Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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You do understand I'm not literally hundreds in the hole right?
That wasn't obvious to me at all! You really need to lower your estimates for how informed I am about the costs in tools, space and labor it involves haha
Yeah, that was just in response to the hypothetical "what if you valued your time" question. It's interesting in the abstract, but useless practically. I have a salaried position, I can't just work more hours to make more money. If I did decide to slavishly min-max my time for profit seeking pursuits, it's unlikely I'd actually earn that much money in a side hustle or part time job. Or even half that.
If I did find somewhere that my more valuable skills could be brought to bare, I think my employment contract would actually prevent me from taking it.
Now the question of how long until the tools I purchased pay for themselves is an interesting one. The thickness planer I got has probably already paid for itself, or close to it. It literally halves if not quarters the cost of lumber buying it rough and milling it yourself versus buying it S4S or even S3S. Especially the place I get mine at that regularly has plenty of perfectly usable lumber in a "dent and ding" section. And let me tell you, S4S oak is expensive. It's the difference between paying $10 per board foot versus $2.5-4 a board foot.
My tablesaw I've gotten a ton of use out of, but deciding when it pays for itself is slightly more difficult. So far I've used it to build my kid a stool with a drawer in it, because she loves drawers. Also a box because I needed the practice. Made my in-laws a clock as a Christmas present. Used it when I rebuilt the rotted wall of my garage. Also made myself a bookshelf that was perfectly sized to go on top of my filing cabinet and hold my old game manuals. And when I replaced a bunch of rotted MDF trim.
Fuck whoever though MDF made good trim.
Then I built my wife a chair with it. And a garden. And a chicken coop. And a 3-bin compost.
Made a pair of cutting boards, one for us and one for the in-laws.
It's possible it's utility has paid for itself by now. It's been the workhorse of a great many of my projects.
My router table, circular saw, jig saw and miter saw are hard to say. I thought I'd use the circular saw more, but now I mostly use it to break down sheet goods. The miter saw I use all the damned time to rough cut planks, but I generally use my tablesaw to cut to final dimensions. The router table I've used for a lot of things that only it can do, or which just work better than a tablesaw. And the jig saw I've used to cut a lot of curves or sharp angles I wanted projects to have for decorative reasons that just were not gonna happen at all any other way. But in aggregate, it's hard for me to say these tools have paid for themselves. Still, it's a pleasure having the right tool for the right job.
In that sense, perhaps I am still "down" hundreds of dollars. On the other hand, I probably would have just spent the money on an RTX 3080 at pandemic prices, and blown a hundred hours in Cyberpunk 2077 instead. And if you are asking about return on investment or what my time is worth, that truly would have been money down the drain.
Sure sounds like there's a lot of depth in it, and while I can't say that I still understand the appeal myself, I can at least see why one might want to venture down the rabbit hole.
Keep at it! All that matters is that you enjoy it after all.
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