Mental Whiplash

A buddy and I made a tool run today

Started at Tool Land - warehouse type place with three level heavy duty shelf units with moderate to heavy duty machines on each shelf. In the spaces without shelf units it's metal lathes, mills, cabinet saws shapers and aisles of nail guns, routers, grinders, belt and ROS sanders, chop saws, miter saws, compound miter saws and sliding compound miter saws. And at the front, by the cash register, glass display cases of chisels, planes, Starrett squares, rules and a set of Japanese chisels that are outrageous - and only $900 for the set of six. The smell of cutting oil and cosmoline (or whatever they're using now) fills the air - but not in an unpleasant way. If you looked hard enough, they even had some Festool stuff.

Next stop was a WoodCraft store - all neat and tidy, well lit and nicely divided into "Carving, Turning and Cutting" hand tools, "Hardware and Hand Tools", "Wood, Books and Videos" and area of floor models - bandsaws, lathes, router table and the like - and a small dedicated area just for Festool tools.

The third stop was the mental whiplash - Harbor Freight. Never saw so much crap in one place. The only brand name I found in the place was a Stanley screwdriver.

End of the day take - Festool Trion PS 300 EQ pendulum jigssaw - with slick Systainer (a stackable tool case that I'll actually keep the tool in) and a two D-cell, 1500 volt, tennis racket shaped, bug zapper type flying insect killer. Range of purchase prices: $9.99 to $280, price of batteries not included.

Guess which one got used first. Hint - ZZZZZZZZ-AP!

Review of jigsaw to be posted - when the batteries give out on my other purchase.

Was a good day.

charlie b

Reply to
charlie b
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Reply to
Gene T

Yup.

Label on the plastic bag it came in says 1500 volts. Doesn't "zap" but rather "pops".

The effective area of this thing is only about a 7x10 inch oval. Grip is large diameter - perhaps to discourage "children under 8" from using it. Button on grip must be kept depressed to get "zapper" function. Button is not ergonomic well poistioned so some strokes are akward (sp?).

After waving this thing around in the sparse mini-cloud of small flies that gather in a beam of sunlight outside the shop, I found that just holding it still in the vicinity and letting the flying insects fly into the electric grid was most effective. Was tempted to try it on a yellow jacket but my self preservation instinct kicked in before I acted on that impulse. Yellow jackets are nasty beasts and I figure the last thing I need to deal with is an electrically irritated bug.

Did get to play with the Festool jigsaw. Replaceable zero clearance insert eliminates the tearout in ply characteristic of jigsaw cuts.

Need to adjust the lower guides closer to the blade and either buy Festools vacuum hose or find an adapter for the vacuum hose I've got in my dust collector system.

The clear plastic "chip guard" distorts your view of where the blade is cutting and when the saw is operating, the wire "blade guard" on either side of and just in front of the blade can be mistaken for the blade.

The barrel grip is a bit large for my hand and the on off switch is set back so that your gripping hand can't be all the way foreward, closer to being over the blade. Because the barrel grip position is so far back, any left/right movement of your hand results in a magnified movement of the blade (thing lever - movement close to the fulcrum/ pivot point results in less movement on the other end than movement farther from the fulcrum/pivot point)

Angling the foot/base requires the use of an allen wrench which is supplied and has a storage place on the tool.

The dust extractor is 1.06" diameter - why they couldn't just go with 1" is beyond me.

Test cuts have been really smooth and blade deflection is minimal or non-existant on straight cuts. More thorough review to follow.

charlie b

Reply to
charlie b

They built it to standards that everyone in the world uses except the US, metric.

Reply to
CW

This is the second post I've seen today from someone having trouble with my school mascot. Have they suddenly become aggressive or something? Used to be that as long as you didn't sit on one or otherwise do it violence and stayed away from their nests and didn't mind sharing your beer they left you alone. Has that changed?

Reply to
J. Clarke

What was the first place you went? You're in the So. Bay, correct?

Mike Alameda, CA

Reply to
Mike Dembroge

Place is called Tool Land north of Whipple and south of WoodCraft, same side of the street (east side). Tool Land painted on the building - visible only if you're going north. If you get to WoodCraft without seeing the place double back two blocks and try again.

charlie b

Reply to
charlie b

So they went for 27 mm? Not 25 mm or 30 mm, but 27 mm? 25 mm would work for both metric and imperial. Why 27mm?

charlie b

Reply to
charlie b

"CW" wrote in news:CoVig.11766$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net:

Is it too much to ask, though, that in the US you speak the English langauge and use the measurement system? I hate having to have two sets of tools for bolts and nuts.

Puckdropper

Reply to
Puckdropper

Say you manufactured equipment and sold it in the US. You would be making to imperial measure. A German company decided that they liked your products and wanted to sell them in Germany. Would you tell them that you wouldn't sell it to them because it wasn't metric and their customers might complain? BTW, Festool is German and, near as I know, their tools don't speak at all.

Reply to
CW

They work just fine on wasps and hornets. As long as you can touch them with the metal screen section, even for a millisecond (there, now my post is on-topic with the metric issue), it'll knock them down and paralyze them. When I zap the bigger wasps around here--papar wasps or even giant hornets--for around 3 seconds, their legs and antennae will still move slowly for a day or so before they die, but they can't use their legs or wings to move, they just wiggle their appendages around in slow motion. Hold them for 5-10 seconds and they're fried.

It's the very best tool I've used for hunting them down when they get inside the house, which is not infrequently here. I've been stung a few times, but not since using the HF unit to hunt them down. So don't worry about irritating them electrically: if you touch them at all, they're down. If you miss, keep swinging....

Vespidaically Yours, H

Reply to
hylourgos

Trust me: that bug zapping badminton racquet will fry a yellowjacket instantly. I gave one to my son a few years ago.

I took it back around July 4, after he got the power button stuck "on," left the thing on the carpet, and somehow dropped a smoke bomb on it. Big, smelly, charred, cloudy mess.

Reply to
Dhakala

Even better, why not use only 1/4" bolts so we don't have to have so many wrench sizes.

Reply to
Edwin Pawlowski

Is his name "Calvin" by any chance?

Reply to
J. Clarke

hylourgos wrote: they're down. If you miss, keep swinging....

OK. YOu got me. Had to hit the dictionary. Vespid is a word whereas vespidaically is not. Apparently. For us insectarilly challenged persons, vespid refers to social nest-building wasps. Phew. now smarterly, jo4hn

Reply to
jo4hn

Just in time for another July 4, the bug zapping racquet is on sale for only $6.50!

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Reply to
Dhakala

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