Woodreaux,
SKB advised buying 3 phase equipment, especially a lathe and mill. What he didn't say was at local auctions,3 phase equipment is often very much cheaper than single phase because 3phase line power is generally not available without obligating yourself to pay extremely high monthly rates. I was at a SBA auction that included two mills, an Index and a Super Max, I wanted the Super Max. The first one up was the Index, but no one wanted to start the bidding. To move things along, I started at $50 and "son of a gun" I got it. SKB's advice to buy a rotary phase converter is one way to run 3 phase, and the motor runs at almost full power, plus you can "instant reverse", which is a handy feature. Another way to run 3 phase is with a "static phase converter". This runs the motor on the two legs of 220 volt "house power" and starts it with help from a capacitor in the converter. This way, the motor runs at only 2/3 power and you must stop the motor to reverse it("instant reversing" may destroy the capacitor). The way I chose was to use a static converter to start a "donated" 3 phase "slave motor" and run the equipment on two legs of "house power", with the third leg being generated by the slave motor( by running w/o a "load", it uses insignificant power). This is basically how a rotary converter works, so it has the same advantages( to protect the capacitor, "switch" it off, after starting the slave motor). If you buy a static converter, it will include instructions for wiring it this way( I didn't think this up, someone much smarter than I did). For a single person shop, if you size the system for the largest motor and wire them in series, you can run several pieces of equipment with the same system. There are other ways to start the "slave" motor, but this combines convenience with acceptable cost. In the long run, 3 phase equipment may be cheaper and more capable than single phase.
Mike