Robatoy wrote:

Retirement is highly overrated.

No way you are at retirement age if you know who Rael, The IAK is. Uh
uh. Nope. Unless you are the coolest hipster on the continent.

As far as the equipement goes, the only thing I can say is that they
are monstorously heavy, and they require a good amount of floor space
around the machine. Probably all in all no more than the sq ft needed
for all the stand alone machines, but still it seems like a lot due to
the hub type approach. My garage shop buddies roll their big machines
around as needed; not so with one of these beasts.

There was a doctor here in town that had a Rojek for sale.... forever.
It was a battleship. It weighed in at something like 1600 pounds and
had a three phase 4hp motor on it. Additional circuits were needed to
complete the installation. According to him, it did everything well,
but it was more machine than he needed and he could never easily move
it out of the way for any reason to use his shop for anything else.

It cost a fortune, and he sold it pretty cheap compared to what he paid
for it as he finally got tired of waiting for someone to buy it. It
was rumored that he paid something like $6000 for it delivered to the
door a few years ago. One of my amigos at Wood Craft that sets up
their demo machines helped the doc get it set up and while he wasn't
overly impressed with the amount of polish on the metal surfaces, he
was blown away by how well everything fit and worked together. He said
it was like a giant watch.

I think too that it is a question of bragging rights. Not much
gloating in telling your buddies or posting here "well, it finally
came. I got the Hammer B3 sitting in the shop (or the Rojek for that
matter) waiting for the first project". I think the reply would be,
"what the hell is that?"

Lots more fun to talk about the new Powermatic or Unisaw, or an old
piece of iron. It is hard to connect to the woodworking ancients when
your friends cannot pronounce the name of your new machine correctly.

You might check this out for a more informed look:
http://tinyurl.com/a2at4

Robert