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As I near my rapidly looming retirement, I hope to acquire some wood and metalworking machines, to keep myself busy and entertain any grandchildren who may share my interests. I hope to use this equipment to refurbish more equipment, and repair other stuff which otherwise might have found itself occupying some land-fill site. 

I have not come up through the trade, but have worked in the maintenance side of things most of my life, initially as a fitters mate, and somewhat longer as a rigger and scaffolder. As well as refurbishing my equipment I will also have to acquire the expertise to use it. So far I have a LeBlond Regal lathe, 1942 model bought as a wreck, which is about 20% completed. It will swing 13" diameter X 18" b.c. but for now much needs to be done. I also have a Scacia Shaper with 450 mm stroke, and although somewhat rusty on the exterior machined surfaces, I think that it will clean up well with some minor disassembly, but hopefully a full strip down will not be required. Two recent acquisitions, yet to arrive home are a 7 x 12" metal cutting band-saw, and a 12 speed, 16 mm bench mounted drill press. Both these have been cheap eBay purchases, but both need some work to refurbish. The Band-saw has been converted to a wood cutting machine, with a 2850 RPM motor in place of the 1425 RPM original, and the drill press is missing  a pulley, motor and chuck. My last piece of kit which I have in the shed, is 1700 Kg of Stanko Import tool and Cutter grinder with a load of accessories. I still need to learn how to drive this machine, but it will prove useful when I get a milling machine, sometime in the future. I also hope to get a larger lathe say a 10 dia. X 30-40" b.c. machine, I hope to find  serious industrial machines, like a small K&T mill and a DSG or similar lathe, and from what I've seen, if you are patient, sooner or later they turn up, especially if you don't mind cleaning up "a bit of a roughie"

Much the same philosophy applies to finding woodies machinery. Often fine old machines which have been neglected and allowed to rust up, turn up and can be had for a fraction of their original price, and I will enjoy finding and making good these old treasures, as much as making new things with them. If you have read this far, Very well done!