Resawing for cedar strip boats -need a planer, jointer and dust collector
Gathering input to try and sort through the noise. Most of my wood working relates to the strip boats but I still build a kitchen or two every year and the occasional furniture piece. Working in a ridiculously small shop for the next two winters so I need to think small.
Was considering a variety of used older stuff (Belsaw, Parks, etc.) vs. a new 13″ DeWalt planer (not set in stone – still listening to ideas) and a dust collector that would mate well to the planer and my bandsaw (2 hp 18″ Mini Max S45). The jointer is probably going to be temporary and something along the lines of an old Craftsman 6″ bench top model (36″ +/- bed) just ‘cuz it’ll fit without too much drama. Figure to replace that later and also maybe move to a 15-20″ planer when I move.
The dust collector needs to fit in my loft with a 74″ clg. hgt. and have enough umph to drag the planer shavings up from below. I’d also like to be able to drop the chips back down and into a seperate closet on ground level instead of having to climb and empty barrels. Any ideas or suggestions would be great. Also, the bandsaw is new to me and I’m just starting to go through it (needs new bottom guides so far). Any experience with it is also of interest.
Replies
For the type of work you are doing I think you would be better off with a benchtop planer. In shops that have both machines, the benchtop typically gets used more, the heavy iron being used mostly for the first passes on roughsawn planks. For strip work, the control and fine finish from a benchtop machine are probably more important than capacity. The DeWalt generally gets good reviews except for short blade life, someone now makes an aftermarket blade, but from personal experience both the Makita and Ridgid are also solid machines, and probably less expensive and smaller and lighter also.
The space needed for a jointer, like most woodworking machines, is mostly determined by the clearances for feeding stock in and out rather than the length of the beds, so a benchtop may not be that much easier to fit in than a larger machine. Do not buy one of the older Craftsman machines where the outfeed bed is fixed and can't be adjusted for height, they are near impossible to set up properly.
If it is in the budget, you would be better off getting a cyclone type of dust collector, they handle the chips from jointers and planers more efficiently and are easier to empty out than collectors that use bags only for filtering. The chips and the return air filter from a cyclone, and most bag type machines, can be routed back into the shop through ductwork to barrels and filters or bags so you won't have to climb into the loft for maintenance but the bags and or barrels will take up as much space as the blower/cyclone unit itself. For a small shop you can probably get by with as small as a 2 hp cyclone from a good maker. If you go up to a 15" to 20" planer someday you will also need a larger machine probably 5 hp or more.
Cedar dust is particularly bad to to breath and also contains a few unique chemicals that are fairly corrosive to carbide, and probably everyting else, so it is worth investing in a very good system. If you can arrange it, exhausting the DC outdoors, if it won't drift onto your neighbors property, is a good plan. With an outside exhaust, any dust that gets past the system isn't dumped back in the shop.
Bandsaws are a bit more demanding to set up than most other woodworking machines, so you should read a few articles about the basics to get started. I prefer solid, ideally ceramic, rather than ball bearing guides for their simplicity and reliability. Almost always when a bandsaw stops cutting properly the blade has gotten dull so keep several extras on hand and replace the blade rather than getting overwrought about blade tension and guide settings.
Hope this helps,
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