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I Spent $4,000 on Woodworking Tools

December 3, 2025 · 14 min · 511 views

After learning CAD in a week, I gave myself permission to buy the big power tools my dream tiny workshop needed. Naturally, I first tried to bypass the natural order and summon them instead. The law of equivalent exchange doesn't care, and I still paid the price: a charge on my card and a chaotic stack of boxes in a 7.2 sqm (78 sqft) room.

So this one's an unboxing. I go through each machine, explain why I bought it, keep a running total, and figure out where everything goes.

Why a real workshop

Woodworking is the latest in a long line of maker hobbies (model making, foam, resin, Gunpla, sculpting, electronics, LEGO), and each one left me with more tools and a bigger backlog of shame. Until now I'd mostly bought hand tools and small power tools, easy to store when one hobby passes the torch to the next.

This time feels different, and the channel is the reason. Instead of hopping to the next shiny thing, I want to mix them all together: wooden stands for LEGO sets, fantasy builds with LEDs, resin, electronics. With a proper workshop, every nerdy idea I've had for two decades can finally exist.

The tools

The centerpiece is a SawStop compact table saw, the kind that won't cut off your fingers (or your sausage). I've never used a table saw, so I also got a backup brake, push blocks, a miter gauge and featherboards. Then a Bosch miter saw, which a commenter explicitly told me not to buy. I didn't listen: too much Taku Woodcraft, and a lot of framing ahead of me.

The rest: a DeWalt DW735 planer, a belt and disc sander, a 1HP dust collector, a drill press, a router plate and lift, and two tool cabinets, because the last time I went cheap on storage, the cabinets fell apart.

I didn't buy a jointer, because a real one would take up half the room (I checked). No bandsaw either, because I couldn't find a corner for it. Yet.

What went wrong

I dropped my DJI camera head first. After some research, the recommended fix was brute force, and it worked. The drill press turned out much bigger and heavier than expected, with almost no instructions.

And the total came out to $4,198, a bit more than the title says. I needed a round number. Sorry.

Table saw first

The table saw is the most versatile tool in the shop, so it gets its space first. Precise cuts matter a lot (my LED frame video shows what happens without them). Black walls are the correct look when you may have accidentally entered a pact with eldritch creatures. And a planer only makes the top face parallel to the bottom one, so without a jointer I'll have to build jigs.

Where the $4,000 went

  • 7.2 sqm (78 sqft) of workshop
  • $1,450 for the SawStop and its backup brake
  • $770 for the planer
  • $4,198 total, against the $4,000 in the title
  • 0 jointers and 0 bandsaws, for now

Watch it

Watch the video on YouTube.

Gear and links

Recording equipment:

Power tools:

Safety and jigs:

Storage:

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