Looking to lower the initial cost of my first garage wood shop.

[Chris Hachet]

+1 on buying old woodworking machines. Check out OWWM,org and you'll find a group of guys that are more than willing to help you restore and/or fine tune machines that are frequently higher quality and lower cost than you can buy new. If you're like me, you'll enjoy restoring an old machine as much as you will enjoy using it.

Repairing machinery and woodworking use similar skill sets, you will grow mentally by doing both.

This is also why I am thinking floor model vs lunch box planer, I want to learn the skill set involved with repairing and running planers.

[Matt Day]

In this case I would suggest not buying vintage machines, as much as I hate to say it. He said he wanted to buy new so he didn't have to work on anything, and we're suggesting a vintage machine with no warranty, may need restoration or fixing up, parts possibly hard to find?

One of the great things about buying used is when it's time to upgrade you don't loose as much, if any, money when you sell the old machinery.

[Chris Hachet]

I want to thank everyone for their patience and helpful information.

I am fighting hard to not go to Grizzly on Monday and at least pick up the Scroll Saw to learn Intarsia LOL.

What about Drill Driver combos and what Battery amp hours should I buy extra as the combos come with small batteries.

I want to thank you for your enthusiasm and passion, and your fine service to our country. We could use a few more people like you in the woodworking community!

Go to Grizzy and pick up a Scroll saw if you wish, you have exactly, exactly the right thinking here in terms of getting one tool, getting it set up and dialed in just the way you want it, learning the techniques involved, and then moving on to the next one. I would just suggest that there are amazing deals used on Scroll saws especially...I have seen a lot of stuff that sells for $700-$800 new sell for $100-$200 used. And as I suggested, you often get blades and tooling when you buy used equipment.

I got several hundred dollars in top end blades when I bought my (previous) used table saw. The blades new woudl ahve easily exceeded what I paid for the used saw, so the table saw was essentially free.

Grizzly has fantastic customer service and are a really seemingly decent ethical company so there is no harm buying from them new either. We want to support the right kind of companies in woodworking, and Grizzly is one group I want very much to see survive and thrive. Good luck, and I think a Scroll saw is an excellent place for you to begin. My old friend Rich made a good bit of money selling Scrolls aw items just as you want to do, and he had a fairly basic wood shop.

[Chris Hachet]

I want to thank everyone for their patience and helpful information.

I am fighting hard to not go to Grizzly on Monday and at least pick up the Scroll Saw to learn Intarsia LOL.

What about Drill Driver combos and what Battery amp hours should I buy extra as the combos come with small batteries.

I would buck what a lot of other people here would tell you and what you are probably thinking-get a small light weight drill that is easy to carry around and easy to maneuver. I like the Bosch drills myself, and have gotten excellent service over the better part of a decade out of two small 12 volt Bosch.

My drill set up is-

2 Small Bosch 12 volt drills. Having two allows me to set them up differently for different tasks and not have to change bits...making pocket hole joints, I use one for the drill bit and one for the driver bit.

1 Corded electric drill, kept at the bench so I am not running down and wearing out by more fragile Battery drills. Also a lot more torque than the battery drills. I paid $25 for a really nice one on closeout.

1 Taiwanese very heavy duty bench top drill press, I paid $50 used. New would probably be over $500 for something of this quality...

1 1942 Buffalo model 18 drill press, floor mdoel. It weighs probably 500 pounds, very heavy duty. Free, rescued it at the last moment from a 100 year old building that was about to be torn down.

I have about $250-$300 in a set up that does everything I could possibly ask of it.

You mention spending $450 for a new drill press, a little bit more and you could buy a really heavy duty Clausing or Powermatic that would be an absolute beast. The advantage of buying really heavy duty tools like this is not only in the use you get from them, but in the fact that you can almost always resell them for what you bought them for or more if you want to change things up or your interests change.

I would avoid Porter cable drills as they ahve really cheapened their product lately.

If you are not going all in on heavier duty tools, you might consider spending a little bit more and getting a Festool drill. Festool has excellent resale, you will get fantastic service from the tool, it will come with a very nice case that will help you keep your shop organized, and parts and service are readily available. Plus there are a certain amount of bragging rights with a high end tool, and the Festool fans have a very active woodworking forum...

[Chris Hachet]

In this case I would suggest not buying vintage machines, as much as I hate to say it. He said he wanted to buy new so he didn't have to work on anything, and we're suggesting a vintage machine with no warranty, may need restoration or fixing up, parts possibly hard to find?

One of the great things about buying used is when it's time to upgrade you don't loose as much, if any, money when you sell the old machinery.

Depends on the vintage machine. There is a certain amount of "how to think" in woodworking, and part of building something IMHO is having the mindset of checking all of your options and leaving yourself several paths to get things done. We don't know what he will find if he looks...he might find nothing, he might find a mint vintage Powermatic 66 Table saw for $400.

The important thing is that mentally he is keeping his options open and considering multiple possibilities of reaching the same goal IMHO. When I build a piece of furniture I don't cut eighty pieces to exact size all at once, I allow the lumber to acclimate and leave my options open in terms of things like grain match, color match, how straight each piece of wood is, weather or not the wood is quarter sawn or rift sawn or flat sawn...etc...

[Chris Hachet]

I read through this thread and there is a lot of good advice on here. I would add this - try to find a woodworking school near you, and go take classes. You'll find out what you like doing, and what tools you really need, and you can make pieces for the market. There'll be more experienced and less experienced woodworkers there than you and you'll learn from and with them all (I obviously don't know how much woodworking you've done, but we can all learn more).

Even check with the closest Rockler or Woodcraft store to see if they have any demonstrations on weekends. Google to find a woodworking and / or turning club in your area.

And I would second what some people have suggested - get some tools, maybe a track saw, make your own bench, even if it has a layered plywood top, get any vise for it, some Gramercy Tool hold downs, and start making sawdust. And post a photo of how it's going on here now and again.

I would add, find other local woodworkers in your area and learn from them. Woodworkers as a group are usually very happy to help people.

Also, I know I have added a billion posts in this thread, but a little more "free" advice-

#1. Surf some woodworking shop tours on YouTube. It should become really obvious that woodworking shops work best as they evolve over time-I find it really cool how each shop "adapts" to the woodworker using it.

#2. One more reason not to go out and buy everything all at once-space! Even if you did have your 25 x 25 dream shop, it could become a really inefficient and unpleasant place to work if you had a lot of tools that were not well adapted to what you were doing or were seldom used.

If you find yourself building decks and gazebos, you will want a lot of space for processing large quantities of lumber before it goes out on a job site.

If you find yourself building a lot of small craft items, you will need space for packaging, shipping, finishing, storing completed product, et al.

If you find yourself building musical instruments you will need a small bench with a highly focused hand tool area and lots of small hand tools like rasps, files, small hand planes and the like.

If you find yourself building wooden kayaks and canoes, you will want bench space for long parts.

If you find yourself turning a lot of stuff, you will want good dust collection and perhaps a really heavy duty band saw for cutting things like bowl blanks out of green lumber.

[Jim Becker]

I have been strongly considering a Dewalt 20" scroll saw.

The move is at the very least 5-8 years off IF I rush pay off my new 30 year mortgage by spending every free dollar on paying it off ASAP. In reality

Thanks for clarifying the move timeline. Were I you, I'd still consider starting simpler rather than trying to buy everything at once. It's so easy to get into a "tool rut" that's expensive to dig out of. I say this from direct experience, too. When I first started woodworking...and that was prior to having great resources like SMC to gain knowledge from...I made a bunch of purchases, some of which didn't survive to "shop v2.0" and gained little financial benefit when I sold those tools to acquire more capable equipment. I'm now at "shop v4.1" for a few years now and finally can say that I'm satisfied with all the big stuff. Anything I buy now is small and specialized...largely hand tools and cutters, etc.

If you want to do flat work like you describe in your first post, a quality table saw and a thickness planer should be first on your investments along with some basic hand tools. You can add a bandsaw to that mix if you can fund it. You don't "need" a jointer initially and I caution you about buying something too small, even for craft work, because once you transition to buying rough lumber, you're going to want to flatten material before using the thickness planer. Yes, you can use a sled for that in the planer, but at some point, having a jointer comes in handy. Initially, you can buy S4S lumber and just reduce thickness for smaller projects using the thickness planer since craft work often goes below 3/4" or below 1/2". It costs a little more for material, but again, that's just at the beginning. Invest in a really good miter gage for the table saw and hold off on the jointer until you can buy a good one. Personally, I'm not terribly comfortable with buying "stationary" woodworking tools from the home centers. The stuff they carry isn't anything like they used to stock...chalk that up on how the "big box" marketplace has evolved to a "low price" mentality. I'd surely opt for the Grizzly tools (either their green tools or the white ShopFox brand) over most things from the 'borg.

Others have already given good advise relative to a drill press. It's an incidental tool and you don't need to spend a fortune for one. While mine gets use, that is a hole here and a hole there, rather than with any kind of frequency, and quite often it's only for things like larger forstner bits or a fly cutter that require using a drill press for safety. I wouldn't hesitate buying one used, either...or even (gasp!) from Harbor Freight. It's one of the few stationary tools I'd buy from such a discounter, as a matter of fact. (Their air nailers are also liked by hobbyist woodworkers, too)

But again, there's no harm in picking one small aspect of woodworking to get started as I originally recommended. Given part of your reason for wanting to engage in this creative hobby, I can assure you that there's nothing more satisfying to the mind than turning where you see something develop in front of your eyes. It's mesmerizing and addictive!

[Matt Day]

Chris,
He's just staring out. I don't don't think he needs a Festool track saw and Festool cordless drill. I think you just enjoy spending peoples money!
If he had money to burn yes, splurge on some green stuff, but he's already talking about maxing out 2 CC's. I've been doing this for a dozen years and have gotten by without anything Festool or a track saw. Those are things to buy once you're established, or have the means to do so up front.

For a case like this Harbor Freight is an excellent choice, as Jim has mentioned, for things like: drill press, nail guns, drills, angle grinders, compressors, etc.

[Chris Hachet]

Chris,
He's just staring out. I don't don't think he needs a Festool track saw and Festool cordless drill. I think you just enjoy spending peoples money!
If he had money to burn yes, splurge on some green stuff, but he's already talking about maxing out 2 CC's. I've been doing this for a dozen years and have gotten by without anything Festool or a track saw. Those are things to buy once you're established, or have the means to do so up front.

For a case like this Harbor Freight is an excellent choice, as Jim has mentioned, for things like: drill press, nail guns, drills, angle grinders, compressors, etc.

I understand that he is just starting out. I also really dislike buying from harbor freight for a number of reasons.

My thinking is, buy it once and use it forever. A Festool track saw and jig saw combined are about a grand, roughly. Combined with his current table saw and a nice used scrolls saw, he might get by several more years of woodworking with very minimal additional purchases.

The other advantages of companies like Festool and Lie Nielsen and the like are excellent resale and excellent customer service.

Furthermore, he suggested portability and the desire to move at some point, a track saw and jig saw would be very easily movable.

Just my thinking.

[Chris Hachet]

Chris,


For a case like this Harbor Freight is an excellent choice, as Jim has mentioned, for things like: drill press, nail guns, drills, angle grinders, compressors, etc.

I will give you harbor freight for things like nail guns and compressors.

Even for someone starting out, I think a few extra dollars for a company like Bosh will pay off for drills.

For drill presses, craigslist and woodworking sites are littered with decent older stuff that is much more robust than anything at Harbor Freight. I have found many of the cheaper drill presses frustrating to use.

[Edward Henry]

Between my PTSD, MDD and obsessive nature I have been fretting over over a small garage wood shop for over a year now but have a severe case of buyers paralysis due to trying to decide what tools were absolutely must haves, what to get first through last, then what brand is best to get etc. and the more questions I ask reviews and forums I read the more confused I get. Right when I think I will go buy something I read or hear something to change my mind. I have no wood working, Scrolling, turning clubs in my area that I am aware of, one moment I am set on heading out to just buy a bandsaw and drill press 10 min later deciding to get a work table and scroll saw instead 5 min later something else. Grizzly has shown me that for the small space I have 19' x 21' (with desire to still park car in garage) that outside of the Drill Press, Tablesaw, and bandsaw being floor models that the rest of my tools like planer, jointer (in case I wish to try gluing multi colors of wood together) sanding station with down draft table, etc can be bench models that I could get a good start and learning ability with them. Scroll saw has always been on my mind to get but then I can not decide on what type of sanding machines to get, disk, belt, oscillating....

I have waited and put off for so long I am almost at a stage I can buy the whole shop on credit cards and have it payed off in 2 years and avoid the buyers paralysis.

I want to thank you for your enthusiasm and passion, and your fine service to our country. We could use a few more people like you in the woodworking community!

Go to Grizzy and pick up a Scroll saw if you wish, you have exactly, exactly the right thinking here in terms of getting one tool, getting it set up and dialed in just the way you want it, learning the techniques involved, and then moving on to the next one. I would just suggest that there are amazing deals used on Scroll saws especially...I have seen a lot of stuff that sells for $700-$800 new sell for $100-$200 used. And as I suggested, you often get blades and tooling when you buy used equipment.

I got several hundred dollars in top end blades when I bought my (previous) used table saw. The blades new woudl ahve easily exceeded what I paid for the used saw, so the table saw was essentially free.

Grizzly has fantastic customer service and are a really seemingly decent ethical company so there is no harm buying from them new either. We want to support the right kind of companies in woodworking, and Grizzly is one group I want very much to see survive and thrive. Good luck, and I think a Scroll saw is an excellent place for you to begin. My old friend Rich made a good bit of money selling Scrolls aw items just as you want to do, and he had a fairly basic wood shop.

[Chris Hachet]

Between my PTSD, MDD and obsessive nature I have been fretting over over a small garage wood shop for over a year now but have a severe case of buyers paralysis due to trying to decide what tools were absolutely must haves, what to get first through last, then what brand is best to get etc. and the more questions I ask reviews and forums I read the more confused I get. Right when I think I will go buy something I read or hear something to change my mind. I have no wood working, Scrolling, turning clubs in my area that I am aware of, one moment I am set on heading out to just buy a bandsaw and drill press 10 min later deciding to get a work table and scroll saw instead 5 min later something else. Grizzly has shown me that for the small space I have 19' x 21' (with desire to still park car in garage) that outside of the Drill Press, Tablesaw, and bandsaw being floor models that the rest of my tools like planer, jointer (in case I wish to try gluing multi colors of wood together) sanding station with down draft table, etc can be bench models that I could get a good start and learning ability with them. Scroll saw has always been on my mind to get but then I can not decide on what type of sanding machines to get, disk, belt, oscillating....

I have waited and put off for so long I am almost at a stage I can buy the whole shop on credit cards and have it payed off in 2 years and avoid the buyers paralysis.

If that is what you wish to do you have no judgement or hard feelings from me whatsoever. Just keep in mind that wood shops evolve constantly and your workshop may be very different in one year, two years, five years...and there is nothing wrong with that whatsoever.

I have a paralysis by analysis and overthinking issue myself. When you have questions about your new tools, post them here, this is an absolutely fantastic group of people to learn from.

Best of luck and pics of your new tools when you get them set up, please!

[Edward Henry]

Well one of my driving factors in wanting a wood shop is that I do (Learning) pyrography (Woodburning) and the cost of BASS wood at Michaels, Hobby Lobby etc. is nuts so I figured I could make my own designs, shapes and thickness wood for the hobby, then I got an interest in learning scroll work, and THEN drooled over CNC Router abilities..... thus grew the obsession.
17682190498_9d0ec92e72_o.jpg17682224868_b39b057c08_o.jpg17249591473_64b9fd5b45_o.jpg

[Chris Hachet]

Well one of my driving factors in wanting a wood shop is that I do (Learning) pyrography (Woodburning) and the cost of BASS wood at Michaels, Hobby Lobby etc. is nuts so I figured I could make my own designs, shapes and thickness wood for the hobby, then I got an interest in learning scroll work, and THEN drooled over CNC Router abilities..... thus grew the obsession.
17682190498_9d0ec92e72_o.jpg17682224868_b39b057c08_o.jpg17249591473_64b9fd5b45_o.jpg

I think you have a bright future ahead of you as a wood worker. You certainly don't lack passion!

[Edward Henry]

I went out to Grizzly to pick up the Dewalt Scroll saw and stand with light combo but did not get it I was informed it would be about $100 less during their Tent sale June 3rd

SO I will wait again