VOTE - $11,248.00 To upgrade wood surfacing equipment

General
1

Hi all. I am posting a vote to upgrade the milling operations in the woodshop to upgrade our current milling equipment. The total cost for the proposed upgrade is $11,248.00. This includes a jointer, a planer, necessary accessories (see details below), plus some pad for cost overruns on dust collection and electric work. I have spoken with Jim Dallam, our treasurer, and he confirmed this would be within our budget For HIVE13 woodshop improvements.

We currently do not have a way to take rough lumber and make it smooth. This task is accomplished by a jointer – which flattens 1 face, then flattens, smooths, and squares 1 edge to that flat face – and a planer which flattens the second face and make it parallel to the first face as well as bringing the rough lumber down to desired thickness.

Our current jointer does not work. The reference faces, tables and fence are not straight, flat, or square. If the reference faces are not true, the jointer will not be able to flatten or square lumber. We have a planer available at Hive13 but it is not owned by us. The planer is on loan and can leave at any time. It is also somewhat lacking in capacity and power; it is very noisy; and most importantly it does not leave a great surface.

Both of these pieces of equipment are essential to a functioning woodshop. You can’t make straight, square, and flat furniture, boxes, shelves, etc. without straight lumber. Also, running lumber that is warped and lacking a straight edge through the table saw poses a significant safety issue by greatly increasing the possibility of kickback. Table saw kickback causes most serious accidents in woodshops.

The jointer is the piece of equipment that touches lumber the most. In addition to flattening and straightening wood, I use the jointer to remove machine marks left by the table saw after cutting the second edge. While the planer only touches one face of the lumber is a critical piece of equipment for a fully equipped truly useful woodshop.

We have a very nice miter saw, router table, handheld routers, and bandsaws and we have a stellar table saw. In order to have a truly useful, fully equipped and safe woodshop we must have milling equipment that is of the same quality and usefulness as our SawStop and surpasses the rest of our equipment.

Vote itemization:

Both machines have helical cutterheads. The planer has 138 4-sided carbide inserts arranged in 6 rows. The jointer has 54 4-sided carbide inserts arranged in 6 rows. This type of cutterhead with the number and arrangement of cutter inserts will give excellent smooth results. Both machines have digital readouts to precisely control thickness.

Mueller Equipment does have the jointer in stock right now. They do not have the planer in stock, but it is in stock at the distributor in Texas so there will be about a week lead time from order to delivery. Mueller has the both the JX|8 jointer and the PX|20 planer on the floor to look at and test.

The woodshop is probably the busiest discipline at the Hive and has the potential to attract many new members. This is especially true with milling equipment - jointer and planer - that is equal in quality to the SawStop table saw.

Thanks for reading and please vote yes to expand our capabilities and make our woodshop truly useful.

Doug Schmidt, Woodshop Warden

2

I obviously vote yes

3

I vote no on this one…

As much as I would LOVE for our wood shop to have these machines, I don’t see it as a priority to spend this much money on both of them right now, and at the same time.

I would absolutely vote yes on just the jointer now, and if Coy wants to take his planer back, vote for a nice planer at that time…

But right now, I’d really rather have the next BIG purchase like this be for an area that is less developed than the wood shop, as the wood shop is functional as-is. Something like getting a plasma CNC, which is capability we don’t currently have, makes more sense in my mind as the next huge purchase, particularly since we don’t NEED to upgrade the planer and jointer at the same time.

Also, RE: electrical - no need to have an electrician install the sub-panels, I’m happy to do it. It’s easy and only a few hours work.

4

That is too rich for my blood. Especially in one go. I’d support replacement, but I see to many other areas that would suffer to spend that much in one go. I already needed to be convinced about a $2500 over the $1600 rigid you were talking about. So I support a new jointer, but maybe not one THAT nice?

So I am a No on this option, but would be open to other options.

5

I vote yes. Alot of people use the woodshop, more than most areas, if not all. And it also a big drawv for new members. The per person investment is reasonable when compared to expenses we have approved in areas that get far less use.

6

too rich for me.
vote no.

7

I vote “yes”. As has been pointed out before, it is not about the money, it is the functionality. Our wood shop is sorely lacking without these two tools. Our SawStop table saw was a good purchase and these two macabre the same caliber. Without these two pieces, we are like a one-legged tool - unbalanced and a pain in the a$$. Three legged stool is balanced and useful.

Thank you Doug for pulling this together.

8

I vote yes.
The money is there, and these tools offer us a good bit of growing room as we expand the Hive.
They are expensive, yes, but we will not have to replace, repair, or upgrade them for a good number of years.
The woodshop is one of the most used sections of the hive and should be the main focus for bringing it to a more “complete” state.

If we could split this purchase up, that seems to be a better fit for most members however

10

I’d REALLY like to see this re-posted as two separate votes…

I took the time to really dig in to what we would really need to bring in each of these machines, and I see it like this:

Vote 1: Jointer - $3,386.45

Vote 2: Planer - $5,823.29

These two machines do NOT need to be purchased together. If these were posted as two votes, I would very quickly vote YES on the jointer, but NO on the planer for now, as we don’t urgently need a new planer, and other spaces have bigger needs for those funds. I also think it’s worth discussing if the 20" planer is really worth an extra $1000 over the 16" model (which would also not need as large a power circuit).

I also took a look at the electrical panel, we do not need a sub-panel to add either of these machines. They would take the last slots in panel X, but we can add a sub panel to that panel at whatever time we really need more slots over there.

11

I vote YES.
This is a big purchase but we are growing and have the need for “real” equipment.
I’d also support both if the vote was spilt up, but frankly having one of the pieces and not the other would mean we would limp along until we got the other one. We have the funds, and this would be used a great deal.
We should not do these large purchases lightly, and healthy discussion is the hallmark of a functioning society/group.
If this was a specialty piece of equipment that only a select few would use, I would probably feel differently. These are foundational pieces of any woodshop and currently our gear is not adequate.

13

I vote YES

It makes a lot of sense to spend our extra funds on a high traffic area where many members will benefit. “Saving” this money for other large niche purchases that only a few would use feels selfish until we upgrade our core areas.

14

Since it seems like we are not going to split this vote up into two distinct items, and we aren’t really going to discuss what the high end versions do that make them twice the price other models…

Is it clear, that if we say yes to this, we are saying we will buy NOTHING ELSE AT ALL until January?

We can do that, but it seems like a thing we should have more than a week of discussion on before doing.

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15

We should answer all your questions. They are completely valid. I don’t have those answers but will work with Doug to get them. We should not feel rushed into a decision. I think the week to vote is a minimum time, not a maximum. The vote should not be closed until all members questions and concerns are discussed.

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16

I vote no.

17

I vote YES, and still vote yes if the vote is split between machines.
I read valid comments regarding mobile bases and size of the needed planer, as well as the electrical panel capacity and overall cost. I think these are details that can be worked out with further discussion. The wood shop is my core area of interest at the hive, I really joined because I didn’t want to buy this kind of expensive equipment myself, let alone find somewhere to put it and manage dust control. The current machines are appreciated, but are lacking for a shop like ours. If we replace them together we can manage the floor plan and installation at one time. There seems to be a concern that we won’t be able to afford anything else until January. For the younger folks January might seem a long time away, for me it’s almost tomorrow!

18

I’m changing my vote to “no” until we can discuss the options in my detail. I completely support upgrading the wood shop but want to make sure that we don’t rush into something. Unfortunately, Doug’s attempt at discussion on discourse and slack were largely ignored. So our voting process is still a bit broken. But getting better!

20

I’m voting no as based on discussions, these should be separate votes

21

TLDR; I vote No (however I would vote yes if this were presented differently)

  • My No vote doesn’t have much to do with the high price tag. This proposal is a legitimate investment for Hive13. One of the great things about Hive13 is that we can collectively buy very fine equipment that would be far out of the reach of most individual hobbyists.

  • Like others I think that this proposal needs to be split into several votes that we can discuss separately. Sometimes basic consumer equipment is sufficient and sometimes we really should go big or go home. I feel that combining the purchases into one vote precludes having that discussion.

  • I’d like to see this vote retracted and resubmitted spit out as one for a joiner and one for a planer. I’d like to see the (electrical) infrastructure costs removed. If we are outgrowing our current breaker boxes let’s talk about how to remedy this separate from it being jammed into this vote.

  • I would also like to see ALL of our votes stop throwing in a few hundred bucks here and a couple of grand there to include slop money to cover stuff that should be better defined when the vote was presented.

  • I really wish we had less rubber-stamping on our votes. We’ve changed the rules to require a majority yes AND at least 10 yes votes in order to pass. But when votes are rubber-stamped before discussion can even happen we wind up with less than ideal outcomes.

22

I vote no.

Like several others here: I’d like some additional discussion on a single purchase this large, and perhaps for the vote to be split up. I’m a yes on the jointer, but would like to understand a bit more on the planer to justify it.

23

Doug, I really appreciate you taking on the wardenship of the woodworking area. I also appreciate you putting this up for a vote. I agree that we need to level up with these tools (and others). Please don’t feel too deflated that we’d like to see it presented differently. It’s always worth reminding everyone that we get into squabbles and disagree on things BECAUSE WE CARE.

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