Curious about what equipment and tools you guys could not live without in your fabrication shops.

 

nudie magazines

 

Belt/disc sander, 5" Makita 9005b, drill press, vise grips, and cold saw.
I use those items every single day, along with of course, the welder.

 

beer!! haha jk!

 

band saw>cold saw IMO

 

At the end of the day, I might agree without price as a factor. I found out though when my band saw gave up the ghost that a quality cold saw is far cheaper than a quality band saw.
Easily $1000 difference, if not more.
I would say that a band saw is more versatile though.

 

My jet horizontal/vertical band saw is one of my most used, besides the welder. After that I would have to say the disk sander and the trusty chop saw.

 

i love our JET band saw.

but we are also buying a cold say shortly here.

 

I love my hammers!

 

jet vertical/horizontal hydraulic bandsaw here and i dont know what i'd do without it.

 

Plasma table. Laying out and cutting stuff by hand is so boring and time consuming.

 

bridgeport and a dynasty

 

Satellite radio.

 

i stream pandora all the time at the shop
FTW

 

Hard to compare cold saw vs bandsaw. They have different advantages. I would say for every bandsaw cut done here, there is 5 cold saw cuts.

 

now if they made cold blades for a bandsaw...

 

Actually I think our hot saw is the most used of any non automatic saw here. In the last 20 minutes I've counted over 50 cuts. Thing is a beast.

http://www.kalamazooind.com/products...brasive-wheel/

 

15hp 3 phase niceeeeee

 

Vertical bandsaw milwaukie hand held bandsaw ( you can clamp it in the vise and use it as a vertical also) very versatile and you can take it anywhere you need it
41/2 grinder I like makita or metabo
a mill doesn't need to be a monster and a small lathe and a tig welder (200amps min) for starters. Tube bender and a good compressor with some air die grinders and stuff tube bender? You can grow from there.

 

Band saw
belt sander
welder
small brake

 

The metabo seems like a really solid unit, not too bad priced (think it was about 1.5x the milwaukie) but our guys complain about it missing the perpendicular to the blade handle grip (typically it's a screw in location on the back of the head next to the power switch). We had a guy cut his finger off with one of these grinders about 2 years ago (bastard kicked back in a very bad way and he wasnt using the correct handle grip for his job).. Everybody is still paranoid so they still only use the milwaukies and so it rots in the corner.

 

Horizontal / vertical bandsaw is my most used tool for sure. Next is the belt sander. After that, die grinders, air tools, drill press, and of course the welders. If I had a plasma, I think I would use it a lot. Just can't afford one right now.

 

keep them coming guys, and if you have pictures even better!

 

cold saw, sawzall, invertec, drill spress, belt sander and lots of die grinders (i do alot of head and mani porting)


mike