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Barbara Austel, Chairwoman of the Festool Advisory Board, welcoming us to the event.
Earlier this week I had the opportunity to visit the Festool USA headquarters in Lebanon, Indiana to partake in Festool’s 100th anniversary birthday bash. The red carpet was rolled out for trade professionals, social media influencers, and journalists to tour the HQ, try out the newest tools, and get a sneak peek into what’s coming down the road. After spending an evening there mingling with Festool executives and engineers among others, I walked away impressed by what I saw, as well as the dedication everyone has to making the product they produce the best it can be.
But first, history.
Festool was founded in 1925 by Albert Fezer and Gottlieb Stoll. The company was originally called Festo, a portmanteau of the two founders’ last names. Fezer left the company in the early 1930s, but the name carried on. The company made machine components at first, before releasing the first portable, one-man chainsaw in 1927.
From there, Festo went on a sort of greatest hits of woodworking innovation. They created the first sander with dust extraction, the first tool guide rail, the first plunge cut saw, and by extension of those two together, the first track saw. Later there was the Domino, and more recently, the ExoActive exoskeleton. In 2000, they were spun off of their parent company and rechristened Festool, the same year they entered the United States market.
This jointer/planer weighs 66 lbs. It was set up in the jointer configuration, but you can see the handle on the left side the user would have held to run it as a planer.
Today Festool is still privately held by the family of Gottlieb Stoll. His granddaughter, Barbara Austel, is Chairwoman of the Festool Advisory Board.
What I saw that I’m excited about.
I had the freedom to wander about and try out all sorts of new tools throughout the evening. If you’ve ever had the chance to use any of Festool’s offerings, you know how well-executed the details are, and how well they just work. They charge a premium price for their tools, but deliver a premium experience in return. Strangely enough, the biggest standout to me was the new sander.
Me, checking out the new ETSC 2.
In all of my years of testing tools, I have yet to find a battery-powered sander that matches the ergonomics of their plug-in cousins. The battery is either installed vertically, which makes the sander tall and ungainly; or horizontally off the back, which makes the sander unbalanced when a dust hose is attached. The old ETSC 125 split the difference a bit — the battery was installed horizontally, but higher up, so the dust hookup was below the battery. It was still rather tall though. The new ETSC 2 takes a rather novel approach; the battery is mounted slightly off-center to the handle, which allows a dust hose to be mounted in a complimentary (balanced) position instead of off to the side but very close to the center. The base of the sander was made heavy enough that the off-center battery goes unnoticed when you have the dust bag attached. Hooking up a hose still causes the sander to tip back slightly, but now the weight of the hose is no longer weighing down the outside edge as you move the sander around. Oh, and it also features a ring of LEDs to cast light across your work surface when sanding.
You can see here the battery is positioned off-center of the handle.
The other tool I got a huge kick out of was the ExoActive exoskeleton. Despite the visual similarities to the types of robot suits you see in sci-fi movies, the ExoActive is actually more like a pneumatic arm-rest suit. Think stamina instead of strength. Basically, the device provides up to 11 lbs of support to your arms when holding items. So if you’re sanding an entire ceiling, for example, the suit will brace your arms and help distribute the weight around (to your hips mostly) instead of your shoulders. The applications for traditional woodworking are limited as far as I can tell. But for the trades, this is a lifeline to longer careers and fewer stress injuries. Also, it’s super fun to do the robot in.
I also spent some time checking out the SYS-AIR Air Filter, as well as the updated CT 26/36/48 EI Mobile Dust Extractors. It’s good to see Festool take steps into the air purification space, and I liked that it was in the form factor of Systainer. I also appreciate that Bluetooth is standard on the new dust extractors. I wasn’t quite as sold on them replacing the twist knobs with buttons, but I’m sure I would grow used to it in no time.
The SYS-AIR being demonstrated in a dusty environment.
What I saw that I can’t talk about.
[Redacted]Final thoughts.
The real highlight of the evening for me was engaging with all the people from Festool. I spent some time talking to Sascha Menges, the CEO of Festool Group/TTS Tooltechnic Systems where he openly asked what criticisms we had of Festool products, and where they could improve. I chatted with Barbara Austel about what sort of woodworking she enjoys, as well as her love of the outdoors and fishing. Every person from Festool at the event was passionate about wanting to hear what we had to say, and the things they could do to improve their products for the end user.
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