Thread: $6000 Budget recommendations for machinery setup

Well you'll also have to give consideration to the accessories that you'll need with them, such as feather boards, different blades for the saw, DC connectors and ducting, and so on. It can be scary how quickly it adds up. With $6k to spend you may be better looking at the second hand market.

You can probably get away without a jointer (for a while anyway), using the table saw with a sled or jig (never done that myself) but a thicknesser is a must IMO.

I was were you are with basically same budget until recently. Here's what I ended up doing.
1. Table saw
I was dead set on the Harvey. Unfortunately I couldn't lay my hands on one before purchase. The SawStop was on sale and I went and had a close look at one. It's not just the safety feature. It is a nice bit of kit all around. It has an excellent fence which was important to me.
After much thought I blew most of my budget on the SawStop Professional cabinet saw with Saw Stop mobile base.
I have not regretted my decision.

2. Dust collector. I went overboard and got a 3hp one on sale. The machine is the cheap part. Which has meant that so far I only have the table saw connected to it. Which I manually disconnect to hook up to the thicknesser. That all so far. See above budget blow out. Very slowly I am getting the ducting in for this step by step.

3. I bought a small jointer 2nd hand. I bought a lunch box thicknesser with a segmented cutter head on sale. Great little machine.

I'll have to save up to replace the jointer with something better but there's no rush. Either a combo or else I'll go for a long bed jointer if I can find space for it.


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P.S. I has to get a sparky in to wire up a 15Amp circuit for the table saw and a new circuit for the dust collector. I did a lot of research to find the best deal for this work but even so there's another several hundred dollars before the machines even turn on.

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Hey guys,

Thanks for the quick reply. Dave where did you buy your SawStop and what did you pay for all your items? Does anyone know where to go to get the cheapest deals on SawStop? I have access to a dewalt thicknesser at a friends house which will come in handy if i do end up getting the SawStop. I am definitely leaning towards getting the SawStop at this stage. What would be recommendations for dust collection units?

Cheers,

Ty

Hi Ty,

Do you already have any other tools and/or machinery? Is the $6000- budgeted for a Table Saw / Planer/Thicknesser / Dust collector, or is it your total shop budget? Realistically, are you likely to pour a fair bit more cash into the hobby over the coming years?

The reason I ask these questions is that $6000- won't go far if you want good quality tools / machinery, and if you are planning on making this a life-time hobby and investing quite a bit more over the longer term then I think you should buy reasonable quality from the get-go. You just may have to take your time getting a comprehensive setup.

I'd personally recommend against the Sawstop. Buy a good 3HP cabinet saw like a Harvey HW110-LGE30 and put the savings into good dust collection (which in my opinion will do more for your wellbeing than the sawstop) or even a better combination planer/thicknesser IMO.

Cheers, Dom

My brother-in-law is a sparky which will come in handy for installing the 15A sockets in the garage. My circuit breaker is on the other side of the wall to the garage which will make things super easy for him.

Hey Dom,

I am definitely planning on pouring more money into this in the coming years and currently I have most hand tools needed and the machinery is my next big step. Looking at setting this up as a side business and seeing whether down the line I can move into furniture making fulltime. This is the dream, but who knows whether that will happen. I am currently a mature-age carpenter apprentice so all of these tools will be able to go hand in hand with my trade. So definitely happy to be spending more money over the years. I dont know whether my wife is too happy about the amount of money that will get poured into it

Cheers,

Ty

Originally Posted by TTJJ

Hey Dom,

I am definitely planning on pouring more money into this in the coming years and currently I have most hand tools needed and the machinery is my next big step. Looking at setting this up as a side business and seeing whether down the line I can move into furniture making fulltime. This is the dream, but who knows whether that will happen. I am currently a mature-age carpenter apprentice so all of these tools will be able to go hand in hand with my trade. So definitely happy to be spending more money over the years. I dont know whether my wife is too happy about the amount of money that will get poured into it

Cheers,

Ty

Sorry I don't mean to sidetrack the thread, but I was always wondering, do you think there is an adequate market in Melbourne for hand made furniture? All that beautiful stuff I see that people make here and elsewhere, I've never actually seen them in peoples' houses, everything looks imported. Maybe I don't go the right houses though

If you are going to be installing a new circuit or two then go as large as the board will handle (like 2x 32amp) - the difference in cost is not much, but the flexibility can be huge. There are many induction motor machines that can draw around 20A at start up. Let's say you have a 12A saw (close to 4hp) and a 3HP dusty pulling about 9A. At start up they might pull ~25A between them. Yes you can mitigate that by starting them one after the other, but it's always great to have amperage headroom, and millions of GPOs.

Do you have (or can you get) 3 phase power? It's a worthwhile investment and the cost of installation will be offset by the ability to get cheap ex-industrial machinery that will outperform and likely outlive any of the "normal" stuff. Especially if you're planning on using recycled timber, that stuff is rock hard and you'll want all the power you can get.

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

If you are going to be installing a new circuit or two then go as large as the board will handle (like 2x 32amp) - the difference in cost is not much, but the flexibility can be huge. There are many induction motor machines that can draw around 20A at start up.

It's can be a lot more than this.
My 3HP DC drew >60A on start up, and the 3HP TS draws >35A on start up.
But there are plenty of circuit breakers around that can cope with 10X their nominal max current for a couple of seconds that happens on start up.
BTW 3 Phase machines connected to VFDs get around this problem

DCs do draw close to the max current when operating normally but TS don't.
My 3HP draws about 5A when free running and 95% of the time it draws <10A.
The breakers can again handle the occasional higher current cross cutting burst above their rating.
Problems can arise with hard pushing long rips in thick hard timber when even my 3HP TS can easily draw even more than 12A.
It cannot do this for too long because then the motor overheats and the thermal cut out switch kicks in.

My brother-in-law is a sparky which will come in handy for installing the 15A sockets in the garage. My circuit breaker is on the other side of the wall to the garage which will make things super easy for him.

It depends on the rating of the cable used to connect from the house to the garage circuit breaker. If the wiring is only rated at 20A you cannot legally hang more than one 15A circuit off that breaker. Technically 15A circuits have to have their own breaker and there is then a requirement from these breakers the wiring back to the house to be consistent with the number of 15A circuits installed. My guess is you will need a 32A cable.

While it probably won’t fit your budget, something to consider if you want three phase machines but don’t have access at your property is a (good quality) phase converter.
I ran a three phase thicknesser for about 10 years on one from these guys before I built my current house and made sure it had three phase from the start.
Mine cost me about $2,500 from memory. Price goes up with output capacity. These guys are AU and make good quality converters, not like the cheap crap purely electronic stuff from offshore.

http://www.phasechanger.com.au


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Originally Posted by TTJJ

Hey Dom,

I am definitely planning on pouring more money into this in the coming years and currently I have most hand tools needed and the machinery is my next big step. Looking at setting this up as a side business and seeing whether down the line I can move into furniture making fulltime. This is the dream, but who knows whether that will happen. I am currently a mature-age carpenter apprentice so all of these tools will be able to go hand in hand with my trade. So definitely happy to be spending more money over the years. I dont know whether my wife is too happy about the amount of money that will get poured into it

Cheers,

Ty

Yeah ok cool. Then sounds like you want to buy once amd buy decent quality. Whatever other tools you end up with, given you are only 27 and plan on spending, potentially, a lot of time doing this, I would plan to stump up some decent coin and installation effort on a proper dust collection setup - eg. a 5HP Clearvue Cyclone. I'd get rid of every other machine I own before I got rid of my Clearvue.

You said you want to use reclaimed timber. I'd suggest this is another cross against the Sawstop - as you'll likely be regularly hitting old rusty nails etc and possibly changing a lot of cartridges and blades. Just something to think about. Also, for the cost of a Sawstop you could look at paying a little more and getting a very nice Hammer Slider - which would offer a lot of advantages for large work and increased productivity (if you can dedicate the space).

Cheers, Dom

Anyone have any thoughts on the Laguna Fusione F3 Tablesaw and the 10" Woodman Combination Planer/Thicknesser? Both look really good for my budget and getting started. Will allow me to have a little cash to get a 3hp dust collector set up. Love to hear peoples thoughts.