What would you purchase

[Diver]

Good evening folks.  What would you find most beneficial in your workshop and why.  A Byrens Disc Sander or Byrens Table saw. My limited budget will only allow one at this time.  I do not think I will ever scratch build.

[mtaylor]

Good question.  If you're not scratch building then why consider either of those?   For kits, I use small electric tools and mostly a scroll saw occasionally.  The small tools such as these:  https://www.micromark.com/mini-powertool/micro-make-tools   Don't go wild, just buy what you need as you need it.

[leclaire]

Interesting question. At almost 80 I am not going to be doing a lot of scratch building (or any for that matter). I have several kits going at the moment and will be lucky to finish all of them before the old hands and brain get to the point where it is time to quit making a mess of things and driving myself crazy. I have a dremel (not a lot of $$) with drilling stand (again not expensive) as well as a disc sander from Menards ($39.00) and use both of them on each build. Other than that there is no need to spend big bucks on more sophisticated machinery. Long winded way of getting to the point - where are you in the pursuit of this wonderful hobby? A long way to go? Then get the best you can afford to make the journey as good as it can be. Otherwise.......... 

 

Bob

[JohnLea]

Good question. I have decided you have to stay in the game at this point, even if the game is mediocre.

 

I still buy stuff from time to time but it isn't as im[portant as it used to be.  I confess that I am not doing much other than checking in to this forum.

 

I have both.  I think my choice would be the table saw.

[VTHokiEE]

I’d go table saw as well but mostly because I picked up an inexpensive disc sander (from Menards online) that works for me for now - though I’d love to upgrade to the Byrnes. The table saw was useful cutting replacement parts/planks but do consider if you’ll really need it.

[Jaager]

To enforce the advice already offered,  both machines will pay back more than what they cost IF you scratch build.

For kits alone, either will be a machine in search of a job.  They will be expensive door stops.

 

For any machine:  do not anticipate!   Wait until you have a job to do that a machine will facilitate and buy a quality machine to do it - IF it is a job likely to come up repeatedly.  Hand tools will perform any duty that we need to do.  It just takes more time. 

 

Are you going to build scratch models for sale?  (To make this worth you investment in time and materials, you will need a gimmick - a shortcut.)

Do you have a major project in mind?

 

If you have an unlimited budget: go wild.

[Bob Cleek]

I have the Byrnes "trifecta" which I acquired used for a good price. If it were me, I'd buy the table saw first. Even if you don't anticipate scratch-building, the saw will be useful and permit you to get out your own plank stock at a great savings when you are ready to step up to improving a kit model with higher quality planking wood or get sick of trying to plank everything with just a handful of quarter-inch wide strip wood. Besides, if you have the table saw, it's an easy thing to just take a thin saw-blade-sized disk of plywood, plastic, or metal, attach a piece of sandpaper to it with some disk adhesive, and mount it on the saw arbor instead of a blade. Crank it all the way up and you've got a disk sander with a very accurate miter gauge and flat table! Not a replacement for the real thing from Byrnes, but it comes close. A vacuum attached to the saw will take the misery of dust out of the sanding operations, too.

[Diver]

Thanks everyone for your input.  I like Bob Cleeks idea of installing a disc on the Table saw and turning it into a disc sander,two tools in one.

[KeithAug]

21 hours ago, VTHokiEE said:

I’d go table saw as well but mostly because I picked up an inexpensive disc sander (from Menards online) that works for me for now

I agree with the comment above. I bought the saw and find it invaluable. I bought a cheap (eBay) disc sander to go with it and modified the table to accept the saws mitre gauge - this gives me all the accuracy I have ever needed at a fraction of the cost of the Byrnes disc sander. 

My advice would be not to try to convert the saw to become a disc sander. The though of sanding grit getting into the saw mechanism doesn't fill me with glee and I thinK you would be forever switching the saw between saw and sander.

[JohnLea]

24 minutes ago, KeithAug said:

 

My advice would be not to try to convert the saw to become a disc sander. The though of sanding grit getting into the saw mechanism doesn't fill me with glee 

Never occurred to me but this is something to consider.

[Diver]

58 minutes ago, KeithAug said:

I agree with the comment above. I bought the saw and find it invaluable. I bought a cheap (eBay) disc sander to go with it and modified the table to accept the saws mitre gauge - this gives me all the accuracy I have ever needed at a fraction of the cost of the Byrnes disc sander. 

My advice would be not to try to convert the saw to become a disc sander. The though of sanding grit getting into the saw mechanism doesn't fill me with glee and I thinK you would be forever switching the saw between saw and sander.

Good point

[Bob Cleek]

Good point about the sanding grit getting in the saw's innards. The sanding disk is a fairly common practice with full-size table saws, though, and I've not heard of any problems there. I expect the use of an attached vacuum would be highly advisable if you were sanding. Switching between blade and sanding disk would definitely be a pain, which is why buying both a saw and sander from Byrnes makes the most sense.  

 

If you're in need of a disk sander and short on cash, the lucky thing is that a disk sander is about the easiest power tool to make yourself. 

Edited March 15, 2023 by Bob Cleek