Tools For Working Wood

Dust Collection on Festool sanders is a game changer. Here is the new cordless 5"

Festool has just released new models of cordless ETS sanders (5" and 6"), which will be available for purchase today, June 12th. We were able to demo these sanders at our Festool Fest back in April, and they attracted a lot of interest. They have some significant improvements over the previous incarnation of cordless sanders, which required the purchase of a finger- shaped 18V battery that could be used only with other cordless sanders. The new models utilize the regular 18V batteries used throughout the Festool cordless line, which is of course much more convenient. The sanders also have a built-in LED light that enables you to spot trouble spots and imperfections while you work, which strikes me as a feature that folks may start demanding from their regular sanders too. And while of course you can connect the sanders with a vacuum (aka dust extractor), these sanders also have dust collection bags and built-in fans to keep the dust at bay.

The cordless option might not be meaningful to you. In a workshop, a regular corded sander connected to a dust vac will give you excellent service without the need to worry about keeping batteries charged. A corded sander is also lighter and less expensive. But if you're sanding a lot on site, cordlessness can be very appealing.

The introduction of these sanders also gives me a chance to muse about power sanders. When I was a kid, admittedly quite some time ago (early 70s), my father had a Black & Decker orbital sander. Dont misread that sentence to give us an upgrade to random orbital sander. It was a cheap consumer grade orbital sander that did a pretty good job. It had no dust collection whatsoever. It used clamped-on pieces of sandpaper, and whoa, it was loud. You had to keep a tool like that moving because otherwise you would get little swirls on the work, and the sandpaper would clog because there was no way for dust to escape.

In that era, if you were serious about sanding, you really wanted a belt sander. The portable belt sander (invented by Porter Cable about 100 years ago) is a big ungainly machine, full of massive motors and aluminum housings. Belt sanders remove a lot of material fast. If you weren't careful, they would gouge out your work like nobodys business. There were frames and jigs to adjust the depth of sanding but I never owned one and I heard they were finicky. There was no dust collection, but because the belt wasn't in constant contact with the work, it didnt face the challenge of clogging.

The first generation of sanders were of course addressed to professionals. But hobbyists also found orbital sanders to be game changers. Hand sanding efficiently is time consuming and often no fun. Modern finishes, especially brush-on poly, really require appropriate surface sanding.

Dust collection also changed the game. I am old enough to remember a time prior to routine, efficient dust collection. The sanding bags used weren't particularly effective. No one wore masks. Sanding meant that you (or your dad, in my case) would fill up the room with a cloud of sawdust. You would constantly worry about settling dust damaging your next coat of finish. Compare that to the contemporary understanding of dust collection: its a health and safety issue; it saves a lot of clean-up time; and it helps your finished project look its best.

Hobbies by definition are leisuretime activities. The introduction of the 40-hour work week in 1940 helped create the space for hobbies during the post war consumer boom. Sales for consumer grade power tools exploded. I personally find cutting wood and planning wood by hand very satisfying. But in order to find this work enjoyable, you would need instruction, practice, and sharp, ready tools. Naturally this list could be a bit of a barrier to getting anything done. The 1950s saw the rise of all sorts of power tools for hobbyists. Most were similar to professional grade tools but smaller and more cheaply made. When I worked for the professional tool division of Black & Decker, I learned that we designed and built for longevity, and we snickered at the quality of the consumer grade tools. Every tool company got away with consumer tools because the average hobbyist only used their drills (for example) for a few minutes a year. Little did we know that the consumer divisions all over the world would soon render professional tools obsolete. Black and Decker is now a division of Stanley. And for many companies, power tools became a race to the bottom. However, others, like Festool and Mafell, to name a few, continued to offer tools with real bearings, accurate guides, and durable quality. The real amateur attraction to premium power tools such as Festool is for the fun. Fighting your equipment, whether its a struggle to get a smooth surface, or a square line, without making a mess, is just no fun.

Speaking of air quality, Festool also recently released the SYS-AIR, a portable air filter system that comes in a Systainer. It connects easily to other Systainers, Festool racks, Festool carts and Festool vacuums, making it simple to transport, store and integrate. It can get rid of the particles that your dust collector just can't crap because your tools aren't 100% perfect. We've actually had an air cleaner in our shop for 15 years and it makes a difference.

P.S. The pictures in this blog are stock Festool images of the new sanders. I have a cold and wasn't in the store to take pictures of the tools in person. But if you come by, we will be happy to put one in your hands.

The Festool Cordless 5" ETSC2125 in the most boring, yet illustrative picture possible

I occasionally sell prints of my photography, which has made me keenly aware of The Price of Art. The price of art varies from zero dollars to hundreds of million dollars for a possibly forged DaVinci painting. The interesting thing about purchasing art is that (money laundering aside) the art won't do anything other than sit on the wall. Certainly, whatever you hang on your wall should bring you pleasure, but ultimately it's a thing on the wall. People rightly look at art as a luxury -- precisely because it doesn't do anything. That being said, our lives are always made richer by having a nice environment.

The same goes is true of custom-made furniture. Whether you make a chair as a present for a relative, for yourself, or for sale, the real value of the piece isn't that it's a chair. I can get a chair at Home Depot for 100 bucks. A maker can establish a price to account for time and materials, but that is different than the user's idea of the value. While the chair has utility, its sale price is really driven by the joy and satisfaction it is expected to give to the user. This is the art price. And this presents the issue that affects every single one of us who makes furniture on commission, or even gives their work to a relative or friend for free: Will they value it? I'm constantly reminded of a kitchen that I had built in my last apartment. I designed it; it was all custom-made by highly skilled friends of mine; I loved it and felt inspired as a cook by its beauty and functionality. And then I moved. I was still in touch with my neighbors, so I learned that a couple of years after I sold the apartment, it was sold again. The new buyer, a young man, commented that he would like to replace the kitchen, not because it wasn't perfect, but because it wasn't new. His assumption was that a new stock, or Ikea, kitchen would be better because he valued brand-newness above all else. He had no understanding of the quality or replacement cost; and most probably he didn't care. (BTW, my former neighbor did tell him he was insane.)

If you build a dining room set for your daughter and 30 years later she downsizes, will someone else value the set? Truthfully we cannot and should not sit around wondering about these questions. It's too stressful. We hope our work will always be valued. Even if you sell something for $10,000, there's no guarantee it won't go out in the trash in 2 years. And in our society that's the way it is. But as people who produce creative and skilled things, we have a responsibility not for the future of the things we make, but in creating an environment here and now so people who make things can explain their value. And this is the point of this blog.

It would be wonderful, if every person who walked into a craft fair, art show, or furniture gallery could perceive the value in what is on offer. If that were the case, more people would be willing to buy custom-made stuff - and there would be more work for us. Now don't get me wrong, very few people have the budget to afford the same amount of furniture made by individual crafts people in the US compared to the same amount of furniture made in an Asian factory. But what really bothers me is that we have created a culture where even the person who can afford it can't tell the difference, or is encouraged to believe that the expensive-for-the-wrong-reasons laminate stuff they have in their house made by sub-minimum wage workers is high quality simply because of its high price. And it does not occur to them to have better furniture custom made by people like you - with probably happier results.

Note: On the subject of beautiful stuff for your walls: The video above is a time-lapse of the Art Committee at the Salmagundi Club hanging the Black and White Show early this year. I'm a member of the club and the committee, and if you look carefully I'm in the back on the right hanging pictures. (Yes, it's easier to hang art when you already have a full kit of tape measures and magnet holders from the store.) I'm not in the roundup at the end because I'm behind the camera "directing."