Your Biggest Tool Purchase Mistakes?

[kroll]

I'm sure someone else has done same thing but mine is PC detail sander

[Bill Holt]

I'm sure someone else has done same thing but mine is PC detail sander

Yep, and do not remember ever using it.

[MGoBlue1984]

Biggest mistake is what I didn't buy: A Sawstop for $2,000 and a PM3520B for $2,500.

[Greg Jones]

Yep, and do not remember ever using it.

I trashed the sander, kept all the rubber profiles and use some of them them by hand with regular sandpaper. Works better than when they were attached to the sander!

[kencombs]

Bought a Sawstop at an auction.  Cartridge had been tripped bought a new one.  All's well.  Total spent:  under $800.  Got an offer for a lot more than that.  Decided to keep my old Unisaw and take the money.

That was probably a mistake, even though it was about 11 years ago, I'm 77 and still have all my digits.  But could happen yet.

[Murray M]

Bought a Sawstop at an auction.  Cartridge had been tripped bought a new one.  All's well.  Total spent:  under $800.  Got an offer for a lot more than that.  Decided to keep my old Unisaw and take the money.

That was probably a mistake, even though it was about 11 years ago, I'm 77 and still have all my digits.  But could happen yet.

Nice style

[kurt18947]

2.  Craftsman 12" tilt head band saw (yes tilt head not tilting table) I sold it and replaced it with a shopsmith stand alone bandsaw.  The shopsmith owner really wanted it out of his                            basement as he didn't like the way it performed.  He was right about how badly it cut, but once the blade was flipped over so that the teeth were pointing down, it cut just fine.

I wonder if somebody from Sears or one of their manufacturers saw a Ship's saw and said "hey, that's a good idea!" It may be a good idea, their execution on the other hand .......

[camp10]

I have to second (third?) the Grizzly wet sander. I couldn't get it to work well, and then the motor seized.

I had upgraded the tool rest hoping that would help, but no-go. I was happy to haul it to the dump.

[Tony Z]

If there's a winner, here, I'm in the running. Back in the late 80's when I was first putting together a shop I came across this:



8-1/4" Ryobi radial arm saw seemed like a perfect solution for a small shop. The most untunable, inaccurate, out of adjustment POS ever made.

I also bought one of those, don't know how hany pairs of drawers were soiled beyond cleaning when using it. There were so many ways the thing was underbuilt, with the cheapest materials, that I'll have nightmares for a week, if I try to remember them all.

Because of this saw, I've never considered a Ryobi tool since.

[Woodenfish]

The only woodworking machine I've ever bought and regretted the purchase was a Performax 16-32 drum sander. Expensive, fussy, ate expensive abrasives, took up a lot of floor space and I just couldn't make it work to my satisfaction for any length of time for production. Sold it for a big loss. I've seen this machine in the shops of a few woodworking YouTubers videos just sitting in the background unused in their projects too. Makes me wonder.