To Buy or Not to Buy?

Unless you purchase woodworking machinery in order to better enjoy woodworking as a hobby, investing in machinery can be quite stressful and create great uncertainty.  For every woodworker (excluding most hobbyists), machinery investment decisions hinge upon whether or not the machine being decided upon will produce higher profits than the current processes that are being performed--which can be accomplished by reducing costs and/or increasing revenue.  

Maybe you are considering upgrading your edgebanding processes.  Should you pony up and purchase a larger feed-through edgebander, invest in a smaller portable edgebander, or continue outsourcing or doing edgebanding by hand?  Regardless of the type of machine you are looking to invest in, the procedure of assessing what justifies a machinery purchase is universal.  So rather than just making decisions off of your "gut feeling," run some simple calculations, which calculations have been outlined in the following Cabinet Maker article by Gero Sassenberg:

Click to Read: Justifying a Machinery Purchase

Posted by Kyle Johnson of Shop Gear Inc.