New workshop tools - new or used?

[^woody^]

but I would avoid aldi tools and buy lidl just from experience.

Aldi have sold some large workshop tools of late - including a thicknesser, but I've not seen the same in Lidl. Screwfix sell the same brand (Scheppach) but at much higher prices.

 

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

Get all your stuff cheap at aldi, and get up and running instead of pondering.

No good dreaming over tools that you may not even be able to use properly.

Why does any DIYer need a planner thicknesser for instance? Yes I know what it does.

I suppose I'm not a typical DIYer.
A lot of my planer thicknesser is used on salvaged firewood.
I buy my firewood from a local sawmill, at a cord each time, 120€ a cord.
It's the waste form the oak trees cut for orders etc.
So it's usually up 3 metres long, with at least one waney edge, all different thicknesses, up to 150mm thick and 250mm wide, green oak.

Each salvaged piece ( I can get as much as a stere out of each cord) I'll leave to season.
Of course the problem I then have, is that it plays havoc on the planer thicknesser, which is just a SIP machine, blades and belt, and height adjustment cogs, need renewing from time to time. Fortunately the blades are double edged, and I can simply turn them over.
I also have an axminster table saw, and a decent 235mm circular saw.
Axminster have supplied blades and belts before now.
I am seriously considering renewing the planer thicknesser with a reasonable, perhaps Axminster machine. I rarely use the SIP machine in planer mode because I find the table is just not long enough, and the fence too flimsy. (The waste take off is a bit naff also)

Of course the thicknesser does not have table extensions. I use roller stands.
Now there's a thought, using the thicknesser with stands means adjusting the stands all the time. Why don't they make thicknessers that the top is adjusted down, rather than the bottom adjusting up?

 

[^woody^]

A lot of my planer thicknesser is used on salvaged firewood.

Presumably you are not then burning the wood, but using it to make stuff?

If to make stuff, then yes thats a use for it, but then again if you are buying the scrap wood that the saw mills don't want or can't use, then it would take some knowledge and experience in selecting which bits would be useful to plane down to useable timber for particular jobs - which is quite niche and specialist for mere DIY use.

 

[pilsbury]

Get all your stuff cheap at aldi, and get up and running instead of pondering.

No good dreaming over tools that you may not even be able to use properly.

Why does any DIYer need a planner thicknesser for instance? Yes I know what it does.

Pondering at the moment as I won’t have a workshop for several months - so I have time to deliberate, change my mind, change it back again to hopefully reach a sensible conclusion.

As for buying stuff from Aldi, I won’t knock their gear on value for money or place in the market, but for what I’m after doing (furniture, cnc inlays etc) I want gear I can trust to cut square. Hence things like a planer/thicknesser as no wood bought will be perfectly true.

I’ve bought many tools in the past that are Aldi or a level up in quality, then I’ve bought the quality tool and wondered why I persevered with the lesser for so long.

 

[^woody^]

Most of my larger workshop tools are cheap and I've not got any quality issues with using them. They cut, route, sand, drill or whatever and they do it well and accurately. I don't see any difference in what I see others achieve with their more expensive makes. Ok I'm not using them day-in day out, but they are used regularly and have been for years.

All this spending more on a name to get some sort of perceived extra quality is all bollax in a DIY context, or even trade in many cases, IMO. It's all down to the user, and no machine alters that. But yes, each to their own.

 

[pilsbury]

Most of my larger workshop tools are cheap and I've not got any quality issues with using them.

Have you ever heard the phrase “a bad workman always blames his tools”?

Well, all my tools are crap.

 

[Stivino]

Have you ever heard the phrase “a bad workman always blames his tools”?

Well, all my tools are crap.

You appear to be saying that you are a bad workman.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Maybe a bit tongue in cheek?

 

[pilsbury]

You appear to be saying that you are a bad workman.

Not a chance! I pride myself on quality workmanship. If it won’t go in as a screw, it’s going in as a nail.

 

[Ryler]

I step up the quality of my tools as my skill levels step up.
As the latter evolves the former must evolve also.

 

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

If to make stuff, then yes thats a use for it, but then again if you are buying the scrap wood that the saw mills don't want or can't use, then it would take some knowledge and experience in selecting which bits would be useful to plane down to useable timber for particular jobs - which is quite niche and specialist for mere DIY use.

The saw mill sells the outside bits of the trees, after squaring off the trees, and other waste, that it can't use for its customer's orders, or it doesn't come up to customers' expectations, etc., as firewood. They aren't too picky about what they throw away.
I, and others, buy that firewood. But there is a lot of it that is salvageable, if you want to, if you might have a use for it in the future, if you can be bothered to work it instead of ordering the timber that you want, in the sizes that you want it.
It all depends on quantity required for a specific job, or decent odd bits in the bundle of firewood that are worth salvaging, etc.

 

[^woody^]

Have you ever heard the phrase “a bad workman always blames his tools”?

Well, all my tools are crap.

Don't be too hard on your own abilities.

Ease the burden and let us be the judge of that.