P/T advice please

[patl]

Hi,
I'm finally taking the plunge and buying a P/T. The trouble is that size is my primary consideration rather than cost, I have a small shop and need something that wont take up too much space once it's wheeled out of the way (as ever with a small shop, everything has to be be on wheels).

Looking at relative dimensions of all the usual suspects, there seems to be little in it, which seems unlikely somehow. For example the Jet 260 at 1160x527 doesn't really seem to be appreciably bigger than the little Kity 439 at 960x570. In fact all of the 11ishx6ish machines seem to be around 1100x600 or so. Is this the case or are any actually smaller than the others or more able to fold up for storage (or is it a no-no to not keep the planer beds unfolded anyway?)

Thanks,

Pat.

 

[slemishwoodcrafts]

What sort of sizes are you looking to dimension? I remember reading that Chems bought the Axi MB9020 p/t and I believe he is pleased with it so far. Heres a link to the thread:

https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/axmi ... 41861.html

Could be worth a PM to see he thoughts on it.

Regards,

Michael

 

[footinturf]

Id say my scheppach 2600 is around 500mm wide by 1100 long. the only prob is that it must be around 200mm from a wall because of a guard protecting the blind side of the fence

 

[patl]

As ever, the bigger the better :wink: But I've ruled out 6" as being too small, 8" at a pinch will do, 11" would be more likely to cover all eventualities. By and large, I don't mind dimensioning small stock by hand, as it gets bigger, I get less accurate and increasingly bored, so I'm tending to think that the whole point for me of getting a p/t, is for larger timber.

My problem isn't so much the space available to use it, that I can find, even if its out on the driveway. It's more about how much space it'll take up when its not being used, which, after all is 99% of the time. But then I guess maybe I just need to accept that no matter what, anything that can handle 11" timber is going to require a >1m planer bed. The followup question then becomes, for those p/t that convert from planing to thicknessing by folding the planer tables on top of each other, is leaving the tables on top of each other a bad thing or is it ok to store like this?