In the next 12 months I'll be moving from Vermont to South Carolina and downsizing from a nice big shop, about the size of a 3 car garage, into a much more compact 2 car garage that will be completely dedicated to my woodshop. I make furniture for the wife. I've owned a tree farm for 20 years and in the process have harvested plenty of nice hardwoods - cherry, maple, white and yellow birch, and ash. I have about 10,000 board feet stored away to probably last me the rest of my life.
Now I begin the painful process of downsizing.
First question - I have a Powermatic 15 inch planer and a Powermatic 8 inch joiner. Both have helical heads. Since I'm always working with my own hardwood which is rough sawn from a Woodmizer band saw mill, these two tools get a lot of use. In thinking about downsizing this is the first area where I have to ask the question - will I enjoy a Hammer A3-41 with the silent head, or will I be kicking myself later. My current separate planer and joiner setup takes up a lot of space. I have them set up next to each other so they sort of share the infeed/outfeed area, but this could be a considerable space saver going to a combo machine and I know I'll have to make many of these sacrifices.
1. The infeed/outfeed tables for the A3 are considerably shorter than my current joiner. I'm working by myself and have a hard time with long boards, so I mostly plan ahead of time and work with boards 6' or less, sometimes I'll grab a helper (wife) and work with an 8' board but then I owe big favors later so I don't do this too often. Can the A3 handle 6' boards comfortably, or am I going to have to get their extensions?
2. For those of you that have had these machines for a while, are you know really tired of having to crank the bed up and down? I'm pretty good at processing my work. I'll spend 30 minutes on the joiner and then 15 on the planer and I don't usually need to go back and forth. I'm just thinking about how many times I'll leave the A3 in one mode and realize my next step requires using the other mode, and then get frustrated having to do the changeover. Your thoughts on how the changeover is really working.
3. Mobility - I have my joiner and planer on nice mobile bases and sometimes I move them, mostly when I need to set up my tracksaw table to break down plywood. I've heard many concerns about the A3 mobility kit. Is the real solution to build a custom mobile base. I was actually going to look into the Sawstop base and see how close it was or how hard it would be to modify this.
Anyways this is the first of many questions I'll have as I start the painful process of downsizing. I'm going through this exercise now because it's VERY EXPENSIVE to move big machines, so if I'm changing out machines it's best to do it before the big move.
Thanks for your ideas/reactions...