Tools you wish you'd bought sooner...
Discussion
S6PNJ said:
RacingPete said:
S6PNJ said:
My father (now retired) used to have a precision engineering business, so I had access to a couple of old lathes and a CNC mill amongst other tools. I do have a 'hobby' lathe (Emco Unimat 3) but it's far too small to do anything decent on it, so I've been hankering after one of these - https://www.warco.co.uk/metal-lathes/302920-wm-240... but need to clear some space to be able to put it in my garage.
Interesting - that one does look good, but I think slightly bigger than I was imagining as think I want something probably half that size to fit on a worktop in the garage along with pillar drill, vice, sander etc... so is there something between a hobby lathe and this 
Or an Axminster Model Engineer Series C2-300 Mini Lathe?
I bought a Colchester Student lathe from them. It's older than me! I love it!
AJLintern said:
andyxxx said:
Piersman2 said:
andyxxx said:
And the best tool I have purchased in the last five years (again, mentioned earlier) are these portable work benches.
https://www.screwfix.com/p/bora-speedhorse-saw-hor...
Errr... I've had a pair of these for years... £24 , and I don't need to two lengths of 4x2 either.https://www.screwfix.com/p/bora-speedhorse-saw-hor...
https://www.screwfix.com/p/sawhorse-10-2cm-2-pack/...
They've been serving as a rather expensive table ever since! I should really just knock up some rough timber legs and release them for other duties...
Arnold Cunningham said:
I have this and it's decent: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/234220369377
Looks identical to the machine mart one I have, also decent.ovlovlover said:
I could do with some advice from this threads extravagant tool buying experience.
My mitre saw has died. It was an Erbauer EMIS 254S which although fine was never the most accurate thing. Anywho I've stripped the thread of the blade mount thing with half a bolt left in it and the fence was bent after some stupidity.
I want a replacement for DIY purposes. Basic cabinetry, skirting, sheds etc. It'll be well used.
I'm struggling to decide what to buy. My main concern is precision and I don't want to have to adjust everytime I change the mitre setting etc.
Max £500.
Any thoughts?
TLDR mitre saw; which?
Think as your post was the last on the page, it got missed.My mitre saw has died. It was an Erbauer EMIS 254S which although fine was never the most accurate thing. Anywho I've stripped the thread of the blade mount thing with half a bolt left in it and the fence was bent after some stupidity.
I want a replacement for DIY purposes. Basic cabinetry, skirting, sheds etc. It'll be well used.
I'm struggling to decide what to buy. My main concern is precision and I don't want to have to adjust everytime I change the mitre setting etc.
Max £500.
Any thoughts?
TLDR mitre saw; which?
You're a bit unlucky as these things seem to have got way more expensive in the last few months. The saw I just bought is now £100 quid more expensive.
I bought this one's bigger brother: https://ffx.co.uk/products/makita-makita-ls1018ln-... but this one fits in your budget and I reckon will serve you well.
You may note that in my OP on this thread all those pages ago, I'd bought a Metabo saw and a matching stand. It was this saw, I think: https://ffx.co.uk/products/metabo-metabo-613305380...
That saw was great - way better than the Evolution one I was using, and the stand is still a game changer. However, I broke 2 of them. I broke them both cutting bits of irregular shaped apple wood. I shan't be doing that again with my new saw. If I hadn't done that stupid thing, I think my Metabo saw would still be going strong (noting that I'm a DIY'er and not a tradesperson who uses the tool every day and carts it about in a van.
My new Makita is this one: https://ffx.co.uk/products/makita-makita-ls1219l-2... It's definitely a step up from the Metabo one, but had I not broken the Metabo, I'd have been very happy.
So, on Metabo you can get a saw and a stand for well under 500 quid: https://ffx.co.uk/products/metabo-metabo-kgs254m-k...
All that said, I think this is a really nice saw: https://ffx.co.uk/products/bosch-bosch-gcm305-254d...
Danns said:
Looks like this got overlooked, I have a Bosch GCM 12 SDE - I'm sure I only paid £400&something but it appears prices have crept up a fair bit.
They bloody have too!The 240v version of that is over 700 quid now. It's more or less the Bosch version of my Makita in earlier post.
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