I vote Yes!
Doug, sorry for dilly dallying on my vote. Wanted to make sure I make the most informed choice.
While the 5.5k planer seems expensive, I agree with the perspective to match equipment caliber and having high quality equipment available that most members are unlikely to buy on their own.
Absolutely no worries about ādilly dallyingā. This is a big vote and deserves big thought. I have a bit of an advantage in that Iāve been thinking about this for 20+ years and changing my thoughts as new technologies and machines come to market. I made the fundamental error in believing my seemingly, (at least to me), innate knowledge base is shared. A common if erroneous pitfall that goes hand in hand with expertise. A great educator learns not to fall into that. Unfortunately I am not a great educator.
If we plan and budget with some patience, we could easily have bothe the 12" jointer, which has weight an stability benefits over the 8" in addition to be larger, AND the 20" planer by this time next year without having to pinch pennies at all.
The 12" planer would ensure that the largest logs we can resaw in our shop can be faced and squared safely, and would be a much better proportional pair to the 20" planer.
I also looked at the āexposed cutter headā concern about the larger jointer, and I believe there is a big thick guard behind the fence that covers it, making that not an issue.
Would anyone really be upset about not having the nicer planer for under a year so that we can get both nicer machines and not want to upgrade again in 3-4 years?
How often would that difference in the jointer size come up to justify the doubled price?
Often enough that I feel it makes sense, particularly since we now have that larger bandsaw so we can resaw larger lumber or logs.
As Iāve mentioned, Iāve had several projects since I joined the hive where I needed a much larger jointer. And 8" is really not much bigger than the 6" one we have now.
There are also cheaper 12" jointers, Iām seeing some in the $5k range new, and we could keep an eye out for used ones.
I vote no. Jointer makes sense right now, but there are plenty of other things Iād like to see money thrown at (likeā¦doors) before a purchase that takes up the rest of our discretionary spending for the rest of the year. A nice planer definitely seems doable in the near-term future if we break up the vote, as Kevin is suggesting.
I vote yes.
This leaves about $3,500 in the discretionary fund right now. We have a monthly discretionary income of ~$3,000 a month. This does not wipe out purchases for the rest of the year, in fact it leaves us with ~$15,000 in discretionary funds for the rest of the year.
Many of the new members that join the space join because they are interested in using our woodshop. A jointer & a planer are core items for use in a woodshop.
There is literally no dissent that our current jointer is inadequate in most areas that make it a jointer.
The planer the hive owns is equally inadequate. We have a planer on loan to the Hive from a member, but @DougS has done a good job outlining why we should consider replacing it as well.
The best argument I can see for the existence of Hive13 is that it is a way for members to pool our resources to buy better tools than any one of us could buy individually. As a shared workspace, there is an additional requirement that the tools we do buy be reliable, sturdy tools that will last.
I think that Doug has done research here and he has addressed the pending questions that have been asked in a way that makes sense. I agree with his proposal to buy tools with carbide helical heads. They last much longer, are much easier to maintain, and work much better than straight knives.
The sizing of the machines also seems valid, especially considering the price differences in moving up to even the larger machine sizes.
In answer to Gothamās question about how often a huge jointer is needed. Not often. In fact when I spoke to the people at Mueller Equipment there answer was āwhy? I donāt remember the last time we sold a 12ā jointer but I guess weād be really happy to sell you one."
The fact is that with a little practice, some skill, and a lot of care you can nearly double the width of the face you can plane. So on an 8" jointer your true capacity is just about 15" which makes the extra $4,000 a really steep price to pay.
Thereās one more area of concern that I would like to address. That is the idea of making this vote two votes, one for each machine. As a general principle, unless there is a specific reason not to, Iād agree. However, in this case there is what I believe to be a couple compelling reasons not to split this vote.
Functionality. The functionality of these two machines is literally the flip side of the same coin. You plane the first face on the jointer then flip the board over and plane the second face on the planer. I felt that the current planer that we have access to is so inadequate that when my previous planer became too much of a problem to deal with I spent my own money to buy an approximately $900 planer rather than use the current planer. In fact, I bought a Laguna PX|12, the baby brother to the planer in this vote.
The other compelling reason, in my estimation, is being a good steward of the Hiveās money. If we replace only the jointer and limp along with the current planer the new expensive jointer will be of very limited use. We will have between $3,500 and $4,000 dollars of the Hiveās money just sitting there waiting to be fully useful. Maybe thereād be a vote passed for a new planer in a month. Maybe a year. Maybe never. To use the new jointer Iād have to cart lumber back and forth between my shop and the Hive it so I would just continue to use my jointer and planer. Those without access to a better planer would have even fewer options. To top it off Jim Dallam thinks we have the money available to go ahead with both machines. It seems wasteful not to go ahead and upgrade our entire lumber surfacing equipment.
Doug Schmidt,
Woodshop Warden
Cell: 513.349.9932
Email: ohwoodwright@yahoo.com
Slack: @Doug Schmidt
I vote yes.
Doug, thank you for the research, deep knowledge, and time youāve spent responding here, as well as the job youāre doing as woodworking warden. Itās all greatly appreciated.
Between Dougās answers and Paulās post, I think everything has been covered.
I do want to address Kevinās desire for a larger capacity jointer ā it sounds good. But the need for both machines sooner is the overriding issue. Additionally, Iām now learning there are multiple other methods such as a planer sled or a surfacing bit in the CNC that will produce similar results (and more safely) but we can have that conversation separately and not derail this one.
I vote YES!!
Marilyn Clark
I vote YES. I think this will be a great addition to our woodshop & I look forward to having the opportunity to use them.
As someone not familiar with woodworking, this explanation is really helpful. It makes more sense now why both the planar and jointer are proposed together.
I vote no. I feel that while these two are certainly related, they do not need to be purchased at the same time and should be split into two votes.
I vote Yes
I vote yes. The only reason that it took me so long is because I wanted to wait till the deadline to fully absorb all of the perspectives on the proposal. Great thought and care has obviously been put into the choosing of these machines for our woodshop that badly needs new functional ones. Thank you Doug for all of your responses to concerns and queriesāas someone who is very much a beginner to woodworking, it is nice to see easy explanations of why these machines would be beneficial to the space.
Yes. These two essential tools will be a boost to the Hive13 woodworking capability. Iām sure that once we have these tools in place we will find that not only wood for fine furniture, but also reclaimed shelf wood projects go through at a much faster speed.
Just an update, based on the meeting minutes it looks like this passed.
Final vote totals: 19 Yes, 11 No, 2 abstain
As a final note, thank you everyone for your contributions and discussion here. I appreciate this was not an easy decision and I am grateful that the discussion here was civil.
Iāll echo what Paul said.
It is great to see: