tkluck

Gee Wizz. Usually you see this kind of stuff in a PC vs. Mac thread. A flame war with all that saw dust?

I make wooden stuff for a hobby. I have grand children. Sometimes I make nice stuff for posterity. Or because the kids need a bookcase, a shelf, a picnic table. Or for my wife's birthday.

A couple of interesting things seem to pop out at me:
-I can't afford LN tools.
-I can't afford the furniture the pros here make ether.
-The economic concerns of a handful of high priced professional furniture makers to the very rich has absolutely nothing to do with my reality.
-The comments of the pros are a bit like reading Miss July's turnons and turnoffs. Mildly interesting perhaps, but are they personally relevant? At my age? Not very likely.
-It's not that hard to acquire a vintage Stanley plane, tune it and replace the blade.
-I buy that old Stanley from an American who usually needs the money more than LN, LV or Woodcraft.
-I learned to make wooden planes. May never buy another iron one. And talk about savings!
-My Honda was made in here, by folks whose uncle couldn't get them a UAW job at GM. Not by foreigners.

One last thought. It's been a rather long time since I bought a copy of the magazine with the above mentioned Miss July in it, but I subscribe to Fine Wood Working. For the pictures.

I own a bench top drill press, lathe, sander, jointer, and table saw. Aside from the Ridgid oscillating belt/spindle sander, I would generally rather have full size machines. It boils down to cost, period.
The little lathe, with a bed extension really does do every thing I want to do. The small bench top drill press however is totally inadequate and the only way I get away with the tiny table saw is because I also have radial arm saw.
The 12 in. band saw falls flat when it comes to up stock for turning (raiding my brother in laws wood pile...). I have to use a chain saw.
The little jointer? Well I have a Stanley #8 and I need the exercise.
The main reason I built a router table was so that it could double as an out feed table for the dinky table saw. Not much of a table saw, but it sure beats ripping on a radial saw (!) and, having the radial saw, that's all I use it for. With a bigger band saw, one that would accommodate a wider blade, I would doubtless make a large auxiliary table and do my ripping there.