"Need" vs. "Want" - Tool Buying

[Dave Avery]

Good evening all,

Not sure what I'm looking for here, but here goes anyway........

Bought 200bf of very rough sawn lumber earlier this month, and after planing my way through 100bf VERY slowly with my Dewalt lunchbox planer, I decided that I NEED a new planer. And while I'm getting a new planer, why not a new wide jointer, too, becuase I really NEED to be face jointing the boards before planing. And since I really NEED a jointer that's as wide as my planer, how about a combination j/p machine. And while I'm upgrading the jointer and planer, I really NEED a new table saw that's as good as the rest of my equipment. And with only a small additional expenditure, I can add a shaper and mortiser and get a 5 in 1 combination machine.

You can easily spend $10K with this type of rationale. Anyone care to guess how much s2s lumber I can buy for the difference in price between rough and s2s before I spend $10K (or $2k, for that matter)? It's starting to sound like I WANT all this equipment more than I NEED this equipment.

A little about me.... hobbiest, busy job, 3 kids (12, 4, 2) - relatively little shop time. I use 200bf of lumber each year, at the most. Time is more important than money, not that money is unimportant.

For anyone who has read this far and cares, I guess what I'd like to know is.......when you upgrade equipment, are you doing it because you NEED new equipment or because you WANT new equipment.

Thanks. Dave.

[Dick Parr]

I guess since I don't woodwork for a living, I want more then need. Unless the wife wants me to build something that I don't have a tool to build it with. Then I need it! :D

[Tom Peterson]

Typically the LOML comes up with an idea that calls for some new tool or upgrade that I need. (capacity, accuracy, or capability) I can spin it almost any way. The only upgrade I did was to toss my compound miter saw for a slider. Next will come the table saw contractor to cabinet. I plan about 40% of what I do and that darn planner won't fail yet. LOL

[Jim Becker]

Wants can sometimes turn into needs as your projects develop. By example, if you "like/prefer/want" to work with wider solid stock you "need" to have machinery that allows you to make it flat and true while leaving it wide! Yes, you can rip them down or hope that they are flat, but... :D I also plan on doing woodworking for the rest of my life. I've been fortunate enough to be able to satisfy the "want" part now when I'm young and am thankful for it. If I ever get to retire someday...it probably will not be as easy to feed the tool habit.

[Bill Grumbine]

Hi Dave

I went this route just a few months ago. I suspect that need and want were probably balanced fairly well on this one. I currently have a 10" Delta unisaw - an old one, 1954. The thing is a tank, the fence is accurate to 0.0015", and I can get glue joints off my Forrest WWII. I have a Rockwell 8" jointer, 1971, again a tank, and it does a great job. Then I have a DeWalt planer. It does a good job for that which it was designed. I get good accuracy and good results. I thought I was at the top of the pile. But I am growing in my business, and I looked at the combo machines as a way to streamline my operation and gain room in the shop by making the machine footprint smaller.

By moving to a combo machine, I gain several things. Time spent in the shop will be more productive because I can work faster. For me that means money. For you that would me more things out of your limited shop time to justify that time, and more satisfaction in your hobby.

I am gaining capacity. That means better machining capabilities, more options open to me in the way I handle materials through the shop - I can hardly wait to run my first board through the sliding format table, which on my machine is going to be 8.5 ft long. No more repeated passed on a jointer, no clumsy jigs to run it through the TS. Just clamp it onto the table and WHOOSH, a straight edge in one pass, on boards up to 8' or more!

The jointer is also a dream. Stick the blades in, hit the go button, and they are aligned! No more fiddling, saying bad words, and ending up with little cuts on my fingers while I spend an hour getting the new blades into the conventional blade holder on my jointer and getting them straight.

I get mobility. If I need to move the machine out of the way to do a large assembly, it will move faster and easier than I could ever move my current saw, and then I can move it back without losing any setups. Along with that, ripping, planing and jointing are all aligned in one corridor in the shop, instead of the three they now require. That also creates a lot of space that can be used in other ways.

The Minimax was the best deal for 10k or less. If you have questions, I would be glad to talk to you more about it.

Good luck with your hunt. :cool:

Bill

[Tony Falotico]

Heres my take: First off, I do this for FUN, a hobby, a way to escape from the daily routine. I'm a traffic engineer working for the state DOT by trade, that's what puts bread on the table, pays the mortgage, etc. Therefore, it's hard to justify the cost of high end equipment and/or specialty tools when it is strictly 'toy' and not a 'tool' used to put food on the table. IF I were using this equipment to feed the family, I wouldn't hesitate a moment on high end equipment.

OK -- when I need to do a repair, be it auto, household, or to make a piece of furniture for the house or anything else I would otherwise have to buy, then buying a specialty or high end tool with $$'s saved by doing it myself is justified. Kinda like getting the product and/or service with a 'free toy' to keep as a bonus.

Hope this makes sense, that's the way I look at it, and it works with LOML! :D

[John Preston]

Here's the way I see it.

I go to the shop to enjoy myself. I'm not particularly fond of messing around making jigs, tuning my machines repetitively, having to make 8 passes on a board to plane it, or emptying the DC bag on a 1 hp collector while planing 150 bd ft of rough wood. I've done, and am sometimes still forced to do all those things.

I found all that out the hard way. If you consider that you have invested 10K in your shop, but find yourself only spending 10 hours a week in the shop because you just can't look forward to ripping up those 14" boards to joint them, then having to run them through your planer umpteen times, sell your stuff for 3k, come up with 7K, and enjoy 15 hours instead of being annoyed for 10.

That is of course if you can afford it. From what I've seen, hobby shops are often better equipped than many small professional shops. I worked with a company that built kitchen cabinets for years on a Delta contractor's saw with a 52 in besemeyer. They literally built a million dollars worth of stuff on that saw. They still have it. When I saw them a couple of years ago, then had upgraded to a PM 66, and they were cutting probably 20-30 sheets of plywood a day. Trust me, if I were cutting a tenth of that, I would have an 8' sliding panel saw.

They had an old makita 12" lunchbox planer, and had just upgraded to a W&H moulder for planing and moulding.

If you're going to do woodworking for 20 more years, do you want 20 more years of learning new curse words, or 20 years of enjoyment.

This spiel is worth exactly what you paid for it.

[Mark Singer]

Dave very good question!
I have great machinery....but its not the latest and the greatest. I feel I never have to upgrade either. I just came back from the WW Show in Ontario, Ca. and all the sliding tables and combo machines make my stuff look old! So what...I know how to use it! It is the same stuff that the great woodworkers use! It does what I need it to do to make terrific furniture! That should be the criteria... I have a Powermatic 66 TS. (I don't need a sliding table) I have an 81/2" Hitachi CMS (very accurite) A Jet 15" planer ...also very good. and a Delta DJ20 8" jointer... super machine. I have the Aggazani 20" BS and a Jet 14" BS . A delta drill press, The General 24" Drum sander,Oneida 2 hp cyclone. A Diffenbach large bench. The Jet combo sander and small spindle sander. all of that stuff is somewhere around 12 grand. Not bad for excellent stuff. I move up from smaller equip. in steps over the years...now I feel I can build virtually anything with this equipment and that is a great feeling! A friend of mine teaches woodworking at Palomar and I asked him about individual vs. combo machines. He said they have a couple of combos there and the students and teachers perfer the individual machines and the combos really don't get much use. I would try to collect quality machines of a decent size...8" jointer,20" bandsaw, 3HP cabinet saw , 15" planer (3HP) and a good dust collection system. You will feel satisfied and the tool quest journey will end. I think the name brands are worth the money! I have owned and used the other stuff and it is close but not the same... That is why they test better in the publications. I really want to feel that I am a large part of the work...I don't want it too automated ...less is often a lot more. I don't want a jig to make dovetails...they are not nearly as nice as I can make by hand...for example. The show today was full of guys slicing and dicing on there little gagets...it really dosen't do much for me.
I probably need to also state that I have made every piece of furniture in my home....so I do use my tools...There is one sofa and one lounge chair that I didn't make and that is it! I made all the full size Mahogony doors jambs and did every bit of trim and finish in the home. I made all the cabinets with the exception of the kitchen...and I made a few in the kitchen as well. If you look at the money I saved it more than paid for my machinery. It is good therapy as well...no money was spent on a shrink... If your going to use it ...it is nice to have quality stuff . The machinery has depreciated somewhat ...but if I decided to make a change a PM66 is still worth 75% of what I paid for it 10 years ago! That could probably not be said of a lesser name saw...it is worth it to buy good and use it.

[Roger Barga]

I am clearly in the "want" category when it comes to tool buying. As I was growing up I saw my father build furniture and refurnish several of our houses using the simplest of tools. But what he lacked in tools, he more than made up for with talent and ingenuity and his projects still look good to this day. As for myself, with a growing collection of Fein and Festool products and specialized jigs and power tools, I'm doing my best to compensate and having a good time using these toys.

best, roger


Good evening all,

Not sure what I'm looking for here, but here goes anyway........

Bought 200bf of very rough sawn lumber earlier this month, and after planing my way through 100bf VERY slowly with my Dewalt lunchbox planer, I decided that I NEED a new planer. And while I'm getting a new planer, why not a new wide jointer, too, becuase I really NEED to be face jointing the boards before planing. And since I really NEED a jointer that's as wide as my planer, how about a combination j/p machine. And while I'm upgrading the jointer and planer, I really NEED a new table saw that's as good as the rest of my equipment. And with only a small additional expenditure, I can add a shaper and mortiser and get a 5 in 1 combination machine.

You can easily spend $10K with this type of rationale. Anyone care to guess how much s2s lumber I can buy for the difference in price between rough and s2s before I spend $10K (or $2k, for that matter)? It's starting to sound like I WANT all this equipment more than I NEED this equipment.

A little about me.... hobbiest, busy job, 3 kids (12, 4, 2) - relatively little shop time. I use 200bf of lumber each year, at the most. Time is more important than money, not that money is unimportant.

For anyone who has read this far and cares, I guess what I'd like to know is.......when you upgrade equipment, are you doing it because you NEED new equipment or because you WANT new equipment.

Thanks. Dave.

[scott spencer]

It sure seems easier to justify that new purchase when I rationalize that "want" into "need"! I'm just a hobbyist with a dinky shop. I'm still using most of my original tools. My TS was a Delta 36-600 that was small and a little light for bigger pieces. A new one would be safer and more versatile, but the old one did cut wood.

I am so much happier with the new GI 50-185 saw! It even cuts wood like the old one did!

[Mark Bachler]

Wants can sometimes turn into needs as your projects develop. By example, if you "like/prefer/want" to work with wider solid stock you "need" to have machinery that allows you to make it flat and true while leaving it wide! Yes, you can rip them down or hope that they are flat, but... :D I also plan on doing woodworking for the rest of my life. I've been fortunate enough to be able to satisfy the "want" part now when I'm young and am thankful for it. If I ever get to retire someday...it probably will not be as easy to feed the tool habit.


Like Jim said. I have been wood working for other people for almost 30 years. I wanted to set my shop up for retirement (15 years) and have machines that would not only last but also be user friendly as I got older. I stashed for a lot of years & borrowed the rest but now I have the shop that I've alwaysed dreamed of. except for that wide belt sander, and that bigger planer, and etc. etc........

[David LaRue]

Dave,

Good question. Personally, I have never used a combo machine, nor do I have the room for one. They sure do look cool. But, I do have some great equipment, PM66, Delta 14" BS, 13" 2 speed, 8" Jointer ect... And I've still got a lot to learn on on the equipment I have.

Sure, I would like to be less frustrated with the wood prep side, and I could "justify" the need for new stuff, but right now it would be a want rather than a need. I "needed" to upgrade from my Craftsman TS, because I was frustrated with it. By the time I got it right with that saw, I would looked at it and say I could have bought a cabinet saw for what I put in this. So, I feel your pain.

I went through the same thing with a convertiable Mustang GT. I didn't just want one I "needed" one. :D I have had several since, and was very happy that I did. But now I have a wife, kids, car seats, and need to haul wood, sleds, bikes, Burley's ... so a convertible is now a want, rather than a need. So, as priorities change, so do you needs.

A never ending question! Good luck.

Dave

[Ed Falis]

I'm in it as a hobby, though a useful one. Started about a year and a half ago. So, for me it's mostly want more than need. And a "better" tool often enhances the pleasure of the hobby.

That said, I'm pretty hard on myself when it comes to granting "wants" - been wanting a jointer for a year now, and haven't gotten one yet (though I picked up a jointer plane for the interim). It's a matter of balance and of individual values and goals.

- Ed

[Daniel Rabinovitz]

Dave
To address the over 8" wide jointer comment
As the board gets wider than 8 inches and being "young" - you might be able to hold it down as the three knives kerchunk, kerchunk, kerchuck it as you try to push it over the knives. This takes some real strength. It seems that 8 inches is about as wide as anyone wants to fight with, in holding down a board on top of three rotating knives.

Now me, myself and I - with the flabby arms and no strength - a 6 inch jointer is about as wide as I want to try to hold down a 6 wide board over the rotating knives.

Now we could buy a power feed. He-he!

I had an 8 inch jointer at work for 30 years and you ought to have senn the dancing boards - like a machine gun. Burrrrrrrrrrrrrrp.
Daniel

[Dave Brown]

I can't speak for the pros, only a an avid ww'er. I WANT Tim Tool man theory , bigger is better, More Horsepower!, but realiy of kids and $, I tried to get good old iron and rebuild as needed. I upgrade when I NEED and am unable to do a job, like resawing stuff at work, finally led me to ordering a new, big band saw. , I had always LUSTED after one, but it was not till I NEEDED 1 that I could justify to myself, let alone da wife!
Good luck seperanting want (lust) from need! Take care!

[Mike Evertsen]

I only want one thing before I take my final breath that is to have a well equiped woodworking shop. I just paid off my truck I could buy another truck or take that payment money add it to the money I already spend on woodworking and upgrade some of my tools,,I'll be driving my Explorer a couple more years,,,,and new tools will be coming over the next 12 months,,,,

[Dave Avery]

Thanks guys - lotsa good thoughts. Thanks for taking the time to confuse me further :)

Bill, thanks for the PM - I'm going to take you up on your offer to chat after I get my thoughts organized.

And finally, to the 2 wiseguys who availed themselves of the last poll option, Ken told me who you are....... and I know where to find you :)

[Bob Marino]

Dave,


Since I am in the hobbyiest categaory, I would say as a generalization, that it is a more want than need sitaution. However, as others have said, I find it is much more of a pleasant experience working working with the better tools...and probably safer too. Even for we nonpros, whose shop time is not directly related to income, time is more effiently used with the better tools; less cleanup time, more accurate cuts, etc.

Bob