Festool

[Trey T]

If you are just looking for an awesome shop vac, i have a Fein turbo III that I really like. Not sure if you want to use your vac to hook up to festool stuff. I don't have any so I don't know. I believe both the Fein and festool use some proprietary hose size. I can't get accessories at Home Depot. That might be something to look into. Also check the pricing get on the consumables. I use bags and the fabric filter. That vac filters better than our household vacuum.

Vacumaid makes great bagged (HEPA) vacuum for various job application that can be used for hobbyist/homeowner. It uses the trusted Ametek Lamb motor and the product gets produced in USA.

 

[bcradio]

Festool has done to woodworking what Apple has done to consumer electronics.

Made things simple, marketed heavily, and created a following.

Innovation-wise, they've not done much in the past 10 years and continue to raise prices. Not sure if they lost some engineering talent, or decided to just rest on their laurels. If you boil it down, they've done nothing really different in the past 10 years than Bosch, Makita, Metabo, etc.

Festool's track saw was good, maybe 10 years ago, now you can find better from Mafell or even the cheaper Makita. Festool's sanders, also once very good, but now you can do better from Mirka, or about the same for much cheaper from Makita, Bosch, or Metabo.


One thing they did do right was standardize on one dust-extraction outlet size, which means you don't have to track down the right adapter to use dust extractors, though that's become more common as of late as well.

That's quite a number of claims there. Got any evidence to back any of it up?

I love your tactic of throwing some positives in with all of your other claims to try and substantiate what you're saying. Keep up the good work.

 

[Furious Filipino]

First, I don't do any woodworking for a living, but merely as a hobby and to renovate my own home.

While I don't own any Festool products, my experience with trying them out gave me the impression that they are well thought out, well designed tools specifically made to work as a system.

The track saw, finish sander, and drywall sander I got to demo was by far superior in terms of dust collection (this is what this discussion was about right?) to anything else I've tried. The only direct comparison I can make is that to my $400 Makita Track saw. The Festool TS is better, but is it $400 better? Not for me, but if I were making my living doing any type of finish carpentry where I had no choice but have work within a furnished/finished area, I could easily justify the cost.

I can't specifically say anything for durability, but I'm guessing they were not really designed with the general contractor/framer in mind--I'm saying that the tools' construction (i.e. plastic bits) probably lend to them not taking to kindly to being shoved in and out a metal truck box day-in and day-out, then again, I'm making an assumption based on "feel" and what I can see from the tool's construction.

 

[BikerDad]

Also Festool can be real picky about what accessories you use with their tools. Example - someone was using one of those smaller dust deputies and it fried the circuitry in the vac. Festool denied the warranty claim.

That's one that is not exactly unreasonable. Not sure that I would accept such an argument in a court, but it at least has legs, arguably amounting to an "aftermarket modification."

Another example - guy was using one of their jigsaws to cut a board. He hit a screw which basically trashed the jigsaw (these things are cheap) Festool denied the warranty because he had indicated he was not using a Festool blade....

Absolutely unreasonable. The law (in the USA) is that warranty claims CAN NOT be denied solely due to
the use of non-manufacturer supplied consumables and REPLACEMENT parts. This is best known in the realm of automotive warranties. For example, Ford CAN NOT deny a warranty claim because the owner of the car used Castrol oil instead of Motorcraft. All that matters is whether or not the consumable or part meets the technical specifications, not whether or not it is made by the manufacturer. Is it worth going after Festool on this? Unlikely from a monetary standpoint, but if one gets riled up enough....

Lastly - what a joke. Festool just had their annual across the board price increase and now the put their vac's on sale a month later - who are they trying to kid?

The 15% off puts the price of the vacs below what it was if you bought one in a bundle before the price increase.

Full Disclosure: no, I don't have a garage full of Festool. While it's true that I got two new Festool products when their Road Tour visited here a couple weeks ago, I'm not really sure that a can coozie and micro-systainer (the one's gift cards come in) count as "drinking the green kool-aid." Those two, a Festool hat, and a Carvex jigsaw make up the entire complement of Festool in my shop. In contrast, I have 5 Bosch 12v tools, a Bosch 7" grinder, and a Bosch 5"/6" ROS, all topped off with a Bosch doo-rag.

With the exception of the Domino, you can find a more expensive and many less expensive tool options from other makers. Whether or not the value proposition makes sense is up to the individual buyer. The sense I get is that Festool's are engineered and built much like the Panzerkampfwagen V, aka Panther tank of World War Two, i.e. in typical German fashion. What that means is they work very well, but are a little more complex, lot more expensive, and not as reliable as their main competitors. Unless I were in the grips of "matchy matchy-itis", I wouldn't spend the money on their cordless drills. They aren't bad drills, they simply don't provide the value for the money. I'm on the fence on their vac, the other contender is the Bosch. On the fence on their track saw, other contender is the DeWalt. Festool's cord system is DA BOMB, every maker should adopt it. (For those who don't know, it's basically the same type of system used in computers now. The power cord plugs into the tool, so when you booger up the cord, you can simply unplug it and plug in another. It makes cord storage easier, etc. Of course, you do have the risk of losing the cord.... IIRC, Milwaukee has done something similar with some of their Sawzalls, probably because of a high cord slicing rates with the tool)