Thought this might suit here…

Just had a 40th birthday and was given $5000 to buy whatever I want.


I have a few hobbies, star and bird watching, shooting, music, books and woodworking.
And I feel I only lack woodworking items. The rest is covered.
I use handtools 99.8%..

And as the shop area we built went from 360sq.ft for only my use, to 226sq.ft, to now maybe 114sq.ft (I still have option of assembly in 226sq.ft room, but feel room layout may be better for me in 114sq.ft. Not quite decided yet. So garage split into 3 rooms, approx, 100, 114, 226. The smallest room is storage, and where I’ll put my few power tools for rough dimensioning.

I have some power tools from when we built house. A miter saw, tracksaw, jigsaw, vacum, and MIGHT get a hand held planer, for the times I come across free/cheap lumber and it needs to get quickly ’’adjusted’’.


So all that back story filled out… my wife would prefer me to get a BIG present, instead of lots of smaller ones. But not particularly easy… and its a priority that it lasts a long time in my woood hobbying career.

The only two things I can think of quickly, is
- Tormek T-8 50th anniversary edition ($650+++) (with 50 year warranty) for many of my varied sharpeing needs.
- Sjøberg Elite 2000 workbench, ($1500) without cabinets and build cabinets myself. (But a bit conserned about racking, as in nearly half of videos I have seen of it, it moves when people push it)
- Clamps are needed, and nothing says how you feel about someone, as when you gift then clamps…


So a question could be…
If you where to start out again, knowing what you know, what would you spend $5000 on, that you knew would last and give pleasure in use.