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?? I liked using a TS ...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nathan Hoffman
I definitely need to economize, and my first priority is to trim the house, and that includes making some of my own trim. After that, it will be making the flooring out of the honey locust wood, followed by basic furniture/ some cabinet type work as the need arises. I forgot to mention that I have access to my friend's 20" planer, so I won't need one of those right away. I may be able to buy a radial arm saw from my brother for cheap - any downside to those things? With all the router/shaper type work I need to do, what is the best method? Thanks for all the input!
Nathan -
As with all things, YMMV, but ...
A few years back, I did something similar to what you're talking about. I built (and trimmed out) my own house. All interior is Ohio-grown red oak. I milled all trim (crown mould, plate rail, base, case, stairs), and also built all doors and door cases, and window shelves for each window (23 of 'em). I didn't want to tackle floors due to volume (1600+ sqft), so I the sawmill hooked me up with a local guy who had a mill. I bought the T&G bits in exchange for him milling the wood, and it worked out pretty well.
I did the whole thing with 3 "large" tools:
a) an old (1950s) Craftsman 10" table saw
b) an old (1950s) Craftsman 6" jointer
c) an old (1960s) Craftsman 10" radial arm saw
Also had a Dewalt ROS and (you guessed it) an old Craftsman 4" belt sander. Oh - also had an old Craftsman router, but I only used it for a few round-over operations.
(This was all stuff my grandpa had accumulated over the years; so I didn't have to purchase anything outside of a few drills and the ROS).
I had two moulding head sets (1 3-cutter, 1 1-cutter), an 8" dado stack (yup - Craftsman) and a variety of blades ... and I milled EVERYTHING at the table saw. I could probably have acquired a shaper or a decent router/table setup, but the TS worked just dandy for me.
The only difficulty with cutting moulding on the saw was profile consistency (particularly when a profile called for multiple passes and cuts), but you get creative when you have to.
On the RAS: if the thing has been beat, it might be difficult to get "trued up" or get to stay true. Once mine was set, it did a nice job, but you might be better for the aggravation to just get a nice SCMS and spend the time doing something else. Oh - DON'T rip with it. DAMHIKT.
I'm not recommending this necessarily, just letting you know that it can be done with decent results.
Best of luck,
b