61 – Attending IWF in Atlanta 2008

Video - August 25, 2008

Although for me, IWF was about representing my sponsors and meeting up with readers/viewers, nearly everyone else has one thing on their mind: tools. So we did our best to get some footage of the most talked about tools of the show. I know we missed quite a few (specifically, Jet’s new oscillating drum sander). But with our tight schedule and impending exhaustion, we did the best we could. Nothing fancy, nothing funny, just tools!

Here are the companies we visited:

Leigh, Blum Tool Co., Ex-Factory, DeWalt, Powermatic, Delta, and Laguna.

For more IWF coverage, check out these great resources:
Fine Woodworking Editors Blog
Popular Woodworking Blog

Discussion

Shannon August 25, 2008 9:57 pm

Marc,
Great video quality and sound. I can only imagine how loud it must have been in there. I have to wonder how long until we see that new Powermatic 18″ band saw in your shop. That is the first thing I thought of when I saw the video on the FWW website from the show. Some really great stuff there. Not so sure about the General adjustable band saw. Seems more trouble than it is worth. One day when I have extra space in my shop, lol, that slot mortiser would be really cool.

Unfortunately I just read John Economaki’s blog and learned that Bridge City was at the show. Please tell me you caught a glimpse of the Jointmaker Pro! If so did you get to try it out? If I had known I would have asked you to seek it out during the live cam sessions you had going. Thanks for the report and great footage.

Shannon

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Vic August 25, 2008 10:02 pm

WOW!!!
Looks like this show was waaayyyy cooler than the Vegas show!
Makes me wanna up my insurance on my shop and burn it down, so I can buy newer, cooler tools…just kidding, Mr. Insurance Agent. :D
If it really happens, it is an accident!

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Steve Ponnath August 25, 2008 10:04 pm

Was excited to see the Dewalt plunge saw. But heck, it’s the price of a Festool. So just buy the Festool I guess. Was hoping for something a little more in my price range. Not sure Dewalt can play in Festool’s ballpark.

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Jeroen August 26, 2008 4:14 am

I have to agree with Steve. It is a copy of Festool and since Festool is much better then DeWalt why bother if the price is the same. They bring it like something completely new fortunately we know better :P

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Denis Rezendes August 26, 2008 7:39 am

wow! i have got to get up there soon! you could tell that the dewalt guy was a little nervous with a Festool representative staring him down while he talked about their rail plunge saw :)

the PM bandsaw was awesome too! i bet you were sitting there looking like a kid in the toy aisle. please mommy please! ;)

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Doug Brummett August 26, 2008 11:22 am

Good stuff. Audio and video looks terrific, I think we can all thank you for that. I had to play the Vegas stuff painfully loud and still could barely understand what was going on.

I am somewhat concerned with a trend that I see. Most of the manufacturers are taking a pot shot at the upper end of the market. Sorry to say, but I doubt I will ever be that demographic. Unfortunately this leaves the lower end of the market unattended. I fear that quality there will continue to decline despite rising prices. This will eventually take the casual woodworker out of the equation. Only those running a side business or having surplus money will be able to afford tools of even average quality. I like the innovation here, but am just too cheap to own any of it.

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Mark August 26, 2008 12:19 pm

Why would you buy an adjustable band saw like that? If the main feature is that you can lower it so that your blade guard comes down lower, then just make a longer blade guard!

I predict they’ll sell three. (for those people who have to have everything and then one more to a museum somewhere)

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thewoodwhisperer August 26, 2008 5:28 pm

You know, I totally missed Bridge City. Darn it! I honestly didn’t even know they were there. The show is so big, and I had a single half day to walk the floor. No wonder I missed a bunch of stuff.

The General bandsaw. I got it on tape because I thought it was neat. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that would be a feature I would never really use. But at least they gave it the old college try! :)

DeWalt’s saw? Well, I honestly think they are going to have to bring down the price if they want to even think about competing with Festool in that arena. I would love to get some hands on time with it so I can compare performance.

Doug, I think I have to agree with you. There seems to be a polarization in power tools these days, with a widening gap between the cheap stuff, and the expensive stuff. The middle of the road class seems to be a dying breed. There is definitely no shortage of cheap tools, but honestly in many cases you get what you pay for. And most people aren’t going to want to make that jump to premium quality. So what’s a woodworker to do??? I guess we’ll have to wait and see how it all turns out.

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Jeremy (Bama5150) August 26, 2008 5:47 pm

Marc,
What was your opinion of that laguna driftmaster guide?

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thewoodwhisperer August 26, 2008 7:10 pm

Well, to say I want one would be an understatement! That is definitely one of the most impressive bandsaw fences I have ever seen. Toolless drift adjustment, a nice tall fence, and a threaded screw for fine adjustment…….. what’s not to love.

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Jim Jones August 26, 2008 7:13 pm

What Doug said!! Wish I had said it first.

I’m in the market for a table saw as we speak, so while I was watching the video, the new Dewalt Unisaw sounded so great I was drooling on my shirt and thought, “man, I gotta have one of those!!”

Then I think, “Hmmm, I bet that costs a LOT… Since I can’t even afford their old Unisaw, I know I can’t afford this new one.”

What’s a wanna’ be woodworker to do??? None of the manufacturers show any indication of reasonable costs. They are targeting the high end users for sure.

BTW, Marc and Nicole, great job on the video. I really got a good feel for the products you reported on. And the quality of the video was great.

One other observation: I think I would vote for fewer band saws next time…

Thanks again.

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thewoodwhisperer August 26, 2008 7:27 pm

What I really hope to do next year is get all of our footage on day 1. Then devote days 2 and 3 to sponsor-related activities. Day 1 will be light in terms of attendance, and my energy level will be much higher. This time around, we were filming on Day 4 after two conferences and we had an energy level of about -2. So I really tried to focus on the things that were new and notable. And believe it or not, a lot of it was bandsaws this year. There really wasn’t much going on in other categories. I did, however, regret not getting some of the cool new Jet stuff filmed. But again, we did what we could. So with any luck, we’ll have better control over things next year.

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Antonio August 27, 2008 12:39 pm

I preffer the festool over the dewalt saw but I must say that the dewalt maybe going to find a few fans Because:
1)you can buy one cordless
2) Anti kickback
3) it can work on its side for trimmng (cause the blade is just next to the end side of the machine)
4) You can buy any brand of blades

Mark if you have any video of the new MFT extension Attachments I would really love to see it.

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Michael D. August 27, 2008 5:54 pm

Thanks for the footage. I’ve recently came into the market for a new bandsaw, so I watched the Powermatic part intently. Unfotnately, there were a couple unanswered questions after watching it:

1. What is the suggested manufacturers retail price?
2. When is the product going on sale?

I went to Powermatic’s website to get some more info but didn’t see anything there either — what a loss, if they drum up interest on the product from the show. They should have a place to let people sign up for an email for more info when its available, at least!

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Mattias in Durham, NC August 28, 2008 5:19 pm

Thanks for catching that footage! I would have to say the Blum hand planes with indexable replaceable blades look awesome. The perfect marriage of old style with space age technology.

A lot of other things looked neat, too. It appears that safety is a strong trend and “European” was mentioned quite a few times, too. All good things. Surely these new machines are expensive since they are top of the line, but I’m not sure it’s an indication that prices are polarizing? Why would they proudly show off their middle of the road machines? I predict prices will keep going down, and value will keep going up. But it might be a while before Festool is “affordable.”

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John August 28, 2008 6:17 pm

OMG! THAT IS AN AWESOME BANDSAW!
That and the Delta saw were a nice change from the direction I’ve a lot of companies are going. Noticed that they didn’t give a price…. That’s good. It’ll give me something to dream about until I find out.

I live in Atlanta and forgot about the show. Good video though. Would like to have seen more. Got a part 2 or was that it?

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thewoodwhisperer August 29, 2008 8:48 am

Just got an email from a DeWalt representative:
“One person, while congratulating us on our new TrackSaw mentioned that you can use anybody’s blade with it. While we’ll gladly take complements, this point is incorrect. Due to the riving knife and the 20mm arbor, you need to use either the DeWalt Tracksaw blades, (a Festool blade will fit too, just w/ slightly less capacity). A “typical” 6-1/2″ blade with a 5/8″ arbor will not work however.”

And if I can editorialize a bit, I don’t think this is such a bad thing. I know Festool makes some top notch blades that will outperform those produced by some of the premium blade companies we know and love. If DeWalt follows suit, having to buy your blades from them is not such a bad thing. I suppose if we want the increased performance and capabilities of the saw, we have to be willing to forget about the $20 blades in the checkout line at Home Depot. ;)

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Jim August 30, 2008 9:29 pm

Several nice features of the Dewalt Tracksaw over the Festool: The Dewalt saw base has two grooves, one is design to ride in a Festool rail. The Dewalt Track has a splinter guard on both sides of the track. Dewalt will make available track guides to fit multple brands of routers, not just Dewalt routers. The Dewalt has imperial scales. The accessories seem to be more robust than Festools. One plus for the Festool, it has a secondary splinter guard on the saw for both sides of the cut. Although the prices initially compare to Festool’s, Dewalt supports free market capitalism, so the street price will be discounted off the suggested retail. Note: I have owned the Festool plunge saw since when it was Festo. It is a nice saw, although underpowered. You have to go slow becasue it will bog down, even with a new blade.

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Jonathan Crone September 20, 2008 10:13 am

what is the model of that new powermatic bandsaw?
my local powermatic dealer has not heard of it,
and the powermatic website only seems to list
the older product.

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thewoodwhisperer September 20, 2008 12:53 pm

Hey Jonathan. The saw won’t be available for a while yet. I think they just brought out one of the early production models to generate buzz before actually hitting the market.

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Mike Heidrick October 8, 2008 12:13 am

Hi Marc, I met you briefly just after your Blum tool interview. I asked if this was now your full time job – Glad it is!

Couple comments

The Laguna Platnium mortiser out of the crate will not mortise into the middle of a 3/4″ piece of stock. The Laguna guys at IWF were shocked when I showed them this on their display machine. The table cannot be raised high enough to accomplish this. Did not stop me from buying the mortiser though. I made an aux table to raise the height of my work pieces up so I could mortise the thinner stock. Also it was a good chance to improve the clamping ability of the table. I added Kreg track to the table and even added some air clamps (a la JDS Multirouter) to improve that system. Having just that one dual position clamp was not enough. there are pics on my website if you want to see it.

Also, the Dewalt Top 17 Finish carpenter contest competitors were chosen and I made the list. A Dewalt tracksaw will be delivered to the shop on Friday 10/10. This is earlier than the US release but I would bet it is not too far off. If there are any capacities on the Dewalt tracksaw you want tested let me know. http://www.dewalt.com/top17 is the site for the contest. I have assembled a makeshift combo Kreg Klamp/Kreg Foreman/Dewalt Panelsaw table that I want to use the tracksaw with. Again pics on the website.

Like I said at the show, I really enjoy your blogs. Keep up the good work!

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61 – Attending IWF in Atlanta 2008

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