I been acquiring tools for a long time. Moved into the shop right next to my house last June (had the same shop about 10yrs ago), been trying to get more and more tools ever since. I am pretty set up but still need/want a few things.
Right now on my list is;
-drill press, may just go mag drill rather than a press until a later date. Drilled 22 holes recently, not fun by hand! Nice thing about a mag drill is it is fully mobile but it does take special bits.
-sand blast cabinet. Almost purchased one last fall but a trip to Baja came up instead. Going to get a 58" wide unit, that way I can do bigger parts like fenders and such. Going to buy a Skat 979 sometime in the next month or two if funds are available.
-I would really like to get a band saw but right now it is kind of low priority and a good one is not cheap! Best way to cut steel though from my experience.
My favorite shop tools or the ones I use the most right now are;
-Miller 140 mig welder. Can't do much over 3/16's with it but it is a great little machine for light duty.
-Miller 212 mig welder. Bought this last summer, have hardly used it yet. Got a great deal on it and it is a sweet machine. Burns beautifully but I only use it on heavier steel.
-Everlast Powerplasma 50. This is a cheapo China made unit but the best China plasma you can get. I have had it 2-3yrs now, it gets used often. Switch on the back died in the last year, now I have to plug it in to power it up or off. Not that big of a deal. I have gotten pretty good with the plasma cutter, takes some practice but I love it. So many uses for this thing once you have one.
-digital levels, angle finders and such. Love these tools, use them often, takes the guess work out of things and makes just about everything easy.
-Ingersol Rand 5hp compressor. Had this 2-3yrs too, so far so good and no issues. It will run my air tools great and my pot blaster but you have to take a lot of breaks with the pot blaster.
-air tools, use them a lot. Die grinders and impact see the most use.
-got a pipe bender and notcher late last fall, have not had a chance to use them yet but have lot''s of bar work coming up so they will see some use. Need to sink a sauna tube out back of the shop with a steel tube coming out of it for mounting up the pipe bender. I got the manual bender but can upgrade to hydraulic anytime.
Cheers