Thread: Ledacraft full combination machines.

The older Ledacraft gear ( like a lot of the other manufacturers who have been around for a long time ) used to be good quality.
I've never owned any but have had a client and a workmate - one who had a combo machine and the other who had a table saw and both were a pleasure to use. Priced in the medium to high bracket but solid stuff and well setup.
Not much use for anyone contemplating buying a newer version but I just thought I'd give you my experience.
For what it can do though ( just had a look at that particular model http://www.ledamachinery.com.au/inde...machine-detail ) I think it is a pretty good deal.
The clincher for me is that it is also a scribe saw which not many other combo machines are, being tablesaws only. Nice chip free cuts for melamine.
Four different speeds for the spindle moulder is good too.

Stewie

Thanks for the reply Stewie.

I rang the Ledacraft guys for more info but all they managed to rustle up was a scan of a single page that looked like it had been faxed and photocopied a number of times. Pretty much illegible. They didn't seem too fussed about the possibility of a sale.

The chances of me dropping 5k on a piece of machinery that I've never seen except for one photo supported by people that don't want to sell it is pretty much nill.

Luckilly it's made me realise that i'm at a time in my life when I can't be bothered with near enough is good enough cheap chinese gear.

Hello Hammer c3-31

If quality is what you are after why don't you look at buying something in good nick secondhand ?
Half to a third of the new price and if it is older gear, it will be solid cast iron and made well.
That's what I am looking to do once we have done the big reno on our place.
I saw an old three phase spindle moulder go for $100 recently.
Swap the motor out for a 2.5HP single phase for $200, sell the original one for $50 and away you go.
Unless you already have 3 Phase that is.

Stewie

I've been looking for second hand gear for a while now but there's a limited market in WA and I'm not too keen on buying stuff that I haven't seen and paying a load in freight to get it over here.

At the moment the workshop is full of gear that's served me well (triton) for the reno on the last house but this
is a much bigger reno (2nd story).

I've found it's been quite easy to justify spending 15k on gear for a 300k renovation

Have you made a move on one of these machines yet??? I'm currently looking at the same market and hitting the same brickwalls regarding brochures etc. Have you had a look at the Oltre ML-353G that BeyondTools at Malaga carry???? - if you have, I'd love to know what you thought of it. Next to no info on the net about it but the few small pics on their website look good. At about $800 to get it shipped over here it would still work out good value compared to the Hammer and Minimax or Robland - but it is chinese after all and I'm hesitant to tackle anything without seeing it in person - unless some generous westralian was to have a sticky and give us his opinions on it
At least with the Oltre, what you see is what you get - unlike Felder and Minimax where just about everything you need to make it work is an optional EXTRA!
The favourite on my card is still the Hammer C3-31 but it depends on the pricing they give me on the options I need (I'd like!!!)

Not yet. I've been out and had a look at the Rojek and the Hammer and to be honest, the Rojek looks pretty agricultural compared to the Hammer and pricing is similar. I've pretty much given the thought of the Chinese ones a miss.

Who knows, they might be great but if they are crap it's a huge amount of money to throw away on something. I reckon your chances of selling one of the Chinese machines second hand would be half way between f%$# all and none as well.

I was at beyond tools the other day and they didn't have any on display but I'd assume it's pretty similar to the Ledacraft effort. I really think it'd be difficult to tell how good the machine was by looking at it. Most of the Chinese stuff looks pretty good on the showroom floor. It's after you've been using it for a week that you start swearing at it

Couldn't bare to be stuck with 7k worth of crap sitting in the middle of the shed that made me wonder why the hell I did something so stupid...

We just replaced my wife's car. I'm still happy with my old ute. Surely there's some financial leverage in that