Mike O. wrote:
On Wed, 02 Nov 2005 11:10:38 GMT, "W. Wells" wrote:

I have been in the furniture mfg. business for 35 years and my advise to
anyone who does much woodworking is buy good old equipment rather than the
new cheap stuff from China.

I had the opportunity to go to a local school auction today. Almost
all of the equipment there was of US manufacture.
Several (4 I think) Rockwell/Delta 12" drill presses were sold and
none went for over $150.00 most around $100. One Powermatic drill
press went for $250. There was also an 18" 3 phase 3HP Powermatic
planer that went for around $1500. A powermatic 8" 3 Phase joiner
with a very long bed went for only $400.00.
6 large scroll saws were sold (4 Powermatic and 2 Delta/Rockwell) and
none brought over $100. My partner bought an old Delta/Millwaukee 6"
Accu-Set joiner, motor and stand for $130. The bed's not too long but
it's a good size to carry on the job.

Getting caught up in the rapture of it all, I may have spent too much
on an old 1HP Delta/Rockwell Unisaw at $550 plus tax. It does have a
52" Beis on it with that big ass overhead guard. I took it apart this
evening to get at what is probably bearing noise and at least
everything is there. That's the biggest damn 1HP motor I have ever
seen! No wonder I'm still sore from trying to move it. Some guy at
the auction gave me his number just in case I wanted to buy a 3 HP
Unisaw motor he had. I'll wait to see how the rebuild goes before I
worry about that.
I went to the Delta site to look for a manual and I'm pretty sure that
I could hear laughing when I punched in the model number. It seems it
may be too old to get the paper work.....or maybe printing hadn't been
invented yet.

You probably won't need the 3 HP motor. That old 1 horse is a solid
piece of gear. It sounds like you got a good buy.

But your words illustrate one problem with buying school tools: 3
phase. You're left with the need to convert or change motors, which
sometimes (often?) seriously reduces the value of the deal.

The second phase of the problem with school tools is that very soon
there will be no more. I live on the edge of what until recently had
been a world center for furniture making. The schools in this area have
phased out woodworking, for the most part. They'll teach the kids how
to build a house, but not how to build a chair or chest or table. From
what I hear, this is a problem all over the U.S., at a time when
smaller cabinetmaking shops are begging for qualified help. It makes
sense to someone, I guess. Everyone wants to go to a 2 or 4 year
"college" or "university" so they can sit in front of an LCD screen and
earn big bucks, instead of busting their tails making useful items at a
decent wage.

Moving from that problem, though, to the coming shortage of used school
tools, it won't be long before there aren't any more, 3 phase or not.

Then, everyone will be hoping to buy Taiwanese, because their quality
beats mainland China's quality, at least for a few more years.