Hey Guys I am really getting into building some nicer pieces now-no more plywood and pine- and want to make sure I get the essentials. I have a block and a smoother plane but not a shoulder plane, router plane or spokeshave. Which if any would you consider essential or commonly used? Also what machines would you rate in the order to aquire-jointer, bandsaw, router table, planer. Up until now I have been squaring lumber by hand and it is a pain in the nuts. Thanks for ya help

For a discussion on planes you will find plenty of opinions on the thread in this forum regarding hand planes. Briefly, if you are planning on doing any amount of M&T joinery I would strongly urge a shoulder plane as part of your arsenal. Next question would be which size and by which manufacturer. Probably the medium size is a good place to start, then if you have need, add a small and/or large as your work requires. I have a mix of LN and Veritas shoulder planes. Both are prime, top quality lines of planes that are available with A2 steel blades. I particularly like the Veritas feature of being able to move the handle to 90deg. making side planing easier and more comfortable. Chris Gochner did an excellent review of shoulder planes in Fine Woodworking. IF you have access to the online version you can easily find it. The Clifton 3110 is a nice combination tool - large shoulder, chisel plane and bull nose all rolled into one. A friend has one and he swears by it.

The spokeshave is a nice tool to have. I have some cheap Stanley 151 knockoffs that I reconditioned and put some Hock blades in and they cut sweet. I also have some spokeshaves that I've made from scratch using the Veritas blade kits. The Boggs spokeshaves from LN are really sweet to and you can't go wrong with the cast Vertias shavers. The LN large router plane is well made and with the adaptor will take all the small router cutters. Again adding as needed is a good way to go. See T Chisels podcast on using the router plane to smooth out dadoes. THat was an eye opener for me, and though I never saw the router plane as very useful in my work, that podcast changed my perspective. Certainly is a nice tool to have, though wouldn't call it essential.

Machine tool acquisition would be dictated on the type of work you are doing. I consider the jointer the first essential tool for truing the lumber. YOu need that first face and edge trued and squared to act as datum references for futher milling. Of course a planer would be right there behind the jointer if you wanted to use all machines to true your boards. WIth the jointer alone you could cut your hand work in half and make do for a bit. Bandsaw is very usful especially for resawing. I tend to buy unmilled, thicker stock and use the bandsaw to get what I need for thickness out of the board. All nice to have of course. WOuld suggest jointer first, then a toss up for bandsaw or planer. You know your work style and that should dictate your needs.

A commercial router table is nice I really like the Jessem but with all the bells and whistles you can easily plunk down close to $1000. You can easily cut that cost to near $0 if you mount your router to a scrap piece of plywood and use a straight board and clamp for a fence. Two extremes of course, but there are lots of plans available for making your own table. That's what I have I done. I'm on my third one. I keep tweaking and improving them - never being completely satisfied with the designs, but it certainly is cheaper. I would recommend a good quality router table plate insert with lift. This is the key to a very good self made table.

Lots to consider. Hope my opinion helps. Consider the other opinions as they get posted. Good luck with your acquisitions.