Sometimes, opening up a Systainer just makes me feel guilty.
I'm not a rich man, and since I don't make my living with tools, Festool equipment is a serious indulgence for me -- and I have several magic green boxes' worth now.
My tool purchases are generally justified by one or both of two criteria: practicality and emotions. Power tools have always fallen into the "practicality" bracket for me -- will it do what I need at a reasonable price? Will it save me time and improve task performance? How cheap can I get it, and how long will it run? My favorite value propositions have included a big Rikon bandsaw (cheap... but green!), full-weight worm-drive Skil, and the "buttersaw," an old but bomb-proof, 8.5" Hitachi SCMS.
Emotion-based acquisitions are driven directly by sentimentality. They incline steeply toward hand tools. I keep my great-uncle's wooden plough and sash fillister planes around, along with a Stanley 55 multiplane passed down from my stepfather's stepmother, and my grandma's anemic Skilsaw. When I splash out my limited cash on high-end tools, they're generally tools I intend to keep for a lifetime AND tools with a strong tug on my heart, e.g. the Lie-Nielsen and Clifton planes I bought to make furniture for my second wife, and the Diefenbach bench I slept on while she was divorcing me. [blink]
My Festool collection would never have begun had I not been hit by a meth addict in a Subaru. That broke my spine for the third time, and broke it pretty good though fortunately without paraplegia. My hypoid Skil, which I used to single-hand at need, was suddenly too heavy to safely operate with both hands. Around the same time, I was diagnosed with moderate COPD, and dust control started to look much more important. My first Festool purchase was a CT-36 with an ETS 150/5 sander.
That sander has gotten a LOT of use. I owned a Porter-Cable 333 random orbital for a bunch of years, and sanded many, many square feet with it -- everything from furniture to floor finish repairs to cast iron skillets. It was top-heavy, a bit skittery, noisy as a nearby jet engine, dusty as a farm road in summer, and reliably triggered my Reynaud's. The first time I powered on my Festool sanding setup, it felt like a miracle of efficiency and comfort.
Miracle enough that I spent a big chunk of the insurance settlement from that back injury on a Domino XL, TS 75, a rectangular finish sander, Carvex 420 jigger (boy, was I happy to send my P-C jigsaw down the road -- worst blade holder in the history of industrial design), and a fair number of bits and bobs to go with them.
A year and a half back, just as I was starting to do more things again, I had another accident. That one mostly killed me; but for the grace and professionalism of TBICU personnel at UAB Medical Center, it certainly would have. There's been a fair long recovery road, and all my tools lay fallow while I learned how to breathe again, then talk, and walk, and eventually even swallow my own food. Shiny and mostly unused, thousands of dollars worth of Festool goodies sat snugly in Systainers, silently running out their warranty periods.
Like my motorcycles, I couldn't stand to look at them. Every time I got into the shop, I mostly just lurched around and knocked things over. My shop is small, so storage kind of depends on me being able to reach up and haul things down, or bend over and lift them up without bouncing my butt off something and running my head into something else... and I couldn't do it. Wasn't sure I ever would sort that out.
After more than a year of daily workouts at the local YMCA, I slowly started moving tools around again. There were a couple of starter projects around the house, then I started on a gate for my father-in-law's house on Birch Bay. He's not much older than I am and a lot less busted up but, thanks to genetics, his ticker is a grenade with a loose pin. Gary's a good man. I want him to have a solid cedar gate to replace the rotted one before his own warranty period expires.
So I pulled out my Domino XL -- a tool I had used on only two previous projects; a tool without a scratch on it -- and it failed on the fifth mortise. The stomach clench of dread kicked in when I realized I'd never sent in the warranty cards for any of my green magic.
Festool, it turns out, is a stand-up company. Nobody laughed -- at least, not to my face -- about my whiny R.O. Wordlessly, they replaced the armature, a couple of bearings, washers, and wheels, and bounced my Domino back to me (with a couple of fancy stickers) so fast I'd barely had time to curse the lag. I work pretty slowly, anyway. Super-slow, truth be told.
When I took that tool out of the UPS box, it felt good in my hands. Solid. An item of quality, built and repaired by a quality outfit. I felt good about having it.
Those gate parts are done now. This evening, I sanded the stile flats with my ETS 150. No dust mask required, and my glasses stayed clear. Despite my much-reduced grip, the mighty black-blue sander didn't skip around, make grinding noises, or blow dust up my snoot. It's a helluva fine item.
When I got done, I stood there for a few minutes and thought about it. I don't feel quite so guilty, anymore.
I've used the Carvex for a couple of curved arbors and other projects where I previously would have changed the design to avoid using my Porter-Cable jiggy; it's just a delight to use and favors my un-young eyes with its strobing laser. Breaking down plywood sheets is infinitely less obnoxious now that I have the track saw. Compared to my biscuit joiner, the Domino boggles my mind with the precision and strength of its joinery. And that sander... well.
That sander is a jewel. It's a joy in the hand, and a light load on the ears and nose. It is a gateway drug to the "green dispensary" of Festool items on Aisle Three. It's the most emotionally satisfying power tool I've ever purchased. My whole body hurts and it probably always will -- not griping about it; I earned that -- but the green tooling in my shop has been elevated from a hobbyist's indulgent luxury to a set of practical shop prostheses that allow me to keep building things.
Next up on the bench is a walnut cradle for my first grandchild -- and boy, am I looking forward to meeting her! I plan to smooth that cradle down so fine that no stray splinter could possibly catch so much as the finest wispy strand of baby's hair. That'll require a fair number of sanding sessions with my good, solid ETS.
Pretty sure I'll continue to feel just a little bit better, every time I pick it up.
