The furniture that comes out of Marcus’s shop is good enough that two professional furniture makers who visited it last year assumed the shop was better equipped than it is. It isn’t. The total equipment investment in the shop is under $3,000 – craigslist finds, estate sale acquisitions, and one good new purchase (a quality workbench vise) over five years of building. The rest of the shop is ingenuity and skill, which are, as it turns out, more productive than expensive machines.
The shop is a one-car garage in rural Georgia. 240 square feet, one 20-amp circuit, natural lighting from two windows and a translucent panel in the garage door. Machines: a 1970s Delta Unisaw purchased from an estate sale for $400 (new fence and motor, about $300 more), a 1980s Jet 14-inch bandsaw from Craigslist for $150 (new tires and guides, $40), and a lunch box planer purchased new for $400 – the one concession to modern equipment. Hand tools: a carefully curated set of vintage Stanley and Record planes ($200 total at estate sales, all tuned and sharpened), a set of Japanese chisels ($150 new), and the usual marking and layout tools.
The workbench is shop-built from construction lumber, cost $60, and has been the primary work surface for four years. Marcus built it in a day and says it is, functionally, the equivalent of any $1,500 commercial workbench. He’s right. It’s flat, it’s heavy, it doesn’t move, and it has a face vise. That’s what a workbench needs to do. His current furniture in progress – a Federal-style secretary desk in cherry – is being executed on it with the same outcome he’d get from a bench that cost ten times as much.
“The machine that makes the furniture is the person,” Marcus says. “The machines are just tools. The more money you spend on them, the easier it is to confuse the tool for the skill.” Worth thinking about the next time you’re looking at new equipment. What’s the best piece of equipment in your shop that cost you under $500? Tell us about the find.