Looking to upgrade workshop. Advice needed.

I'm looking to upgrade a couple of my large ticket tools in about a month. I'm limited to 10k spend. My question is, what would you upgrade?

I mainly make furniture from rough sawn material. I'm thinking about getting a cabinet saw from carbatec and possibly upgrading thicknesser? But

Here's a list of what I currently have.

*Decent makita mitre saw
*Bench top thicknesser 330mm wide (carbatec)
*Bench top jointer 120mm wide I think (hare and Forbes)
*Bandsaw (Full boar brand) 305mm throat capacity, 2320 x 12.7mm blade
*2hp dust extraction unit (carbatec)

I appreciate any advice!

Cheers Brady





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I too make furniture from rough sawn timber. My preference for saw is a slider, makes straightening timber quick and easy. I do have an old school heavy duty cabinet saw, permanently fitted with a heavy duty ripping blade which I use for ripping wide boards and slabs down to rough size.
I have been a long time user of combination machines as, in the past, much of my work was long term projects requiring onsite machining. Having everything I needed on the one machine allowed us to fabricate on site in any location to any profile or dimension. My current combo is a 2.5m slider
with a scriber so laminated boards are a clean cut proposition. The other tool I would not be without is a decent sized double drum sander. The amount of time saved is well worth consideration.

$10k will go quite far. Is this just hobby furniture making or full time? Looking at your list of tools it would seem an upgrade of your jointer and thicknesser would be well worth it. I would probably look at 12" machines. A drum sander would save a lot of time and pending your table saw needs could either go with a standard cabinet saw or slider.

I know of at least one YouTube furniture maker who doesnt use a table saw. This may suit you given that you dont appear to have a table saw at the minute and seem to be getting by. Maybe a more capable bandsaw suits you rather than a table saw.

Cheers.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by samo

$10k will go quite far. Is this just hobby furniture making or full time? Looking at your list of tools it would seem an upgrade of your jointer and thicknesser would be well worth it. I would probably look at 12" machines. A drum sander would save a lot of time and pending your table saw needs could either go with a standard cabinet saw or slider.

I know of at least one YouTube furniture maker who doesnt use a table saw. This may suit you given that you dont appear to have a table saw at the minute and seem to be getting by. Maybe a more capable bandsaw suits you rather than a table saw.

Cheers.

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It's naturally progressed from a hobby too a little business venture. So I have to think time is money now haha. So time saving tools is quite helpful. I think a slider table sqw would be super helpful and thicknesser upgrade for sure. I don't quite have the budget for a helical head at this point in time. Are they really worth the extra coin? I was thinking drum sander, 20" thicknesser and slider table saw. I wouldn't mind a festool domino but I think I'm getting carried away with that hahaha.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by bradyofdoom

I'm looking to upgrade a couple of my large ticket tools in about a month. I'm limited to 10k spend. My question is, what would you upgrade?

I mainly make furniture from rough sawn material. I'm thinking about getting a cabinet saw from carbatec and possibly upgrading thicknesser? But

Here's a list of what I currently have.

*Decent makita mitre saw
*Bench top thicknesser 330mm wide (carbatec)
*Bench top jointer 120mm wide I think (hare and Forbes)
*Bandsaw (Full boar brand) 305mm throat capacity, 2320 x 12.7mm blade
*2hp dust extraction unit (carbatec)

I appreciate any advice!

Cheers Brady





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Brady, you will get many different replies simply because we all have different priorities.

Keep in mind that dust control is important, but machinery for this is boring and we would all prefer to spend on woodworking equipment. If you factor in upgrading top a 3hp machine and 6" ducting (minimal with the equipment you are aspiring to), then you will have very little to spend on machinery.

The machines I would purchase in your place are a decent tablesaw, such as a Harvey HW110LGE-30, which is currently at $2400. Aim for a Hammer A3-31 (12") jointer-thicknesser with spiral heads ($around $6500-7000). Sell your thicknesser, jointer and 2hp DC, and use the balance on a 3hp DC.

These offer a foundation to build a lifetime system.

Regards from Perth

Derek