New Kit - Festool Plunge Saw TS55REQ

As stated many time on this blog, I'm somewhat of a tool snob.

I spend everyday working with my tools and I like to use the best.

I've been looking at buying a new circular saw for sometime now and I wanted one that would follow a guide rail for straight cuts when I'm building built-in units out of MDF or ply.

 I kept looking at all the different ones on the market and although I'm normally a Makita man I decided it was time to move up to the next level and buy a brand I've wanted to try for ages - Festool.
Anyone I've ever spoke to about these tools raves about them so I thought I'd suffer the cost and try it.


New saw - not for normal site work

I decide to go all out and bought the saw complete with two guide rails and the auto start midi extractor, which will be great on things like my mitre saw and sander as well as the circular saw.

 

Hopefully these tools will be a bit of an investment. The extractor should mean I breath in less dust during the day and make it easier to clean up when I'm working in someones house. The circular saw should make building things like fitted cupboards and wardrobes easier, faster and more accurate.

I'm looking forward to putting these through their paces! Anyone else have any experience using Festool kit?

Carving Chisels

I decided to have a bit of a tidy up in the workshop today (moping around as a fox killed all my chickens last night).

I brought a cheap Stanley toolbox the other day and decided that it would be good to keep all my carving chisels in one place. When I rounded them all up I was quite surprised by the number of them as this doesn't include my wood turning chisels or any of my normal everyday chisels that I use for work.
Some of them need quite a bit of work doing to them and I'd like to re handle quite a few of them but the ones in the tool rolls are all sharpened ready for action. None of them have cost me over a couple of quid but they have taken me quite a few years to accumulate (I've just remembered I've got another set of six tucked away that I wasn't happy with and not shown here).
55 here so far, ideally I'd like to have them in a big cabinet on the wall, but that will come when I get a bigger workshop!
Need to find more time to use them now! Anyone else got a nice set of specific tools that doesn't get used as much as it should (although they do get used!)?

To the Grind Stone

Last Thursday I committed a sin.

I lent my labourer a chisel (I'm sure you can see where this is going...)

It came back lighter than it went out. Still a little time on the grinder and its as good as new (a little shorter maybe, but as good as new), this is why carpenters don't lend tools (I know he didn't mean to do it though)

At woodturning I have been grinding some HSS bar that I brought at Yandles to make some new woodturning tools. The first of these tools is a three point tool, it seems a good tool to work with (when I've borrowed Chris's) with loads of uses and good for fine detail, as well as forming beads on bowls.

The raw materials used (Beech blank is a bit big but its all I had)

I made the handle out of beech and fitted a brass ferrule onto it. The steel took a long time to grind but it was quite easy to do as I used a triangle piece of MDF as a jig, this was to make sure all three sides were even so they met in the middle.

I'm quite please with it and I know I'll enjoy using it.

Anyone else been making their own tools lately?

Tool Addiction

They say the first part of getting over a problem is admitting you have a problem.

I don't smoke, I don't do drugs, I don't drink much, but I do have a problem - I'm addicted to buying tools and whats worse is I love it.

I've got a job this weekend of putting in some wardrobes and altering doorways on a brand new house, I didn't want to damage any walls whilst doing the work so I decided that the best course of action would be to buy a tool I've been hankering after for quite a while - a Fein Multimaster. I used one on a job before Christmas to cut through some oak paneling which otherwise would have been impossible to keep in one piece and it was an excellent tool for this specialist work. So for cutting through skirting and architrave without wrecking the wall behind it should be perfect and the job should pay for it (well that's what I'm telling the wife!).

Joking aside this tool should soon pay for itself on any repair work I have to do when I give a price and it doubles as a great little detail sander.

My other purchase today was a Record No 8 jointing plane without a cap iron or blade. It's in lovely condition and for £20 I couldn't say no. It's not a plane I'll use very often in my line of work but for workshop projects, shooting boards it should be great. I'll wait a while to get the bits that are missing and see if I can pick them up second hand, it'll go nicely with my grandfathers old No 7 try plane (anyone ever use a No 6?).