Hello from Mordor's Workshop.
Hello to all you folks in the Woodworking forum. I'm a furniture maker who lives in New Zealand and who works solely with recycled timber. Here in New Zealand nearly all of our houses are made from wood. When the colonialists first came here over 200 years ago they started building houses from magnificent trees. Some of these trees were thousands of years old and many of the timber houses that were constructed from these giants are still standing. People often replace the old weatherboards with new pine ones and i pick up the old Kauri or Rimu ones and make furniture from them.
Kauri is a beautiful straight grained timber that has few knots and was also used extensively in boat building. It has a high resin content I think which helps it to resist rot.
Rimu on the other hand tends to have a lot of knots and can be very hard.
I have only been in business for about 6 months but orders are already backed up. I feel lucky that i am in this situation, but i cannot keep up with the pace of the orders i am receiving.
The only sander i currently have is a Bosch belt sander (PBS 75A) and a cheap little Ozito 1/3 sheet sander.
I also have a bench planer (1960's Tanner one) and power plane (Hitchi f30 + Makita 82mm). The Makita is old and worn and i just use it to remove paint from the weatherboards.
I have sufficient saws (table/scms/band) but i don't feel my sanding finishing set up is efficient.
Now i need to invest in more tools/machinery because my current setup is inefficient.
I do some work off site. For example i just finished making a built in bookcase for someone which required me to do a lot of work on site.
I have about $3500NZD to invest in some new tools.
I want to speed up my prepping wood and sanding stage.
I was thinking of doing this.
Thicknesser - JET - JWP12 - 12" benchtop thicknesser - $579
Festool Rotex 150 - $1013
Festool CT17 extractor - $490
Carbatec 400mm wide drum sander - $1124
I would also like to invest in some quality handplanes and also little bits and bobs like magnetic angle gauge (so that i can set my table saw/scms/bench planer(buzzer) accurately)
Can you please give me some advice on the above.
Should i invest in the drum sander? Or not bother and instead invest in a better thicknesser and some hand planes.
Also is the Festool extractor worth the money? Should i get a different extractor? I need a mobile extractor that i can use at peoples houses.
Thanks in advance for all your advice (i think)....
Cheers,
Max
