What a great last two days I’ve had. A two day Festool seminar by our district Festool Rep, Larry Smith and Brian Sedgeley, Tool Applications Trainer. Well I thought I was pretty well informed on the Festool line, BUT, Brian sure did a great job of bringing me more up to speed, and the “soft start training” was omitted. I used to love Festool ! Now, I can’t wait to “play” with it more to expand my skills with the Festools potentials.
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Replies
Festool fun
Sounds like a fun event, but not one I'd want to attend. Too easy to come down with a full-blown case of Festoolitis, I'd think. ;-)
Festoolitis !! I can only catch the symptoms, not the disease. My wife is the antivirus vaccination that controlls the checkbook, OOPS, rather the disease.
I bet it was fun!
I became a fan with the domino and ct33e. The green monster has got a lot of my dough since! love em. I could handle something like that!
PS did you get to see the new CARVEX by chance? I'd love to get one.
Carvex
No to the carvex, But I was teased with some other Items that will be out in the near future, but I don't know if I am permitted or allowed comment on them. But like everything Festool, they'll be a winner.
I did learn that their engineering Dept. works on a five year schedule for new products. That speaks well for their attention to detail and perfection, and it shows.
All along IMHO I thought the OF 2200 plunge router was way too big and heavey for bench work, WRONG !! An example was given of a guy who uses that bad boy for inlaying fine work using a 1/16" bit. Using the routers "weight" and extreme running smoothness to his advantage. Brian, the instructor, Asked how heavy the OF2200 was when it was sitting on the table. And everybody had the wrong answer, we said HEAVY It only matters how well and easily it coasts and slides along on the material.
Festool fever
I am amazed at the change in opinion. A few years back, when Festool first hit the market, there were many detractors: "No tool could be worth that much money; extra money."
I haven't heard a complaint about the Festool price in over a year. What began as an embarrassed admission that "I bought a "Festool' and I like it." has turned into a proud "I have a shop full of green systainers."
We 'fine woodworkers' have become a cult of "Value" buyers rather than "Price" buyers. We recognize and appreciate quality in a product. I can't wait for the rest of the country to join in a recognition of "Value" over "It was Cheaper". The airline industry was/is in trouble because people would switch carriers for a $10 ticket price differential. Now we have fees for everything except a coin slot on the bathroom door.
Frosty
I hear ya
Ya know I use to feel that way about porter cable and delta. I have a bit of both. But to recently look at both brands I am shocked. I picked up some PC the other day and it's just made like junk. I could be wrong based on apperance, but god it was awful looking. I can't say I'd buy another PC tool. I've not been disapointed with any of the green stuff. I cry a little with each purchase, bitch about the cost, but that fades pretty quickly.
PC and Delta
With Porter Cable, I think it depends, in part, on where you look at their tools. It appears they make "special" models for the big box stores needing lower consumer-level pricing. The main product line sold through conventional tool dealers still appear to be pretty good. At least that was the case a year or so ago when I bought a couple of routers (690 series). Most of the Delta products appear to be made in Asia, except (reportedly) the Unisaw.Both brands have suffered since the time they were bought by Black and Decker, though, in my opinion. They are now owned by Stanley Works, so we'll have to see what happens.
could be the fact
My purchase for Delta & PC date back close to 4 years ago. I will swear by my 7518 in my router table and I have an old 690 that's simple and good. I also have a ROS from PC that was ok, but nothing like the Festool ETS150. It stays in its box now. The last PC purchase was the 890 router series that had the fixed and plunge base. I like some of it and my inital view were very positive. However after extensive use, I found more and more I did not personally like. For example the DC that was a total joke and it was a bit top heavy. I may sell it as it's never used anymore. I think the new unisaw from delta is a good tool. I've looked at it at the local woodcraft and its well thought out. However, at the price point I'd think I'd go for the sawstop. I think tool companies who make junk lines hurt themselves in the long run, because when you see that, it becomes synonomous with the brand i.e. black n decker. Again thats just my opinion.
"I think tool companies who make junk lines hurt themselves in the long run . . . "
I agree completely. I think "junk lines" are the result of bigboxitis combined with short-term marketing mentality. The big-box home improvement centers want discount prices and the marketing-driven manufacturer conglomerates are willing to sacrifice their brand reputations to comply. Festool's quality engineering (and, high prices) is the antithesis to that approach, and they are gaining traction in the market as a result. Whether Festool's growing success will cause American manufacturers to change is yet to be seen.
I will have to admit there is a market for the disposeatool ! But many years ago I learned my lesson about buying tools for "keeps" We have become a Nation of throw away mentality, while the German attitude is make it the best and keep it. That's one reason Festool took so long getting on the lithium ion battery band wagon. Get it right the first time, my kind of people.
"I... I would buy it if I had any money left arter marrying off three daughters and sent them off for their college education.. " I feel for you man! I have two boys so I hopefully will get some pass on that.
By cheap I speak more to quality than price point. There are some tools not the most expensive that are still quality tools. However, when I see the PC on the shelf now and compare it to what I know existed (and own) just a few years ago, It's tough. For me the solution is simple, I don't buy it anymore.
Entropy
Bruce,
You make an interesting point when you mention that there is a market for disposable tools but that Festool represents a different "buy to last" manufacturing policy. But is there really a fundamental difference..........?
Everything wears out in time. The issue here is, how much time (also translatated into: how much usage). I don't mind a disposable tool that recognises the high degradation that it's job will impose. It is convenient to use blank paper only once to write upon and it must have been tedious in early times when the writing media had to be preserved, cleaned and reused time after time because it was so expensive to make. There are many such technologies where there is a genuine benefit to making a tool use-once or in recognition that it would be impractical to achieve a high reusage rate.
Other technologies seem to be inherently tough and able to withstand much use and the normal degradations wrought by time. I expect my upmarket handplanes to last several centuries, all other things being equal (that is, owners who perform the small maintenance required to preserve them in working condition).
Festool make tools that do aim to outlast the competition, even under heavy use. However, I don't think they are in a special market that ignores the now almost universal product-renewal cycle. They merely aim to have a cycle longer than most. Even a Festool will wear out, despite it's well-engineered capacity for maintenance (eg via replacement wear-parts). Also, the slow rate of their wear allows a user the time to notice that wear; and to plan well ahead for tool renewal. Festools don't seem to fail suddenly or catastrophically.
For example, I have a ten year old Festool RO sander that is now on it's fourth pad. The old pads lose their velcro hook stickiness only very gradually so I can afford to wait for a lazy supplier to spend 2 months between my order for a new pad and it coming through the letterbox. (Another story). The old pad is still in place. in fact; it may become "not sticky enough" in the next month or four. If a more fundamental part wears out, I expect it to give me plenty signals that it's doing so; and to be able to get a replacement part.
Cheap machine tools I stupidly bought in the past have not only failed quickly but often with no warning before the "phut!"; which is often their death-croak since their poor construction methods seems to prevent them from being mendable. Their manufacturers do not make them disposable because that is their inherent nature (as with that paper) but because they like to keep manufacturing costs minimal and the turnover in tool-renewal high. They seem to think that they're selling burgers (the ideal use-once, buy again forever product of modern marketing).
Many burger-eating fashion victims seem unable to grasp that such rabid consumer behaviour is costly and inefficient in the tool market. They foolishly purchase a kraptool at rock bottom price and are then disappointed. Like burger-eaters, they are still daft enough to go and buy another. "Well, it's cheap". They will never understand the pleasures and nutritional value of a prime sirloin.
****
Let's not forget either that technology improvement sometimes means that it would be pointless to build a tool to such a high standard that it lasts forever. Who now uses a high speed steel blade in their TS? Very few I think, as we all like the high quality cuts and long wear time of tungsten-tipped blades. Even Festools can be (and are) improved in their functional capabilities and performances. One wonders what their router of 2020 will be capable of? One day even the Domino may be pushed aside by an even more innovative jointing tool (as the Domino has done, to a large extent, with the biscuit joiner).
Lataxe, sometime Festool buyer (but not too often).
Well stated , as usual
Priorities or practicalities, Like most people, I don't have a Bill Gates bank account ! Thus, The good "toys" come but once a year, christmas. Fortunately!!! I work at a woodworking store that allowes me to bring home the Festool demo units on the closed hours to "play" with them. Which is good for me and them. One quickly gets spoiled when using a quality item.
I have my Grandfathers Winchester Mod. 12 pump shotgun, Older serial # thats a war horse, thats more dependable than most. Granted it's not an engraved beretta with a burrled carlo walnut stock and gold inlay. But it's not a Western Auto Stevens special either and I generally out shoot many guys with their Browning o/u's. And I sure don't have a P. Marcou plane ;-) maybe someday. And have to settle for a very finely tuned set of Stanleys #3-#7.
So it all boils down to WHERE you want to spend your money.
Lataxe,
At my age I don't buy tools for longevity. The only longevity I'm interested in is my own.
I buy Festool for functionality. Their router is superb for dust collection and adjustability; and so is the circular saw. With the straightedge combo I can cut 'waney' hardwoods or sheetgoods, faster and more accurately than on my Unisaw. I have a love affair with the Festool dust extractor (lousy name): variable speed - reduce it for for sanding, so the sander doesn't get sucked down on the work - great casters roll over almost anything and the hose almost coils itself but doesn't fight against "straight'.
I didn't like their jigsaw setup, so stayed with my old reliable Bosch barrel grip. I have an earlier Rotex sander but only use it for 'heavy' work. My PC 'ROS' is the go-to sander.
You are right-on (A Yankee phrase, I think.) about durability. But I think that functionality is another element in the equation.
Frosty
Designer genes
Frosty,
You're spot-on to identify Festool's high functional abilities that go along with their longevity. Often the two attributes go together or even enhance each other. The engineereing and materials used are of high quality; Festool DNA gives birth to long-lived and healthy machines which (like long-lived and healthy humans) have great potential for hard work to a high standard.
The evolution/genetic analogy works also in respect of Festool fitness for purpose. The engineering seems to be evolved via actual and demanding usage in real world tasks - in real and demanding woodworking environments. As you describe, their tools are full of those small innovations and features that anticipate or fulfill the many ambitions of skilled craftsmen. They reduce the vibration and dust - good for our health but also for the health of the machine itself. They provide many simple but clever aids to proper usage of the tool, such as that variable suck on their extractors you mention; but also support limbs on their routers (to prevent accidental tipping when working on edges); the central blow hole in the sander pads (to push dust towards the suck holes); and many others.
Festools are undoubtedly successful competitors in the tool jungle; but will their DNA come to dominate the market, even to the extent that Festool-like tools oust the dross from those Big Box suppliers? It seems unlikely, as the present ecology (markets) are very forgiving, allowing all kinds of tool-creatures to prosper, even the lame and sickly ones.
****
How sad, though, to find other tool makers going for the easy options of pretty packaging, futuristic shapes, meaningless marketing "functions" and other surface-deep hyperbole used to sell their tools, features designed only to seduce naive potential buyers. How sad also that those buyers cannot get past the advertising image to understand and seek for those necessary (and often absent) qualities of high functionality and longevity in their tools.
Lataxe, who likes to get more than glitter for his gelt.
I know you are not on comission
Lataxe , Well I'm feeling the iresistable urge to buy a Festool product .
a good pal has the sander I think Rojek er sumthun attached to another device
he says it is the best he has ever used and he is also a curmudgeon so it's got to be true .
regards , dusty , possibly a naive potential buyer
team that with a CT...
You team that tool with a CT (mini, 22,33 etc) and you have one heck of a combination. I run my ETS150 with the ct33e and it literally pulls it's self down to the material. I've never seen anything like it. No ambient dust. You finish rub your fingers across the material and it will astound you what is actually left. I'm going to add the dust deputy from oneda to it and that should address the only complaint (bags). Have a good one!
Festooled Name Change
Dusty, ole wood particulator,
Now, should the Festool-lust take aholden of your consumer subroutines, you will need to change your name since (as others in this thread have atesticated) those Festools do not spare dust with which to clad your personage, once you have hooked them up to the sucker. Is this a good thing?
Well, for sneezy lads such as moi (currently suffering the tail-end of the dang tree pollen hayfevers) a lack of wood dust is a very good thing. However, you may find that your commercial image as a hard-working Dusty fellow of obvious wood-mastery may be essential to your various customers who, seeing you all pristine and dust-free, may assume you to be a dilletante or even a mere manager!
Here is a synthesis from one possible outcome of a dialectical process concerning this paradox: avoid dust-snorting via the excellent Festool-suck but use the contents of the sucker dust-tank as dressage for your overalls. Perhaps an apprentice may be seconded to dust-paint activities upon the overalls as the process may be less than stimulating (except to the apprentice's conk and nasals).
Meanwhile you will be achieving unheard of degrees of presicion in your sawing, routing and surface-prep. As an added selling-inducer, you might allow the customers no note your employment of the sooperior toolen by providing the odd subtle glimpse of their black & green colour scheme; or even the magic word emblazoned upon the frontage of a cap worn jauntily and at a cocky angle of prideful confidence.
****
Meanwhile I must confess, in addict fashion, to a recent Festool purchase myself. I've used a small Bosch 600A router for over a decade now but it has become awkward to load with bit as one of the tabs holding the collet lock-bar in place has snapped orf. Also, it is a primitive tool without fine height or fence adjustment albeit otherwise very capable. (Note the list of increasingly desperate rationalisations). SO I had to buy a new small router, the Festool being an obvious choice.......
Well, that's my excuse. As you'd expect, I have come to adore the new toy (I mean essential tool) since it has already seduced me in the way of those tools that almost disappear in your hands as they perform your intent with no distracting twitch, configuration-twist or pestering demand for tool strokes rather than wood-machining.
So, that's two sanders, a sucker, a Domino and a router in 11 years. I am a troo addict yet do you think? The test is surely: did you buy a tool you don't need or use just because it is so purty? Not yet; but I will confess to drool-sticky clagging my Festool catalogue pages together, especially around that Giant Belt sander (approximately the size of a small Caterpillar bulldozer when in its sanding frame).
Lataxe, slightly less dusty than heretofore.
Congratulations!
Congratulations on the new addition to your toy box.
Frosty
No more atchoos!
Im my shop price effects tool longevity
I have a TS55, with extractor and a 1400 Router. I like the saw, and use it often. I haven't been pleased
with the router. It has many fine qualities, but for most chores I use a router for(edging), my old PC works better for me.
Much of my issue is self inflicted. I don't think I've given the tool a full workout as would test it's many functions.
But the more quality wood pieces it damages, the less likely it will be tested fully. Some of the damage is lack of
extended tool time on my part. I feel the rest is poor tool design for edging as performed by me.
I do think the Festool products in my shop will last. One reason is the fact they seem to be well built. The greater
reason in my shop is cost. I try to treat my tools well. But from time to time small power tools seem to become suicidal
and if left at my benches edge, they seem to want to jump to the concrete floor. After the financial commitment required
to adopt a Festool, I seem to keep them away from the staging area required for jumping. I feel this may extend their life
over other members of the shop family, further extending the life of the green and black in my shop.
Suicidal tools
"But from time to time small power tools seem to become suicidal
and if left at my benches edge, they seem to want to jump to the concrete floor."
Do you suppose they could be getting too much coffee?
Frosty
OF2200 run-out ?
Luckily, I have to work tomorrow, 6/30, so I'll check out the OF2200 for said run out. Also are you using the micro-adjust on the depth stop? What a sweet feature that is. One click equals .003"
1/16" sound way out of order !
OF2200 runout
I just completed checking our floor display model. I installed a .500 X 6 1/2" ground drill rod into the collet and checked it out, the best I could get was a faint bit of light (.001-.002) off of a sterritt square all the way around at five different plunge depths. And that measurement was on the skinny 1 3/16 portion of the subase, subject to my wobble of the square.
Something is way out of wack ! Pardon me asking a stupid question, Is the subase "clicked in properly?
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