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Thread: New machine to me, "inexpensive" 4 sided planer/moulder

  1. #31
    Quote Originally Posted by Warren Lake View Post
    people can create markets but still your setting has more control of that than you do.

    Do you think Magnus Walker could do what he did if he stayed in England.
    I ship stuff everywhere. I can do what I do anywhere, no doubt in my mind.

  2. #32
    Quote Originally Posted by Warren Lake View Post

    Do you think Magnus Walker could do what he did if he stayed in England.
    He'd be closer to Germany?

  3. #33
    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Bolton View Post

    You cant force market creation. You have to fill a need. Unfortunately the majorities needs mainly revolve around lower price with higher quality.
    That's why so many people would be better off having a job instead of owning a job.

    What's the point? I don't bust my ass to make what I could working for someone.

    People under value their time.

    I live in NE IN, we ain't exactly the Hamptons here, but I have a skill, a product that is valuable, and I found the people willing to pay what it's worth.

    No race to the bottom for me.

  4. #34
    Not sure what good that would do, Been to Germany and most the people I know that came from there never wanted to go back to live. Nothing wrong they just found more opportunity here. The Old guy went back to visit his shop where he apprenticed and some friends, owner wanted him to stay likely leave him the shop but he said no.

    point is for Magnus there was nothing where he was, he left to where the world is your oyster. Have friends and know musicians that have done the same. All the positive thought and granola stuff would not allow him to do what he did in the wrong setting where he was.

  5. #35
    Quote Originally Posted by Darcy Warner View Post
    That's why so many people would be better off having a job instead of owning a job.

    What's the point? I don't bust my ass to make what I could working for someone.

    People under value their time.

    I live in NE IN, we ain't exactly the Hamptons here, but I have a skill, a product that is valuable, and I found the people willing to pay what it's worth.

    No race to the bottom for me.
    I've owned my job for 30 years with zero outside income. Never filled out a job application or printed a business card until a year or so ago (business card). With honest accounting you may not be in any form of a race and may well already be at the bottom.

    But enjoying what one does smooths a lot of hills and valleys.

    None the less, pissing in a fan trying to make people buy what you "want" to make, or running a machine youd "rather run" and thinking they will buy is just bad business. This ain't field of dreams no matter how bad we want it to be true. Clearly evaluating your market is business plan 101. Chucking a bunch of money at making boards, s4s and cabinet parts, that there is no market for, because it's a machine "youd rather run" is a fools errand.
    Last edited by Mark Bolton; 06-14-2018 at 8:02 PM.

  6. #36
    I have run a small woodworking business in a rural area for over 40 years. I have survived by doing a wide scope of work over a 100 mile radius. Mark is on the money about not being able to control what folks are willing to pay for - there's work around, but not the kind of jobs that justify machinery that can run 50+ fpm of molding. I have 15 or so vintage industrial machines, all paid for, and I sleep pretty well.

  7. #37
    The one thing I wish I would've figured out sooner was investing in the job that I own. I always dumped money back in, but the last four or five years I've really hit it hard buying equipment. I'm semi smart, I'm really lucky, and I'll grind whatever grist the mill requires to get jobs out the door. (I just punched out for the third time this week working more than a 14 hour day) I wouldn't be able to do the jobs that I do without the equipment though. With just two of us, we shipped out just shy of $100k in cabinets in the last two months. It was a grind, but without the tools it wouldn't be possible.

    I've enjoyed building my business far more than any cabinet I've ever built. Woodworking is child's play. Business is exciting, challenging, and risky.

    The point I guess I'm trying to make is every dollar I dump into this place, it seems like I get so much back, that it's tough to quantify. I just spent $23k on a used door clamp. Why? Because now it's faster, better, and easier. Faster and better is great, but easier is where you make money. Less rejects, more consistent flow, and being able to draw from a lower paid work force is huge. Used moulders in good condition can be had for next to nothing. For my means a bare five head that will cost me way less than $20k to run S4S and door sticking is a no brainer. A good shaper with tooling is basically $15k anyways. If I want to run mouldings in the future as another revenue stream, (which is in the long term plan), it'll cost me probably another $10k, ($30k if I want to cut/grind my own knives), but it opens a lot of doors. Plus the door clamp I just bought is really for mitred doors, so now I can do that too. Not real efficiently at present, but it's another feather in the cap that might make the difference between getting a job with good margins.

    It's tough to justify some things though, but a few good decisions can really pad the crappy ones well. Good investments pay out for essentially ever, bad ones if recognized early on are short lived. I can't tell you what to spend money on, but I can say I would be light years ahead of where I am now if I would've made a few more sacrifices and invested more aggressively and sooner in making things more efficient. It's a lot more fun pounding things out the door than struggling with inferior equipment.


    As far as how much lumber do you have to be milling to justify the cost? I can't say for sure how many bd/ft a year we process. I'm guessing we do about 15-20k, which isn't that much.

  8. #38
    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Bolton View Post
    I've owned my job for 30 years with zero outside income. Never filled out a job application or printed a business card until a year or so ago (business card). With honest accounting you may not be in any form of a race and may well already be at the bottom.

    But enjoying what one does smooths a lot of hills and valleys.

    None the less, pissing in a fan trying to make people buy what you "want" to make, or running a machine youd "rather run" and thinking they will buy is just bad business. This ain't field of dreams no matter how bad we want it to be true. Clearly evaluating your market is business plan 101. Chucking a bunch of money at making boards, s4s and cabinet parts, that there is no market for, because it's a machine "youd rather run" is a fools errand.
    I made a market for myself doing high end remodels, decided to switch it up for a couple years and just do steel framed hardwood decks, 50k+ jobs, then decided that interior finish work and shop work was better, moved to architectural millwork and old house parts. Then decided to set up a mill shop, along the way I ended up making a new market for high end machinery rebuilding, now I am getting back to running a couple moulders in the next few months.

    I have changed, found the customers I want, doing what I want, paying what I want.

    It's really not that difficult.

  9. #39
    Join Date
    Jul 2013
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    “It's really not that difficult.”
    My hat is off to any professional woodworker who has figured out how to make a living in that industry. All the cabinet makers I worked for when I was younger quit the profession years ago. Every week, I get emails from the usual machine auction sites listing thousands of dollars worth of equipment for pennies on the dollar. It actually makes me kind of sad because every one of those machines were part of someone’s dreams.
    I know a few guys who are amazing craftsman, contibuting editors in Fine Woodworking, and had their own TV shows, and none of these guys would say it’s an easy go.
    If I come back in another life as a woodworker, I would hope to be Joe Calhoon living in a ski town, working in a shop filled with Martin equipment, building custom doors and windows for multi-millionaires.



  10. #40
    Quote Originally Posted by John Sincerbeaux View Post
    My hat is off to any professional woodworker who has figured out how to make a living in that industry
    Your barking at the moon John. We are all suppose to buy the machines we want to run and make the product we want to make. Its Field of Dreams, if you make it, they will come.

    Your post is spot on. It matters not what you have a desire or passion to make, or what you'd "rather run". You make what will make you money. You can dip your toes in the water of alternate ventures presented to the market (which we do on a regular basis) but if your bent on ramming a product down the throat of the consumer your going to be left with a lap full of vomit if they dont find it to their liking. Smart business is just smart business. Capitalizing on a need is what anyone who has been in business for any period of time completely understands. The nightmare starts when one follows a perceived need. A novel idea can be cultivated. Running miles of molding and flooring and "cabinet parts" in a market with no shops that buy "cabinet parts", and flooring shops around every corner selling bread and butter pre-fin flooring installed for what you process rough material for, and customers looking to buy door casing for $1.50 for an 8 foot stick, is a guaranteed win in the race to the bottom (youll be the only one in the race).

    There is literally not a shop to sell "cabinet parts" to within 100 miles of our shop. The haul bill on delivery of the "parts" would exceed the cost of "the parts". There will be a few custom trim packages in that radius. There will be a few juicy cab jobs in that radius. There will be a few custom furniture customers in that radius.

    What there will be miles of is primitive's made at numbers you'd not be able to pay your light bill producing. Factory assembled "Amish" furniture. Home center materials, which competing with will put you in the ditch straight away. Cutting boards made by retirees who are enjoying their garage time (and should) and so on.

    We pursue the markets we pursue in this area for a reason.

  11. #41
    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Bolton View Post
    Your barking at the moon John. We are all suppose to buy the machines we want to run and make the product we want to make. Its Field of Dreams, if you make it, they will come.

    Your post is spot on. It matters not what you have a desire or passion to make, or what you'd "rather run". You make what will make you money. You can dip your toes in the water of alternate ventures presented to the market (which we do on a regular basis) but if your bent on ramming a product down the throat of the consumer your going to be left with a lap full of vomit if they dont find it to their liking. Smart business is just smart business. Capitalizing on a need is what anyone who has been in business for any period of time completely understands. The nightmare starts when one follows a perceived need. A novel idea can be cultivated. Running miles of molding and flooring and "cabinet parts" in a market with no shops that buy "cabinet parts", and flooring shops around every corner selling bread and butter pre-fin flooring installed for what you process rough material for, and customers looking to buy door casing for $1.50 for an 8 foot stick, is a guaranteed win in the race to the bottom (youll be the only one in the race).

    There is literally not a shop to sell "cabinet parts" to within 100 miles of our shop. The haul bill on delivery of the "parts" would exceed the cost of "the parts". There will be a few custom trim packages in that radius. There will be a few juicy cab jobs in that radius. There will be a few custom furniture customers in that radius.

    What there will be miles of is primitive's made at numbers you'd not be able to pay your light bill producing. Factory assembled "Amish" furniture. Home center materials, which competing with will put you in the ditch straight away. Cutting boards made by retirees who are enjoying their garage time (and should) and so on.

    We pursue the markets we pursue in this area for a reason.
    Dude, I live in the middle of Amish land, Amish sawmill, cabinet shops, furniture, etc. I have never had an issue competing with them, because I don't.

    If you can't see the Forrest through the trees, there is nothing that will help.

    I have heard the same song and dance from tons of people around here. The crowd I deal with have no issues needing to be the cheap one.

    Cheap is a bad word.

  12. #42
    Join Date
    Dec 2008
    Location
    Ouray Colorado
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    1,392
    I think the Logisol machine has a place in a lot of small craftsman type shops over a small Weinig or SCM four sider. Even the smallest of the Weinig and SCM machines take some serious electricity, dust collection, straight line rip, space and dust storage to be effective. The one downside I see to the Logisol machine is it does not appear to have straighting ability. It looks like it would be handy to S4S just a few workpieces spur of the moment which is a typical scenario in small shops. This is where the big molders fail. Not practical to change from molding heads to straight knives just to S4S for example 10 pieces of wood.

    My experence has been our S4S planer moulder has been a profitable machine for our work but in the end it is used mostly for our own product. When we first got the machine we did some large 5 to 15 thousand foot orders of Millwork, flooring etc. and soon realized a 4 thousand foot shop and only a 16 yard dump trailer was not near enough to handle this. Plus it was cutting into our other work. I try not to take any jobs now over 500 to 1000 LF and even that gets pretty boring. I like the short runs of matching historic mouldng using the S4S in combination with the shaper.

    If you want a custom molding shop set up 2 or 3 Weinig’s, a good arch moulder, a gang rip, a straight line, big resaw, 100 hp plus DC and at least 2 semi trailers to blow shavings into. And all the other standard machines that would be needed. You need a lot of square feet for this and the employees to feed it.
    Last edited by Joe Calhoon; 06-16-2018 at 9:53 AM.

  13. #43
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    Quote Originally Posted by David Kumm View Post
    Van, did you actually buy one or just see it? I've always thought their vertical- horizontal shaper to be an interesting machine. Don't know how it holds settings but woould be handy if it does. Dave
    Dave,
    That little Logisol shaper is a cool machine! I played with one at a show in Europe. It is light weight but seems to be a well engineered machine and capable of many things.

  14. #44
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    Dec 2008
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Bolton View Post
    With honest accounting you may not be in any form of a race and may well already be at the bottom.
    Lol< the truth around here as well If I care to be honest. But I do what I want when I want, so that has to be worth something. But mostly I work...........

  15. #45
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    Aug 2011
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    New York, NY
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    Quote Originally Posted by Van Huskey View Post
    I certainly have been aware of the industrial sized 2 and 4 sided planers but have never seen a smaller 4 sided planer/moulder.

    Logosol a Swedish company makes a really neat small 4 sided planer/moulder. While not exactly cheap the prices are much cheaper than I would have expected. (Que Darcy to come in and point out he bought a Stetson-Ross for $300, 4 tanks of gas and breakfast at Denny's)

    It seems they also make and brand them for Woodmizer as well if you want an orange one.



    http://www.logosol.us/planers/ph260/

    https://woodmizer.com/us/MP260-Planer-Moulder

    Attachment 387616

    It does 2 and 4 sided @ ~10" and single sided at ~16".
    Van - these moulders are actually made by another Swedish company, Mortens who were recently acquired by Woodmizer. Not sure what the arrangement will be with Logosol in future.

    https://woodmizer.com/us/About-Us/Ne...PlanerMoulders

    Cool little machine, seems very simple to set up.

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