So this year my wife and I have decided to put more effort into my building and selling furniture, maybe not full-time, but as close as we can get in this down market. To support that effort we decided to invest the majority of this year’s tax return into tools for the shop to improve and expand my capabilities.

So I made a list of all the tools that I felt I needed that would make my shop a ‘complete’ shop then I started researching which offerings would be the best fit in my shop and for my style of work and also which ones would give us the most bang for the buck.

Here’s what I went with:

-Grizzly G0513X2 17″ 2hp bandsaw.  I’ve never had a bandsaw in my shop and recently I’ve had several projects were a bandsaw would have really helped.  I need to be able to do curved cuts for things like cabriole leg blanks and such and I’ve really wanted the ability to resaw.  I hate it when I have a 4/4 board and have to plane it to 1/2 an inch; such a waste.  This Grizzly comes with a tall rip fence and 12″ cut height capacity.  I picked up a 3/4″ Highland Woodworking Woodslicer resaw blade for it and so far it is a resawing dream.  It’ll slice through 10″ hard maple without skipping a beat.  Ideally I would have also bought a 14″ bandsaw so that one could be a dedicated resaw machine and the other for scroll cuts but that idea is going to have to wait.  The one downside to this Grizzly is the odd-sized 131 1/2″ blades it uses.  They are a little hard to find locally.

-Festool ETS 150/5 Sander and CT Midi Dust Extractor.  I hate all the dust from sanding.  My current ROS is a 5″ Ridgid which is a great performer but dust collection is not so great.  Just about everyone in my family but me has asthma so since my Ridgid is finally on its last spin and I fear I may be a little more sensitive to dust than the average woodworker I figured getting the best sander out there with the best dust collection would be a wise investment.  I still hate to sand, but at least now it’s quiter and not so messy.  Eventually I want to add one of the tracksaws and maybe the OF1400 router.  We’ll see.

-Incra 1000SE Miter Gauge.  My current table saw is a Ridgid Contractor/Wanna-be-hybrid that I have been very happy with.  Lots of cast iron, awesome fence, retractable mobile base, wired for 220 - I love it.  But I have always hated the miter gauge.  Amazon had a special running on this miter gauge.  Great reviews, made here in the USA, what’s not to like?  I haven’t tuned it for my tablesaw just yet but I will be doing that this week.

-Veritas Dovetail Saw.  I’ve never liked machine cut dovetails.  They just feel too cookie cutter for me.  I know handcut is slower and takes longer to do well but in my opinion the end result makes it worth it.  Though I really wanted the Lie-Nielsen dovetail saw I didn’t want to invest that much into my dovetail journey just yet.  Then Veritas comes out with their new Dovetail saw with a composite spine.  Not exactly traditional, but it has had great reviews and I really like the price point.  That should be here in the next few days.

-Forrest Woodworker 2.  I really like Freud blades.  I’ve probably got 6 or 7 different Freud blades for my various saws.  But then I saw this steal of a deal for the Woodworker 2 on Amazon.  The WW2 looks like it has thicker carbines which means more resharpening which is nice.  It also can’t hurt to have more than one daily-use blade so you can keep cutting when one blade is getting resharpened.  I haven’t used this guy yet but I will be today.  I’m excited to give it a shot.

-Ryobi 12″ Drill Press.  For years I used a Harbor Freight 9″ drill press and it has been adequate for nearly every task I have thrown at it.  The one thing that always irked me about it (and most drill presses for that matter) is the need to move belts around to change speeds.  So finally my old Harbor Freight quit on me.  I definitely got my money’s worth on that purchase.  Walking through Home Depot one day I saw this Ryobi with a lever for changing the spindle speed.  It was like the heaven’s opened and I saw the future.  I know some of Delta’s drillpresses and Powermatic’s have had this feature for a while but they cost more than I wanted to spend on a drill press.  This Ryobi was under $200, has lever-controlled variable speed, digital readout of spindle RPM’s, a work area light and a 2-line laser to mark the drilling spot (the first laser on a powertool that has actually been in any way useful for me).  The only thing I don’t like is that I haven’t built a cabinet to put it on yet.

-Steel City Benchtop Mortiser.  I can cut mortises by hand using my drill press to hog out the majority of the waste.  Not my favorite thing to do, but I can do it.  Sometimes I find it relaxing but I have a couple very large projects coming up that require mortises into the hundreds.  Not looking forward to that.  So Woodcraft had a good deal on SC’s mortiser which has had a lot of favorable reviews.  I would have preferred a floor model, but floor space and funding put that out of reach for now.  I haven’t received this tool yet, it’s still on backorder but I should get it sometime next week.

-Freud 2 1/4 hp plunge/fixed router combo.  Home Depot had this for $99 dollars.  Obviously not going to be top of the line but I’ve really been wanting a router that I could mount in a router table and just leave there.  Ideally I would have gone with a nice lift and a 3 1/4 hp PC or Milwaukee but that wasn’t in the budget this go around.  The Freud offered above the table bit changes and depth adjustment.  I’ve been wanting to add a wing to my table saw to house a router so I thought this might be a good candidate for this experiment.  The reviews I found on it were mixed, but just enough in the positive that I thought it was worth the risk.  I’m still getting the pieces together for the router table extension wing so time will tell if this was a good idea or not.

-Makita 10.8 Volt Drill and Impact Driver set.  For the last few years my shop drill has been an 18v Ridgid hammer drill.  Great drill for remodeling, wiring and other contruction-type projects, but not so great for woodworking unless you are also a body builder.  This thing is HEAVY.  Home Depot had a sale on this little Makita set so I went for the plunge.  Both tools, plus the charger and carrying case weigh less than my Ridgid.  Battery life is really good so far and both tools have LED’s to light the work area.  Not so useful in the shop but that could be very useful during a cabinet installation or something.  Both of these tools are very comfortable and so lightweight they feel like toys.  I would prefer that the drill had a 3/8″ or larger keyless chuck instead of a quick switch 1/4″ driver head, but for what I need it for it will work fine, and there are keyless chuck adapters available if you really need one.

-Earlex Spray Station Pro.  I actually haven’t bought this tool yet but most likely will be in the next couple weeks.  I’ve never been a big fan of spray finishes, I like doing as much of the work by hand as possible.  I have a really big job that I’m just starting that is a house full of plantation shutters and the client wants them white.  I hate to paint.  I hate to paint almost as much as I hate drywall work.  I’d also like to give laquer finishes a try so a decent HVLP sprayer seems like a good investment.  I’m not 100% set on the Earlex yet, there are a couple Fuji’s I’ve been considering as well.  We’ll see.
Well, that about does it for my list of tools for this year.  I know, that’s quite a bit.  We’ve never invested this much in tools in one year before.  There are still a few other things I need to get.  I need to add some dust collection and maybe an air cleaner.  I need to finish my Ruobo workbench.  I need some sort of oscillating spindle sander and I would like to get a jack plane and a smoothing plane.  Those aren’t in the cards yet, but my next few purchases will probably knock these guys of the to do list as funding becomes available.

What tools are you buying or have you bought recently and why?