My wife and I have something in common: we both have way too many hobbies
Among them all, she makes pottery, and needed a clay extruder to form various shapes
You’d be surprised how many hobbyists don’t know and don’t even care what a 3d printer or laser cutter can do for them
Pottery, scrapbooking, screenprinting, … these are astonishingly conservative groups
Often older people with “not so young”/“not so creative” teachers trying to teach things “as they should be”
I can get behind the fact you shouldn’t do everything with a machine, but they can be great tools along the way to greater creativity…
Shortly after we were married, my wife and I were channel flipping and landed on New Yankee Workshop. I’d recently graduated and lost access to the college scenery and prop shops. She asked “Why don’t you make us some nice stuff like that?” and I said “Let’s add up the price of each tool he uses to put that together.” By the end of the episode her question was answered.
Of course, now (30 years later) I’ve got a lot of what Norm had back then, and some stuff (3D printer, CNC, laser cutter) he’d never dreamt of.
Probably not a dedicated mortiser, dedicated pocket hole machine. I have a router table, but it is much less fancy. I don’t have an oscillating spindle sander either and my joiner is 1/10th the price.
But if powermatic and delta are giving you free tools, why not use them?
Every once in a while I come across a morticing attachment for a drill press, but can never bring myself to jump. My drill press is one of the big Harbor Freight floor models, and I’m always afraid the attachment won’t fit.
My router table is a hole milled in my extended table saw table. Doesn’t even have its own fence, just re-purposes the table saw fence.
or perhaps I will??