Festool TS60 K ?

If they ever do come out with a tsc60 there would be little reason not to bring it to NA. With the market penetration cordless tools are making it may not ever make sense to do a 110v version.
 
Especially when you factor in the job-site guys in the UK, they are stuck using 110v too.
The plugs may not be the same, but the motors can't be that much different?
 
woodbutcherbower said:
Coen said:
For a European company that is definitely a minority of the market.
Click to expand...

Really?

Europe has a population of around 750 million. The population of NA is more than half of that. 51% is an awfully big 'minority'.
Click to expand...

Yes really. Note I specifically said 'European company'. My guesstimate is that Festool has a lower market share in the USA anyway.

Besides that... if you are counting population; -even excluding Europe- people living in 110V area are a small minority.
 
The rep that put on the "Festool Experience" told me that Festool has less than 1000 dealers in the US market.
 
My new pre-ordered TS60 shipped and arrived a few days ago. It's a truly lovely saw with some great features - and my reasons for purchasing it are explained earlier in the thread. But here's the thing - I'm a professional woodworker, working in an environment where every cent matters. My faithful old TS55 has been wearing aftermarket blades since forever, to the extent that I now have around 20 of them in a constant cycle of being used or being resharpened. Offshore manufacturing has meant that I can buy a brand-new 48T blade for $15 = only $3 more than it costs me to get an old one resharpened - but I continue to take the latter option because I care about the planet and its finite resources. Throwing blunt sawblades in the trash isn't an option for me, and these offshore blades perform identically to OEM ones. There's absolutely zero difference, so I'll continue to do the right thing morally and environmentally.

But since the TS60 is a new machine, there are no 168mm x 20mm x 1.8mm blades available for it just yet, apart from OEM ones - and Festool are charging $115 a pop. I totally get that they're a premium manufacturer etc etc etc etc ...... but they're charging that price because right now - they can. It's 100% the power tool equivalent of the inkjet printer scam, where you can go buy a beautiful new fully-loaded printer for $99, but then be forced to pay $49 every time you need new ink cartridges. The printer software knows when you try and use an aftermarket or refilled cartridge, and it won't allow you to print. The level and scale of the work I do means that I can wear out the teeth on a blade in a week.

So my beautiful new 168mm saw will stay in its loony-tunes-sized Systainer 3 until it's actually needed once in a blue moon for a job like the one I highlighted earlier in the thread. My TS55 will continue as the go-to daily saw because commercially - I can't justify any other route.

What a terrible shame.

 
woodbutcherbower said:
..snip..
But since the TS60 is a new machine, there are no 168mm x 20mm x 1.8mm blades available for it just yet, apart from OEM ones - and Festool are charging $115 a pop. I totally get that they're a premium manufacturer etc etc etc etc ...... but they're charging that price because right now - they can. It's 100% the power tool equivalent of the inkjet printer scam, where you can go buy a beautiful new fully-loaded printer for $99, but then be forced to pay $49 every time you need new ink cartridges.
..snip..
Click to expand...
Sorry. You are wrong here.

Festool is chargin what they are charging because IT COSTS THEM about as much to (have) manufactured these blades /plus R&D plus shipping etc./.

Last I remember these were Leitz-made. Or some other same-level maker. Basically the best quality stuff one can get.

And no, $20 blades in 2.2/1.6 mm are not "the same" as 1.8/1.2. There is a world of difference there. If you had the equipment to test them, you will find out pretty fast. Starting with the disc steel material, ending with blade geometry precision (more so after a lot of use).

This is no "defense" of Festool being cheap. They are expensive, Leitz-expensive. Just more available.

I also buy blades from a local blade maker. And guess what ? This is a reputable company (like 100+yrs old) so they DO NOT make 1.8/1.2mm blades. Their normal blades are 2.8/1.8 or 2.5/1.8 and they have a special "Festool" range at 2.2/1.6, which suits me. That is about it.

Their blades would be "offshore" to you, but still is a traditional company so $40 ($30 sans taxes) for a 160mm 2.2/1.6 blade it is. No way they can makde those blades $20 (with taxes) at the same quality. Compared to the Makita blades I made a mistake to buy twice, they are like a Mercedes to a Daewoo car.

The demand is there for sure - they actually started to stock the CMT 1.7/1.1 mm blades to cover the thin-blades demand on their eshop. I got one of those for a tracksaw without a riving knife. Bad idea. That $40 thin blade is unusable for anything but thin plywood. It just wobbles too much in non-homogenous material.

So I asked for thinner blades /from them/ and got told this:
"We would need special steel for the thin-disc blades. Also neew fancy equipment to handle such steel at our plant." And guess what ? They do not have such equipment - and do not plan to as their bread and butter is in industrial blades. This means they could not make blades with the required behavior so they rather not make them.

Above aside, I see no reason why the TS60 K could not handle the 160mm 2.2/1.6 mm blades from the older TS55 series. The arbor is the same and there is no riving knife. So safety is not /directly/ affected. The 2.2/1.6 blade is a little heavier, but has a lower diameter, so the forces the saw would face are mostly equivalent.

Putting my math hat on:
(1.6*160^3)/(1.2*168^3) = 1.152 => about 15% more rotational momentum from a 160/1.6mm blade versus a 168/1.2mm blade. This sounds within sensible limits as far as shaft loads go.

Would me similar like me (ab)using a 350/3.2 mm (disc) Leitz industrial blade (€500 a pop!) in my Protool CSP 145E which officially takes a 380/2.6 mm (disc) ripping blade only.
 
mino said:
Putting my math hat on:
(1.6*160^3)/(1.2*168^3) = 1.152 => about 15% more rotational momentum from a 160/1.6mm blade versus a 168/1.2mm blade. This sounds within sensible limits as far as shaft loads go.
Click to expand...

Weight distribution is not homogeneous and with the thinner blade probably relatively more at the edge. So for the rotational momentum the smaller blade is easier.
 
[member=58842]guybo[/member] Thanks mate. I tried a couple of Stehle blades for my TS55, but I hated them. The edge goes off them so, so quickly. The same happened with the Freud ones I tried - which was strange, because their 305mm x 100-tooth blades which I use on my DWS780 are fabulous. The cheap Trend ones referred to in my post above (irrespective of what Mr. Coen says) are absolutely stellar for the ridiculously low price. So the steel isn't as fancy and they're not polished with unicorn tears. Maybe so - but after 32 years on the tools as a pro, I know exactly when an aftermarket blade is doing an identical job to OEM and when it's not.

Edit = and oh, putting a 160mm blade on a TS60 somewhat defeats the object of buying a saw with a deeper cut, don't you think?

Best wishes
Kevin
 
Why isn’t anyone thinking of 165mm blades?
In Europe it’s almost everywhere with nearly any manufacturer.

You loose 1,5mm depth.
 
I don't go through blades anyway near the rate that [member=75780]woodbutcherbower[/member] does, but all of my spares are either actual Festool or Leitz. We have a Leitz rep that comes into the shop every week though, so it is really handy. It takes 2 weeks to get them back, so I have to keep a couple of good ones on hand at all times. I switch back and forth between the 48 tooth ATB and a triple-chip (TCG) for cutting solid surface.
The only "aftermarket" blade I have is the ripping blade for the TS75. It was all they had at the local dealer when I needed one quickly. It seems to work fine, but I have never tried the actual Panther one.
 
woodbutcherbower said:
I take back everything I said about the TS60. Think that just those few mm makes no difference? I jumped in with both feet, thinking "The number of times a TS55 doesn't cut deep enough only happens once or twice a year, and I can finish the cut using a Japanese saw as usual. If I need to cut much thicker material, I'll either use the shop bandsaw or out onsite - my P1CC with a 150mm or 200mm Bosch blade hung on the end of it''. Well - right enough 99.9% of the time, but today I was fitting new 38mm laminate countertops for a customer's kitchen makeover;

Customer - "Can you do me a waterfall on the end of the countertop run so that it folds over and then continues down to the floor?"

Me - "Sure I can ........" (knowing that these are always tricky because the 45-degree countertop bevels have to be super-square, super-accurate and super-clean, and the cheap laminate the customer had bought chips out alarmingly easily). 

But - the countertops weren't 38mm, were they? They were an oddball 43mm (which I've never, ever encountered before in over 300 kitchen jobs), and the TS55's 45-degree bevel cuts at maximum plunge weren't deep enough. Absolute nightmare. I fixed it and got it done, but it took forever. My TS55 is ancient, so when it's 'either spend some money or pay more tax' time at the end of the year, I'll be upgrading. I'll even modify the racking in my van to take the looney-tunes new Systainer3 size for it.

[attachimg=1]

FWIW - I don't care about the lack of a riving knife either, the only kickback I ever had was caused by a combination of tiredness, complacency and my own stupidity. Even using saws with one, if I'm in any doubt whatsoever about the tail-end of a cut closing up on me, I'll always pop a wedge in there just to be sure. My humble apologies to Festool's design team for instantly dismissing their splendid new machine. I feel like a bit of a chump [crying]
Click to expand...

That waterfall edge is impressive. Aside from the saw limitations, How do you achieve such a nice edge? I’m sure it’s more than “set bevel to 45 and with a sharp blade, cut!” ?
 
[member=78214]kifi[/member] Thankyou. But there's no magic. As you say - a sharp (preferably new) blade, set bevel to 45, and cut the horizontal piece slowly in one pass, with your guide rail set at bang-on 90 degrees using a TSO GRS-16 guide rail square. Since the other end of this piece was going to have a butt & scribe joint, this bevel cut was done first, the piece of worktop was then cut to length before the far end was routed into a masons mitre with a jig, including the three 'dogbone' apertures underneath for the butterfly jointing bolts. I use an OF2200 with a 30mm guide bush, a Unika jig, and a 12.7mm x 50.8mm half-inch cutter - a new one for every joint since laminate blunts cutters very quickly. The sharpest cutters give the tightest, most invisible joints.

The vertical bevel cut was done next - using the offcut end of the worktop I'd just bevelled. This provided the closest possible match to the grain pattern on the laminate. Similarly - the bevel cut was done first, the piece was then measured accurately and cut to the correct height. To align the two halves of the joint, each bevel cut was then splined using a Makita plate jointer set at 45 degrees - six biscuits for the joint at approximately 75mm intervals.

The vertical section was then clamped accurately and fixed to the outside of the cabinet by screwing through from the inside of the cabinet. Both bevel faces were flooded with Titebond II, and the horizontal piece was then placed on the cabinet top, and tapped across towards the vertical bevel using a rubber mallet until the joint splines locked together. The tiny gap between the upper edges of the joint were filled using a colour-matched Unika Colorfill compound and 'wiped' to invisibility using acetone whilst it was still wet. Once set, the horizontal section of worktop was screwed to the cabinet top from underneath, and the far-end masons mitre joint was then bolted up.

Sounds complex but wasn't. It's a just a process to be done in a certain order. Hope that helps.
 
Thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed reply. Much appreciated
 
Michael Kellough said:
Yes, very thorough, but what is a “mason’s mitre”?
Click to expand...

45º miter at the front edge into a straight cut.

Normally cut with a router and template.

Tom
 
I still wonder about those... what happens when you bump into that edge with a heavy pot? Won't crack? And if creating this costs you multiple cutters... why even do it with cheap laminate?

Of if you just walk into it... must be painful. It looks like a rather sharp edge.
I once hit my head on a countertop edge during my way down when I lost consciousness... I am rather happy it wasn't such an edge  [tongue]

Michael Kellough said:
Yes, very thorough, but what is a “mason’s mitre”?
Click to expand...

Also see Festool #204219
 
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