Awright.
A number of years ago, I decided to make furniture without much of a clue as to how to do it. Went through a lot of arn before settling down with some serious Big Boy Delta, etc., equipment. After a few years, sold the whole deal to a competitor, with a non-compete for 5 years.
Wife and I went on the road with the RV for 7 years and are now back...and yes, doing the shop thing from the ground up, quite literally.
Of course, we've got a 24x30 2-story space, not the best, but that's what we have.
First thing is, what are we going to have for tools?
My first exercise was to go with ex-factory and as we have discussed here, it lead to nowhere. One of the problems was shipping, inspection of equipment, all the reasons we discussed on an earlier thread. End of that road.
Then I spoke with Hermance Machinery in Pennsylvania. They were just great, but their used inventory is very thin and want to sell what they have, not what a guy wants, which is OK. I would highly recommend their service and integrity.
Not that I lost interest, but decided to let things slide for a bit. My Milwauke hand scroll saw (cheap junk) crapped out on me after only 25 years of use, which was somewhat of a disappointment. I went to HD to replace same, and of course, they didn't have what I wanted, but directed me to Western Tool, a store owned by an outfit in Oregon.
Gosh they were awfully nice and had some mid-level stuff in stock, but just enough bigger stuff to catch my interest. So I asked them if they could ge the Big Boy stuff. Yup, they could. Because the order was more than $2K, no shipping charge from Delta to them; and due to the size of the order, these hapless sales people are going to deliver all this stuff to my shop and place it for no charge (huge savings). I checked their prices with all the usual suspects and their prices individually and together are less than any other quoted prices. We made the deal.
So in a few weeks, got the 18" BS, 3hp Dust Collector, American 3 hp Unisaw, 12" jointer, 20" jointer, 16 1/2" drill press, 16" lathe, all for about 1/2 the cost of a fully outfitted Harley Davidson, delivered, read to wire up.
Next step is to get a rotophase gen for the 3 phase side of things; wire up, insulate and drywall.
My deal is that the wider jointer will allow FLAT boards to go into the jointer to minimize sanding. It's going to be weird having a 2-story shop; but will use the ground floor as the 'mill,' with the upstairs for everything else.
Checked with Jim Becker and he green-lighted this posting, so hopefully I haven't stepped on too many toes, but wanted to share this enterprise with all, having gone through the buy-the-cheap-little-tools-too-many-times-and-threw-them-away-cost deal more than once in the past.
So there ya go folks. Oh, already got wood.