Unless something unexpected occurs, next Monday my wife and I will close on a new house. The house is great, but I'm particularly excited about one thing. Out back it has a building with a mother-in-law suite and, you guessed it, a garage I'll convert to a workshop (see pic). Right now, the garage is only 12' x 30', but I'l plan the next year or so to knock out part of the wall and extend it to a 30x30 or so. The small guest house has it's own electrical service, with a 200 amp panel, so it's really a perfect situation for my shop. Yeehaa!
On a related note and to my question, I'll be populating the shop also over the next 2-3 years. For the past couple of years, I've been working our of our current garage and sharing space for vehicles and storage. As a result, I've kept things small and invested in several good handtools and portable power tools (Festool mostly). Now, with more space, I plan on getting a good collection of basic machines, like tablesaw, planer/jointer combo, bandsaw, drill press, etc.
It seems like a constant problem with big machinery is "This thing is heavy! How the heck do I move this thing around?" Mobile bases obviously are sometimes an option, but it may not be ideal for all machines. For example, I'm planning on getting a jointer/planer combo, and I've read mixed reports on mobile bases for those units.
My question: has anyone ever considered or tried constructing some quality pallets, with good wood and good bracing, for their machinery and simply using a pallet jack to move it around when necessary. I'm tall, so the extra 3-4 inches a pallet would add might actually be more comfortable to me. This approach seems like a good idea for several reasons. Cost, for example, would be attractive, since you could invest in one $200 pallet jack versus a $100-150 mobile base for each machine. A good pallet jack would have no problem with even the heaviest machinery, and the machine would be rock solid when being used.
It seems like a simple and good solution, but it doesn't seem like a common recomendation, so I'm worried I may be missing something. Why wouldn't this work well?