You can also view my gallery at Designs en Bois.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Shop progress


Things have been a bit quiet in here lately mainly because I've been spending a lot of time working on the new shop space covered in plaster dust. But I'm making some decent progress now, and things are tracking to a grand finale of taking delivery of a new Powermatic 60-HH 8" jointer. So far I've gotten all the ceiling demolition done, cleared out all the junk, and have two walls framed up ready for the electrician to get the wiring done. This weekend I should be able to insulate, start closing up the ceiling and walls, and get the lighting in. Not exactly fine woodworking, but I am staying motivated by the "pot of gold" at the end of the rainbow.

You can follow the progress of my construction in my Picasa web album here.

4 comments:

Morton said...

Looks like great progress Rob. I'm excited to see how it all turns out.

Rob Bois said...

Just got word the jointer is going to be delivered tomorrow afternoon. Merry Christmas to me!

Anonymous said...

Hi Rob,

Just wanted to see how you are enjoying your joiner. I'm in the market for a new one and it seems if you are going for anything bigger than a 8 inch, it becomes unaffordable.

I currently have a 12 inch Laguna Combo jointer/Plainer but it's not working for me to change it the whole time between the 2.

Now I'm looking in getting separate machines.

Any Advice?

Rob Bois said...

I guess I've had the Powermatic jointer now for over two years (seems like just yesterday it showed up at my door). I have had no complaints at all - and can definitely say the spiral cutterhead is definitely the way to go. I've been able to joint pretty gnarly grain and never seem to get any tearout. The sheering action of the cutters is great for that. I do have a few little track marks now that I really need to address. It's just a matter of finding the offending square cutter and just rotating it 90 degrees. Not sure how hard it will be to find the problem cutters, but may just rotate all of them at once (if I only have to rotate once every two years, I'm good with buying new cutters once every 8 years).

I will say the PM was not the cheapest option I considered, but since I got a deal for free shipping it made it worth while. Had it not been for that free shipping, I likely would have gone with a Griz which tends to be much more cost effective. However, it doesn't have that lovely gold color !