Greetings and Salutations....

On Mon, 19 Jul 2004 15:10:10 GMT, Daniel wrote:

Hello,

Does anyone have a *rough* estimate on how much rough-sawn wood one has
to put through these two pieces of machinery to get to the point where
you just break even on your machinery purchase, compared to purchasing
surfaced lumber at higher costs?

I realize there are many variables to this question, and that wood and
machinery costs vary, so let's assume:
- hobbyist jointer (maybe a Delta JT360?)
- (not too) low-end planer (Delta TP400 or something like that)
- North America native hardwoods like oak, maple, poplar; nothing exotic

I have no specific preference for Delta, other than that I seem to be
able to find them advertised online at local stores (Toronto, ON, CA area).

Thank you!

- Daniel

Let me add my voice to chorus on this subject. I lusted
after a thickness planer for years, and, finally picked up the nice,
15" Delta model that all the chiwanese companies used as their models.
Of course, I got it at a fair discount, but, in a real sense, the
likelyhood of my even WANTING to run enough wood through it to
justify the $785 price I paid for it is nearly zero.
As with many other posters in this thread, I bought it as
a control issue. I really prefer to buy rough sawn wood, and do
the final surfacing and thicknessing when I know what I am going
to build with it. That flexibility has been a life-saver and has
made the hobby much more pleasant for me.
The jointer is, though, a vital part of woodworking. It
is the only, painless, way to get the edge of a board straight
enough that the joints disappear when you lay two of them side
by side. The quality of my woodworking went up several notches
when I finally picked up my small, 4" Rockwell/Delta unit. I
would LOVE to have a big, 12" one, to do faces too, but, I can
get around that problem.
Speaking of which, that is one thing that the planer
can do too...I have had good luck with flattening slightly
cupped boards by putting the cup down on the planer bed, and
taking a number of light cuts until I have a nice, flat surface.
Then, I can flip it over, and, run it through and take off the
"horns" on the concave side of the cup. Of course, this does
not help with twisted boards, but, I have shooting sticks and
hand planes to deal with that. The trick is to take a light
enough cut that the feed rollers do NOT flatten out the cup,
but, simply pull the wood through the blades. It goes
surprisingly quickly and works well.
Regards
Dave Mundt