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Re: Tools needed for custom kitchen building

 

I suppose I should clarify my email yesterday as it elicited a few responses both here and privately, not that we need to continue hijacking this thread in further discussion:

1. Yes, if you are serious about bootstrapping, the shop I shared about prove it can be successful with minimal investment cost. Will you be limited in capability? Yes. Will you be limited in efficiency? Absolutely. Will you be in the position of having the least to lose when things go bad? Probably. I know several long-term businesses that have "made it" with owners with scarcity of capital to make things work ideally. either by necessity or by culture. This group's culture is not like that, but don't say it's impossible to run a cheapskate business!

2. To clarify the equipment in this other shop -? I used "CMS" to represent compound miter saw, not festool CMS router table (I have one of those, it's great!), like a dewalt $200 chop saw,?not even a slider. You would think the sprayers would have a decent air purification?unit or dryer, but alas, no dryers and just an inline filter can inline is an old oil-splash 40 gallon surplus I-R from 30 years ago like my dad used to have in his one-man mechanic shop and bought at a garage sale. I'm fairly certain nothing in this shop was ever bought new or at anything other than auction prices, and I distinctly remember the owner telling me that he got so mad at the guys ruining a $200 DeVilbiss gun, so one day he just bought a Harbor Freight purple special and never went back. In fact he buys a new one everytime they send him a coupon in the mail rather than deep-cleaning the ones he has. The table saw was equivalent to a $600 Rigid contractor saw. When the blum machine is your most expensive piece of equipment and it cost?more to transport your edgebander than to buy it, you know you are skeet of investment capital.

3. From an overall business perspective, no, no shop like that is ever gonna compete with the big shops with state of the art equipment and big overhead commitments clamoring for significant market share. But not every business has the same priorities, or philosophies, and many aren't even on sync in the same business cycle depending upon their clientele (commercial/new construction vs. residential vs. niche needs). With the context that I've evaluated at this point 100s of businesses, one theme has rang true to me - getting bigger doesn't guarantee bigger profits or a happier life as an owner/operator,?but it does guarantee bigger liabilities. I can personally account for the contingency plan I've had in place that I could still keep my primary business facility running just by myself if I had to shed the crew and revenues in certain business lines dropped? - and that's just what I have done to survive through 2020 thus far. I couldn't have done that if my liabilities were too heavy to cover. Oh! What's This? I see an email for another auction for a shop closing coming in....

4. Be safe, all, and be happy, much love and I enjoy these conversations as welcome breaks in between shop work!


On Wed, Dec 9, 2020 at 8:05 AM imranindiana via <imranindiana=[email protected]> wrote:
Bill,

it may look like unused space but literally there is none to speak off. the 6¡¯ xcut fence & outrigger sweeps the space as far as the slider reaches on outfeed. xcut fence scrapes by the drill press. on the infeed side i use short xcut fence and some room is needed to load/unload the slider. certainly i can roll something in to use the space like FD250 and spindle sander but it cannot stay there.

the other free space is along dual 51 but i keep 12¡¯ free space on infeed and outfeed. same is true with KF i can profile 12¡¯ length if needed. one disadvantage of J/P is that planer is low, although felder separate is likely not much diff. my woodmaster table was high enough to clear a low bench when milling 1x or 2x stuff.

the loss of the corner to stairs is huge.

Imran

On Dec 9, 2020, at 8:42 AM, Bill James via <xxrb2010=[email protected]> wrote:

?Thanks Imran,

I agree that it is cramped :) and you have a lot of unused spaces.

I just have rough ideas now, but the center of the room has to be free in my mind to allow for passage or for your assembly table/cart on casters. Tools should only be located on the perimeters and one corner used for storage. Like 4 walls should allow for 4 big machines at least and if you stack your separate jointer planer you can push up to 5, assuming your room is wide enough to stack them and still have space in the middle. You should still have some free corner for DC and other stuff. I know that many shop put their table saw in the middle, but I do not see that as an advantage with a 10 ft slider.

In my current garage I have the RL140 in line with the slider (2500) on one single wall and it is really good in term of space usage. The jointer/planner combo is on the adjacent wall. Like RL located after the outfeed table for slider -? slider - combo located on the infeed side of the slider but at 90 degree. I measured recently and I can still put a 10 slider with RL140 and combo planer/jointer for at least 9ft long stock in the same position as my current tools.

Bill



--
Brett Wissel
Saint Louis Restoration
1831 S Kingshighway Blvd (at Shaw Blvd)
St Louis, MO 63110

314.772.2167
brett@...
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