On Tue, 31 May 2005 14:46:29 +0100, doozer
wrote:
If you are going to do a fair amount of work or unusual shapes, it's
worth getting a) a table saw and b) a planer/thicknesser (or separate
planer and thicknesser.
This allows you to buy sawn rather than prepared timber and to machine
it to exactly the required sizes. There is often quite a price hike
for prepared timber even in standard sizes. If you want it machined
to size it gets very expensive.
So to some extent, if you are committed to making things from wood
then you can justify the machinery costs.
For example, over the weekend I was making a ramp with 2.5 degree
slope for my parents' garden. This involved cutting 2.4m joist
bearers at this angle along the length. I was able to do this on the
table saw pretty easily once I'd worked out a suitable jig. I needed
the same angle across the width oof a piece of board and was able to
do that in the thicknesser using a jig.
I still used a handplane to finish in a few places, though.
I feel like such a dip stick asking but where is the best place to buy
wood?
Not at all. The woodworking magazines have ads for a reasonable
selection of suppliers of hardwoods around the country.
However, most sell sawn rather than machined timber. Several, such
as SL Hardwoods sell pallets of offcuts which can be good for smaller
projects and relatively inexpensive.
At the moment I have been practising with the sort of wood that
you can get from the various sheds which pretty much means ply and pine
but obviously I don't want to always use that. This is like being 17
years old again and going to buy your first car without the faintest
clue what to look for 
)
How much would you spend on a table saw? I suppose more importantly
would it survive being kept in a detached garage (prefab concrete job
that gets pretty damp in winter)? I suspect that it would only last a
couple of years which is one reason I have put off investigating getting
one.
There are several questions here.
I have a large detached garage to use as a workshop which was
originally unheated and uninsulated. Since I wanted to equip with
good quality machinery, I decided to deal with the workshop first.
Therefore, I insulated the walls and roof with Celotex in a stud frame
clad with ply. This meant that instead of needing about 12kW of fan
heater to make it remotely suitable for working in, I could heat it in
the depths of winter with 3kW. I then created a secondary central
heating circuit run from the house system via a heat exchanger and
installed radiators. THe result is a dry workshop at 18-20 degrees
at any time.
Having done that, I invested in a good quality (Felder) combination
machine consisting of table saw, spindle moulder, planer and
thicknesser. For the shape of the space that I have, this provided
the most optimal use. In other cases, separate machines can be more
convenient. This one will take apart if I ever wanted to do that.
However, you don't need to make the level of investment that I did to
get good results.
Table saws come in several bands of price. The very cheapest around
£200 from DIY stores are really quite poor. The fences are flimsy,
can't be set accurately and results disappointing.
If you go for something around £500-700, it gets a lot better. The
fence and general mechanics are much improved for example. However,
the table size is still relatively small and typically aluminium
casting. You can put infeed and outfeed tables around it to improve
stability and there is still reasonable portability.
At about £800 and above you get cast iron table, a more powerful
motor, a larger table, a better fence etc. The machine also becomes
less portable but can still be wheeled around. For example, my
combination machine weighs around a tonne in total but is on a rolling
carriage and can be moved around reasonably easily.
You can buy a portable thicknesser (Americans call them planers) for
about £300 and up. They aren't bad, but because of the mechanics
will tend to produce snipe (planing marks) at the ends of the piece.
You can get around this by using longer material.
You can buy a planer (Americans call them jointers) for about £400
upwards with cast iron tables. The more expensive ones are wider and
have better mechanics. The purpose of these is to produce a flat
planed surface on one side of the timber and then another at an angle
(normally 90 degrees) to it.
There are combined planer/thicknessers for about £600 and up which
work well and usually can deal with 300mm wide material or more.
Reasonable combination machines start at around £3-4k.
This lot, plus a compound mitre saw would provide most of the
machinery requirements. You would also need a dust and chip extractor
- cost starting at about £300.
--
..andy
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