Even Dewalt are doing it now

[Ned]

Hi,

      Actually I think the CT cord winding ears (?) are too small to begin with.

Seth

They seem to me just barely big enough.  If they were bigger you wouldn't have to be so careful wrapping the cord and so you could do it faster.  Hey, Festool, time savings for the user!

Ned

 

[Corwin]

Here's my solution -- you could do something much cheaper, but this works great for me -- especially now that I have such difficulty bending down -- as equipped, I can now wrap/unwrap cord from a standing position.

 

[semenza]

Hi,

  Four of them. Excellent!

Seth

 

[Dave Ronyak]

Except for having to spend even more money for something Festool should have addressed when designing the handle and Boom Arm!!

Dave R.

 

[Programmergeek]

I think DeWalt is taking a page out of the Festool playbook, taking a concept and improving on it.  The double sided rail is better and the way the saw plunges is much nicer especially if you are reaching no twisting of the handle which is a bit awkward to me on the dewalt it looks like when you push foward it will just drop.  Also a cordless model!  Almost every contractor uses DeWalt cordless tools and already is set up with there batteries and chargers this is a no brainier for them to get the saw and guide if the price is right.  Even is the corded saw is better it is nice to have the cordless for that occasional job and use all your blades and guides.  Hope Festool steps up it's game or they could quickly loose market now that people are making copies.

 

[woodshopdemos]

Dewalt plunge saw video is annoying after a while...with that racing sound effect. Bottom line though, in my view, it is good to have Makita and Dewalt have products in the marketplace. I really says in spades that  the Festool Plunge Saw system makes a whole lot of sense. Something that we, the users, have known all the while.
  Remember the adage, "there are competitors and there is competition."  Festool doesn't have to worry.

 

[greg mann]

When you are the only one in the game you have all the market share. When competitors come in you will certainly lose market share but the competition validates the existence of the market in the first place and can actually grow the market through increased awareness. Festool's sales could actually increase because of that increase in awareness. I think John is right about Festool not needing to worry. As serious craftsmen have become aware of all that they have to offer they have done very well indeed. It does make me wonder though about their latest retailing moves vis-a-vis Rockler. What they were doing was working very well and indications were they sold tools such as the Domino just about as fast as they could make them. The same will probably be true of the Kapex as well, even at its expected price premium. If my take on it is accurate abouyt them selling close to their capacity to produce then why do they need such an expanded dealer network, especially at the cost of 'dumming down' the expertise of the sales folks that are representing their products? I guess they must feel they have accomplished a level of recognition in the market where the tools will sell themselves without the skills that folks like Bob M. bring to the table. To me, this change in retail philosophy is more troubling than competition from lesser brands.

 

[Jon3]

Very good points from Dave and others.

There are also some fairly low-cost ways for Festool to provide value on existing products.  For instance,  I always wondered why all the guide rails didn't come pre-drilled with holes so we weren't forced to buy the same thing more than once.

 

[Dave Ronyak]

I have wondered why Festool did not put holes in their other Guide Rails, too.  That was a topic of discussion on this forum some time ago.  One observation was that doing so would raise the cost of production of guide rails for people who don't intend to use Festool's hole drilling jig.  Personally, I would have preferred my 55" rails to have indexing holes, and to not need to buy more rails just to get some with indexing holes.  Since I have a pair of them, I could have avoided the need to buy an LR 32 with holes and when doing my first project which was 7' tall with 5 rows of holes on each side, I could have avoided a lot of set up time that was required to re-index that short LR 32 rail. 

Maybe we should start a list of low cost (in terms of added or modified components), high value added (in terms of added function(s)) products that Festool could make available that are of interest to us.  An example of the influence a group of owner/enthusiasts can have on a manufacturer is BMW CCA's letter writing campaign in the early 1990's after BMW announced they would not be bringing their new 6 cylinder M3 to USA.  Those letters to BMW's North American subsidiary resulted in BMW making a special engine (a derivative of the 325i model already coming to the USA) to inexpensively meet USA EPA standards and BMW's view of price point.  That engine was mated to essentially the same drivetrain, suspension and brakes (except for the front brake disks) that the Europeans got in their "real" M3.  That US version proved to be a very successful product, and the performance of the US model was nearly equal to that of the more exotic European model, except at speeds above 100 MPH.

Dave R.