So, my shop just got a couple of major upgrades in terms of tools, and I can’t even really fathom a scripted video for what I’ve got going on. So I figured I would just show you directly and talk through it, and if I find myself wandering, I’ll circle back and try to edit this into a somewhat cohesive video. But the elephant in the room (I used that in a different video) but the elephant in the room is probably right here. Let me rotate us. I suddenly have a couple of new tools against this wall that I previously did not have, nor did I intend to have. But let’s start with the lathe because that I did intend to have.
So I’ve talked about it in multiple past videos that I want to get a lathe someday. I got a little taste of lathe work at the Makerspace I used to attend, and I originally got into it by watching Frank Howarth on his channel. I think around 2013, 2014, 2015, something like that, where he was doing a lot more bowl videos. I just fell in love with turning and segment turning, specifically. I’ve shown this off in a video or two, but I made this segmented bowl blank back in 2016 or so, and I never turned it, but I will soon. But I’ve been wanting to get a lathe, and I destined this space over here when I was planning my shop for a lathe. I ran 240 over there, and I didn’t want to start with a benchtop lathe. The primary reason is, with a benchtop lathe, you can only really do pens and small bowls and stuff. And I knew I wanted to do the bigger stuff, like bigger bowls, bigger vases. That’s the type of project I find more interesting and fulfilling.
So I knew I wanted to start with a big lathe, but the big Powermatics, similar to what Frank Howarth has, those start in the six to seven-thousand-dollar range. So I do not need tools to be new at all, but the problem is those types of tools don’t come up very often on the reseller market. People tend to hold on to them for life, and that’s completely understandable. So I’ve had a search going for a lathe for a while on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist. And there’s an online auction site for Minnesota and surrounding states called K-Bid that I check on every so often, and I once in a while I’ll find a lathe. But if it’s like the auction site, it’s too far away or it’s not the right size or whatever.
A couple of weeks ago, I was on Facebook Marketplace and decided to search for a lathe. Sorry, Craigslist. I searched for lathe, and the listing didn’t stand out to me because it was a workshop sale. I guess maybe I should keep an eye out for those types of listings in the future. But it said “workshop sale” and barely even mentioned a lathe in the description. But I was clicking through all the photos, and I saw that they had a Jet lathe in there, and that’s what we have here. Obviously, I bought it.
Now, this is not the big lathe I was just describing that I had in mind for my first lathe. This is probably somewhere between what I would describe as a benchtop lathe and that bigger, full-size lathe. This has a 12-inch… you can do a max turning diameter of 12 inches. So the height from the bed to the spindle is about six inches, and the primary feature I was looking for in the lathe was a digital readout and adjustability of the speed. Very standard lathes you can change the speed, but you need to stop the lathe and change the belts and it’s just something I didn’t really want to deal with while doing turning projects. And so this lathe, while it’s not what I had in mind for my first lathe, it will more than get me through the first number of years of my turning experience. I would eventually like to do larger than 12 inches in terms of diameter, but this will totally last me. And I measured and I can just barely fit this on there. I probably will have to shave off some of the hard corners before chucking it up, But it can handle it.
So hopefully I will turn that soon and there will be a video. So what about the other stuff, Ron? Well great question! This guy was literally selling his entire workshop and the first day I went out there to look at the lathe and… I don’t know when I should get to prices because let me let me say now: I would not have bought all this stuff if the prices were not insanely good and they were insanely good.
So. I’ll talk about the price of the lathe. This lathe, I don’t know the model number but it’s a JET, I think maybe like 12-22 or something like that. Like I think, how JET numbers it is… I won’t speculate I’ll just put the model number on screen. But I believe the MSRP for this lathe is a thousand dollars. He sold it to me for 350 dollars .
Amazing. Like 350 will buy a brand new very very basic Harbor Freight lathe and I was honestly considering maybe getting that a while back. But finding that price… even if I hold on to this for five years and use it for that long I’m sure I can get at least that much for it when I go to resell it and upgrade. So the price was just too perfect and he was selling pretty much everything in his shop and I ended up spending the afternoon with this guy in a shop going from item to item, him trying to sell me on stuff.
So while I was there talking to him it obviously was on my mind. I asked him why he was selling everything in the shop. And he told me: his wife had had ovarian cancer previously and it was a bit of a journey but she’s better now she’s cancer-free and they sat down and thought really long and hard about what they wanted out of life from this point forward and they are they decided they wanted to spend as much time as they could with each other and to live life to the fullest as it were. And so they are selling all their non-essential personal belongings, selling their beautiful house and downsizing, extremely downsizing and moving to Florida to retire early. I asked him if that was hard for him and he didn’t miss a beat and said no – because they had made that decision together. And so I think that’s absolutely beautiful. My husband and I have talked a little bit in a similar thread in the past, like if one of us were to get sick and I think honestly, I’d want to do the same thing – I’d want to like kind of downsize and probably travel the world. So I think that’s awesome that they decided to do that. And I realized that the deals I got on these tools – like I didn’t want to ever feel like I was taking advantage of him. He listed the prices on every single thing and I didn’t negotiate at all. Like every single price he gave me, I could tell he was priced to sell. He didn’t care about the money necessarily, which I appreciate because it feels almost like him passing the baton onto this random crew of other woodworkers who ended up buying all the tools in the shop.
So that’s the background on this purchase. So what about these other tools? The lathe is the only tool I intended to buy, I keep coming back to that – but what about the jointer, Ron? What about the standing drill press? A standing drill press is a tool I literally never intended to buy. I was convinced that I didn’t need one and that I could get by with just a bench top one. And I think I could have, but the reason I decided to buy them is when prices are what this guy had them listed for, I couldn’t reasonably say no. Because I thought about it while he held them for me and I realized even if I decide that these are not destined for my shop long-term, I can resell them for at least what I paid for them, and maybe even more.
This jointer is a Grizzly G0858; on their website brand new it’s $2400, plus $300 in freight shipping. He sold it to me for $1000 dollars. Like that in my mind… that’s like full depreciation value. Like 15 years from now, beat up that will probably go for $1000. A jointer is a tool… it’s a luxury tool in the shop, right? I think everyone knows that and I had convinced myself I could get by without a jointer. And I still think I could get by without a jointer… I’m not doing a ton of like big table tops or or anything like that that requires like flat boards all the time, but for the price of $1000, I figure I’ll try to make, I’ll try to find a place in my workflow for it and a place in my shop for it and if I truly am not using it very often then I’ll resell it and I can probably get more for it than what I paid. And that difference can go to buying a larger lathe like I want.
The standing drill press, very similar. New from JET, that drill press is $1250. He sold it to me for $450. Like I just could not not buy that. Thankfully I’m good with my fun money allowance with what my husband and I do in our monthly finances, and I just kind of accumulate mine over six, eight, ten months at a time. And so I’ve built up that reserves to dip from which I very well dipped from in buying tools from this guy’s shop.
But yeah the standing grill press, again, I never imagined using one of those in my shop, but if I’m honest, like the few times I’ve tried using the benchtop drill press for larger projects that are even more than a like an inch or two thick it’s really challenging. Because it claims to be like an eight inch working area, or whatever, but your work piece only can be like two inches or so because a standard drill bit is going to stick out from the chuck at least four inches. And so take four inches off of that, and then yeah. So I found the bench top drill press extremely limiting and so having a standing drill press with, I believe working height of 17 inches, that’ll just come in so much handy.
So in addition to the three large tools, I also spent an additional $650 with him that that first day and that extra $650 was on a variety of smaller tools including a ton a ton of accessories for the lathe including a chuck which I already had a chuck from my first foray into the lathe. But now I’ve got a second chuck for different uses. A ton of tail stock types, headstock types, face plates, a worm drive. A box of sanding and finishing tools specifically for the lathe including like a powered sander kind of similar to what Frank Howarth uses.
He also had a ton of wood turning tools and I kind of convinced myself that I only ever wanted to do carbide because I didn’t have any interest in sharpening high speed steel. Well he sold me a box, a literal box of high-speed turning tools, that, I think alone, each tool probably is worth at least $80. He sold me the entire box for $100. Like no brainer. Like, I will learn to sharpen high speed steel. So very soon you’ll see an entire wall of tools behind that lathe and I’ve gotta buy a diamond bench grinder or whatever and learn how to sharpen high speed steel! But I’m still going to do carbide because I think carbide will be nice for roughing and various stuff like that.
Let me consult my list of what else I bought; I had our price list on the phone. I bought a steady rest from him: I’ve seen a number of other turners build their own steady rests and obviously this can’t do larger diameter things, but I saw it sitting by the rest of his turning stuff and asked him what he wanted for it he said $40. It’s $150 new. Like those are the kinds of deals he gave me and I’m just so so thankful because this is gonna turbo charge… and maybe also overwhelm, maybe also overwhelm, what I’m doing in my shop. Around every turn I feel like I have no excuse to not be cranking out amazing stuff in here all the time, but I’m just, I think I’ve got this last little bit of infrastructural to-do’s that once it’s done, then yes, that’s true. And I know that it’s almost like the hedonic treadmill: like, “once I have this thing, then I’ll be happy” – “once I have this part of my shop done, then I’ll have no excuse but to do awesome projects all the time.”
I’m trying not to fall into that trap, but truly, the dust collector once that’s ducted, which will be very soon: the ducting is actually scheduled to get here today as I’m recording this so I’m so excited. But once that’s done, truly I will have no excuse and I’m really excited for that.
Sorry I was talking about other stuff I bought that day. I bought a pressure pot from him. He had a really nice, I think he said it was California Air Tools but I couldn’t see the logo on it, a really nice pressure pot I think it was $300 new, he sold it to me for $120. He sold me a ceiling air filter, brand new it’s $450, sold to me for $150. He sold me a handful of lathe calipers, I think they’re probably one for about $70, sold them to me for $15. He had a Woodpecker’s parting tool for the lathe, I think that brand new goes for $80, he sold it to me for $20. He had a really nice set of forstner bits that went $87 new, he sold them to me for $30. And now it’s just where do I put it all.
So that’s the update on the brand new unexpected items in the shop, and thankfully they won’t affect the ductwork plan too much because the ductwork is going to come out from there and stay level with the the drum and it’s going to come down right here and it’s going to branch over to the lathe if it was over there but it still needs to go that way to collect from the the jointer now and it can basically just join come come out from right there for the for the lathe and then there’ll be a floor sweep and it can it can go there.
So that’s the current update. I want to maybe try to do these kinds of in-between-the-big-project-videos more often because it’s easy to just go a long stretch without any kind of update, especially on YouTube, but I don’t want to do that. I want to be more active and and and whatnot with my growing community here and I really appreciate all y’all watching so I want to give you something to watch. I have been posting more on Instagram this summer so if you’re not already following me over there, please do, I’ll have a link down in the description. I’ve been doing some more reels and stories and whatnot over there.
In addition to that while I have you I recently launched a store version or a store section on my website where I can sell things I make in the shop. I can sell some swag like t-shirts.. if you like the shirt I designed the shirt for to wear in my shop and I have it available on the website if you want to grab one of your own. And digital plans and downloads, I want to be able to sell those on my website. Previously I’ve always just kind of had all my plans for free – and there will still be free plans like the bandsaw reindeer template, that’s always going to be free because I want that to become the the standard bandsaw reindeer that people are making, but I want to be able to continue offer free plans to get people to sign up for my email list which is the primary way I get people on my email list. But I also want to be able to charge for plans and have that be a revenue source and so what I’m going to do is I’m going to follow Anika’s approach from Anika’s DIY Life: she has the brilliant strategy where all of her plans are free for the first two weeks and if you’re on her email list that’s how you find out about new plans. And so it incentivizes folks to stay on her list to hear about new plans and then after two weeks then that’s when she starts charging for them. So I think I’m going to do something similar, where all my new plans will be free for the first two weeks, people on email list will know about it right away and can grab them and then from there I’ll start charging for them, whether it’s dollar, two dollars, three dollars depends on the plan type, obviously. But yeah, so the store is going to be store.farbulouscreations.com. I’ll have a link down below and again that’ll have random stuff I make including wedding signs swag and digital plans and stuff so check that out. It’s brand new, I haven’t gotten any orders as of recording this because it’s literally that new, but I’d love to have the first!
And yeah, so stay tuned for ducting videos, especially reels and whatnot over on Instagram, if you’re going to follow me over there. And I still am working on the wedding sign for my husband and I had to put that on pause for a handful of reasons now, but it is so close to being done I just want to wrap it up. But with all that said, thank you to my Patrons and I will see in the next one! Cheers!