Tomobe – Setting Up Shop 2

In the last post I mentioned how the shared shop I was using in Tokyo unexpectedly closed for construction forcing me to dive into setting up my own shop and search for machines much sooner than expected. I was incredibly lucky that the timing of the closing of the Tokyo shop cooincided with us buying our property in Tomobe. If we hadn’t found this place I’d have no good options for carrying on with work, and I had several projects that I needed to get working on. I also mentioned last time about the lack of power to the shop, and I got really lucky there as well, with the whole process taking place about a month sooner than expected. I started shopping around for machines pretty much as soon as we moved to Tomobe in August, but didn’t think I’d actually be able to use them until later in October or November. But as of two weeks ago the shop has 3 phase 200v power so wood chips are flying!

Moving into the new shop, I didn’t have any equipment aside from hand tools, basic hand power tools and a Makita benchtop planer, so I had pretty full wishlist of machines. Specifially I wanted a 300 mm (about 12″) wide jointer, a Hitachi CB75F bandsaw, mortiser, dust collection, tablesaw with tenon cutting auxilary table, and a crosscut saw.

There is no shortage of quality woodworking machines here in Japan, both new and old. And the used market is really strong. There are always listings for machines on auction sites like Yahoo Auctions, and there are also a lot of used machinery dealers who specialize in fixing up and selling old woodworking machines. I search Yahoo Auctions all the time, but when it comes to buying machinery online there are serious challenges, namely transporation and knowing exactly what you’re getting without seeing it in person.

Eventually I opted to buy my machines from a proper used machinery dealer figuring it’d be safer overall to purchase from an established business. There were challenges there as well though, with transportation again being a big one. Most machines will be delivered on a 3 or 4 ton truck with a crane attached, and we have kind of a tight driveway. I was in discussion with one company who was worried they wouldn’t be able to get their truck in our driveway. They pretty quickly dropped transportation as an option and I started to seriously ponder and stress over whether I would have to rent a truck and transport the machines myself, and then build some sort of gantry crane in order to get them off the truck and into the shop. In otherwords I quickly found myself deep into the proplems of moving massive, heavy machinery.

Eventually though, I found a used tool dealer about an hour and a half away that had a 3ton truck that would fit in our driveway, and they were willing to deliver and set machines inside the shop at no extra cost. They also had really reasonable prices compared to some of the other machinery dealers I was getting quotes from. Here’s one of the machines I ended up buying from them, it’s a 300 mm wide Shimohira jointer:

The Tokyo shared shop had a jointer almost identical to this one, so I was really familiar with this style of machine prior to getting it. It honestly wasn’t my first choice. The machine in Tokyo wasn’t in the best condition so my experience using it was frustrating at times… that was one reason I wasn’t super excited about this machine. I really tried to do research into Japanese jointers, I searched online extensively, and reached out to friends to get their opinions. A couple friends highly recommended Taiyo jointers, which apparently have a really good reputation, (which is reflected in their prices), but I couldn’t find any in the size or price range I had in mind. I also looked heavily into Matsuoka jointers, but again the quotes I was getting back were way higher than I was aniticipating. So ultimately I came back to the Shimohira pictured above which despite my own personal biases, checks the 300mm wide box, and was in clean condition.

A couple of the other machines that I bought from the same dealer are the Hitachi CB 75F bandsaw and the mortiser in the picture below:

The Hitachi bandsaw is a staple of lots of shops here in Japan, and they are really solid machines. They can accept up to a 3 inch wide blade for resawing, as well as narrow blades for cutting curves. I looked around at a few other bandsaws, but the Hitachi has such a good reputation so it was hard to turn this one down once I found it.

Here’s a shot from the big day when the jointer, bandsaw and mortiser were delivered to the shop!

And here’s the jointer in place in the shop. The tool dealer did maintenance and painted the machine, but I still had to dig into it on my own to check out the internals. Honestly this is the first large jointer I’ve ever owned so I wanted to see how it all worked. This is a parallelogram type jointer where the beds are supported each on a set of hinges that allow the beds to be raised and lowered. (At some point I’d like to take more detailed photos and do a deep dive into all these machines…let me know if you want to see that.)

And here’s the Shimohira covered in dust after a round of jointing a bunch of cherry for the current project I’m working on. This was before I had dust collection so chips were everywhere. So far this machine has been working great, and it does what it’s supposed to do and makes rough boards flat and straight. It’s a joy to have machines that get the simple things right.

Here’s the mortiser in place in the shop.

It’s hard to gauge in pictures, but this machine is not that tall. Japanese jointers (at least all the ones I’ve used) are all pretty short. I’m about 175cm tall (around 5′ 9″) and the very top of the machine is around my chin height. The table is so low that in use I find myself hunching over the whole time, so raising it up on some blocking and casters is a must.

The machine is an Okudaira C-type. I tried to do research into this maker but haven’t found much. I’ve only come across two other Okudaira mortisers online, both of which were “B-type”. The only difference I can see between the B and C types is that B seems to use 200 v motors and C-types seem to use 100v, like mine.

Here’s a feature I absolutely love, a tilting table:

I put the tilting table to use for some angled mortises for one of my three leg stools that a customer ordered. It worked beautifully, and was easy to adjust and set back to 90 when I was done.

The table adjusts simply by loosening a couple of bolts, one of which you can see below next to the red scale. Simply loosen, tilt the table to the desired angle, and lock the bolts.

The rest of the controls are pretty standard. It has an x-y table and vise with fine adjust and locking lever. From what I can tell researching mortisers here in Japan, there isn’t a whole lot of variation in how these machines are made. There may be subtle differences between different manufacturers, but for the most part the basic shape and components on mortisers like these hasn’t seemed to change much over the years.

The machines above arrived 3-4 weeks ago, and I’ve had some time to put them all to use. One thing I soon discovered is that the machinery dealer seems to put more emphasis on the visual aesthetics than mechanicals. Supposedly all these machines were serviced but some of the servicing seems to be pretty basic or at times non-existent, instead it looks like they put most of their effort into repainting. At first that really bothered me, but after using these machines for a while now, everything seems to be working just fine… so I can’t really complain that much.

A more recent delivery to the shop has been kind of a problem though. This is a Petty Work 300 Deluxe sliding table saw.

I’ve had my eye on one of these for a long time. They are really popular machines and they often disappear quickly when they come up on the used market. So when this one showed up at the same machinery dealer as the other machines I snatched it up.

My shop has already started to get packed, and I quickly realized that my dream of a full size sliding table saw just wasn’t going to happen. The Petty Work on the other hand is small and mobile, and has a really good reputation as being a very accurate saw, so it seemed like a good fit for my current situation. Most of the work I do is relatively small scale and in the even of a larger cabinet or table project I’m hoping to either adapt the Petty Work to the situation, or simply use a circular saw and guide for wide cross cuts.

This model didn’t come with a factory set of legs, so I build a quick cabinet with casters.

The table slides on a pair of solid steel rods using linear bearings, making for really smooth and effortless movement. Compared to a larger sliding table saw, you can easily move this table around with very little effort.

The current project I’m working on involves making a large quantity of serving trays for a new tea shop in Tokyo. All in all I have some 180 trays and related parts to make and a lot of the work involved doing accurate crosscuts. I could have done those cuts using other methods, but the Petty Work seemed like a good option. So again when the tool dealer called and told me they just got one in stock I decided to buy it sight unseen. They did send me pictures, and I could tell that the machine had been heavily used and showed lots of wear. But after talking to the dealer he assured me that the table was sliding nicely and that it was ready to use. So I went for it.

I put the saw to use right away, and while it worked great for the job I have on hand, I discovered a couple of unfortunate issues. One is that I quickly realized that the sliding table didn’t have the range that I was expecting. The manufacturer hasn’t changed these saws much over the years, but the length of the sliding rails at one time apparently came in two different lengths; a short stroke version and a long stroke version (which has stayed as the current standard). The current standard and old long stroke version of the saw has a crosscut capacity of 550 mm. Mine is closer to 400mm. Had I known from the outset that this was the case I probably wouldn’t have bought the saw. 400 mm is just a bit to limiting for the kind of work I want to do.

The good news is that the rails can be swapped out for the longer versions effectively turning this saw into the current standard. All other parts including the fixed and sliding tables are the same size, so swapping the rails is a pretty easy fix… aside for the expense.

Here’s where my saw’s rails stop. If I swap these for longer rails they will stick out the front of the machine an additional 200 mm or so.

So the rails are one issue, but the bigger and more depressing issue is that the sliding table is way out of flat. It’s easily 1 to 2 mm out of flat across the width and length of the table, which is a lot considering the table is only 450 x 450 mm in dimension. I brought the issue up with the tool dealer that sold me the machine and they said they would get back to me with a quote for milling the table flat. Still waiting to hear back on that, so in the meantime I reached out to another shop for a second opinion and they told me they couldn’t do it. Apparently the design of the sliding table offers few good options for securing it for flattening/milling. So at least one shop gave it a no go… I’m still searching for other shops that may be more open to some problem solving.

I’m also considering seeing if I can return it, though I’m not too hopeful about that. In anycase I feel I’ve gotten myself in somewhat of a pickle.

Looking back I should have done more due diligence to make sure the Petty Work was in better condition. I think part of me really wanted to get my hands of a Petty Work, part of me was somewhat panicked about moving work ahead and I legitimately needed a saw that could make accurate crosscuts, and part of me was also putting faith in the tool dealer that they wouldn’t be selling me junk. Lots of wishful thinking…. it’s a dangerous thing.

In anycase all is not lost, and I think overall this has been a good learning experience. The Petty Work saga will continue at least for a little while, and I’ll be back to report on how it all goes.

Thanks for reading.