worlds than these.

Stan

[William Fretwell]

You pretty much answer your own question in the post. Save your money for the new hand tools you find you need and the wood you can enjoy working with.

[Matt Lau]

Please do!


Maybe I should re-post that nickle tour of my Dungeon Shop?

[Jim Koepke]

Originally Posted by steven c newman
Maybe I should re-post that nickle tour of my Dungeon Shop?

Just add a post to the end of it to bump it up to the top might be easier.

jtk

[James Pallas]

I have an older delta 14" bandsaw, a benchtop drill press, cordless drill. I use these tools for furniture and boxes that I build. I dimension with hand tools from rough lumber in most cases. I do have other power tools, a dewalt 744 table saw, circular saws, corded larger drills sawzall and such. I use those tools for what I call outside work, deck repairs, house repairs. The bandsaw is the only tool I use regularly for long rips and resawing so I wouldn't be without that. The other power tools are to get me through a job I really don't enjoy doing.
Jim

[steven c newman]

Have given the post/tour a "bump".....