DeformedTree
Member
- Joined
- May 19, 2018
- Messages
- 1,397
Hello, I hoped this problem would resolve itself and I wouldn't have to make an account to ask, but it hasn't, so this is my first post here.
As the subject says, when will Festool bring full metric tools back to North America?
I know there have been threads here before, most are old and there isn't much talk on this. But for me, this is a big deal. The whole reason I discovered Festool several years ago was searching for metric tools. As I found there was one company that was with the real/modern world in the United States. Of course the reality is all tools in the US are metric, simply because all manufactured goods are metric. Look at any other woodworking, power tool (sticking to tools) and you quickly find they are all natural metric, but like Festool does now in N.A. they slap inch labeling on them at the last step of manufacturing. This bothers me, and they too need to change, but they at least never put Metric markings on the tools, so they never went from doing the right thing to doing the wrong thing.
I've been working towards the point of buying finish carpentry tools for several years. But that ran into a problem when Festool announced they would punish those in N.America and operate under stereotyping the US and Canada as not-metric. Many folks will say the US is not metric, but that's simply not true. The US signed on to Metric from the start over 100 years ago. Today all our industries are Metric with just a few exceptions (more on that later). While so much of what we see is listed as inch, in reality almost everything has been metric for decades, while most labels don't show it, the US converted long ago. No global manufacture of anything in the US is anything but metric. Everything in cars to tractors to construction equipement, etc is metric. Only parts of Aerospace, Defense industries have much inch based work still, and this is due to legacy systems which are decades old and will be around for decades more. Even construction industry is slowly metric, materials slowly change over as they are developed and sold on a global scale. Roofing being a good example, roof shingles are metric. Other parts and pieces of homes will slowly change as international companies enter the US market and US companies don't want to develop the same products twice. Many items with everything listed inches if you pull out a metric tape on it, you quickly find it's metric.
I work in one of the industries I mentioned, it's very frustrating. You grow up in this country and even in my small rural school, not the place you would think people would think metric, they understood Inch stuff was obsolete thus they taught stuff largely in metric with Inch stuff as more of a supplemental. You go to college (engineering), all courses are metric as inch was not allowed. Then I started work now inches come up for some things, not for others. It's frustrating since nothing is done in inch, any calculation, items that matter are all metric, we then have to convert back for the customer, even when the reality is they don't really think in inches either, everyone is just stuck in this mindset that inches are a thing even when no one wants to be using them. But when you work on things that are 40-70 years old, you have to deal with it. Designing new stuff in inches is embarrassing, depressing and as an engineer un-professional. Even more frustrating when you find yourself working with drawings that are pre-mid 50s where they are done not just in inch but in fractions. Inch is bad, fractions are just insane, they were banished long before inch stuff went away, yet woodworking tools use them like they didn't go extinct 50+ years ago. Sure fire quick way to make mistakes in something costing 10's of thousands of dollars or even get people injured because of a simple math mistake due to fractions or the in-ability to do proper tolerancing with them.
This gets back to Festool. I found them because they were metric, and then discovered the other nice features they had going on (dust collection, slick 32mm cabinet tools, etc). Soon as the inch announcement was made, thoughts on buying a lot of their stuff ground to a halt. They just eliminated the primary purpose for buying them. People will generate various excuses for it all, but in the end of the day no company should be doing anything but metric. Societies work to improve and standardization is one of the keys of this. But it's also simply an insult on Festools part to act as if everything in this country (and Canada) is inch and everyone wants it this way. It's not true, people want metric, but companies/industries deprive people of it based on the re-occuring myth that the US isn't metric. From family members to strangers I've discussed with, even those who you would think would never want to work in Metric general want to, and find it so much easier, but having things like tools and building materials be mislabeled makes it hard. People have no issues working on their cars, people stopped buying inch hand tools long ago. I've had several contractors work on my house of various trades, all agreed they just wish we were doing things in metric.
Festool should have never even offered tools in inch in the US. But ignoring that, the Metric tools should have just continued. Now people don't have any real option. Thus why I could be buying thousands of dollars of tools from them, I'm not.
To those who think "dual rulers". The answer is a huge no. Tools should make no mention of inch based measurement. It's both supporting that which should be removed and insulting to all those who have zero issue with mm. Further telling customers who just bought a tool that their tool is broke and send it in for a repair to fix it's measurement system is a no go. Also it makes for long term issues as identifying what a tool is as metric or inch if you are buying or selling it a problem. Plus the reduced resale value of inch tools when a person wants to upgrade or changes their tool needs.
Festool could have offered both. They could have also either continued metric tools as direct sales, or have some dealers sell metric direct. As a last resort even have some dealers send batches of tools to Festool for repair so then customers could buy them in metric direct with no hassel. It's pretty clear if a dealer offered routers and saws for sale that they had all ready sent to Festool, people would jump on that deal. It wouldn't fix the issue that the tools model number verses what it is don't match, but it would be a start. And don't bring up stickers. People spend a lot of money on a tool, they don't want a sticker. Someone who has older Festool Tools and then buys a new saw doesn't want to have a mixed system, why should they have to deal with this just because they upgraded something.
As is, I'm still in a pause far as buying tools from Festool because of this. And if I did just buy an inch tool, how long till Festool gets it in their heads that North America doesn't even work in inches, but instead Cubits and Barleycorns and stops selling inch labeled tools. Scales get adjusted to 1/6ths to make it easier for folks as everyone one knows it is 6 Barleycorns to the Stick and then 6 Sticks to the Foot and then 6 feet to the Cubit, so much easier.
Sorry for the long first post. I never had intentions to get to this, I just assumed 2 odd years ago this would quickly resolve itself, but it hasn't. When they made the announcement, I assumed that someone at Festool USA had anger Festool proper and this was Festool's way to get back at Festool USA by insulting North Americans, but after 2 years I would think it would have resolved. What ever the reason was, nearly 2 years is a long enough experiment to bring it to an end.
As the subject says, when will Festool bring full metric tools back to North America?
I know there have been threads here before, most are old and there isn't much talk on this. But for me, this is a big deal. The whole reason I discovered Festool several years ago was searching for metric tools. As I found there was one company that was with the real/modern world in the United States. Of course the reality is all tools in the US are metric, simply because all manufactured goods are metric. Look at any other woodworking, power tool (sticking to tools) and you quickly find they are all natural metric, but like Festool does now in N.A. they slap inch labeling on them at the last step of manufacturing. This bothers me, and they too need to change, but they at least never put Metric markings on the tools, so they never went from doing the right thing to doing the wrong thing.
I've been working towards the point of buying finish carpentry tools for several years. But that ran into a problem when Festool announced they would punish those in N.America and operate under stereotyping the US and Canada as not-metric. Many folks will say the US is not metric, but that's simply not true. The US signed on to Metric from the start over 100 years ago. Today all our industries are Metric with just a few exceptions (more on that later). While so much of what we see is listed as inch, in reality almost everything has been metric for decades, while most labels don't show it, the US converted long ago. No global manufacture of anything in the US is anything but metric. Everything in cars to tractors to construction equipement, etc is metric. Only parts of Aerospace, Defense industries have much inch based work still, and this is due to legacy systems which are decades old and will be around for decades more. Even construction industry is slowly metric, materials slowly change over as they are developed and sold on a global scale. Roofing being a good example, roof shingles are metric. Other parts and pieces of homes will slowly change as international companies enter the US market and US companies don't want to develop the same products twice. Many items with everything listed inches if you pull out a metric tape on it, you quickly find it's metric.
I work in one of the industries I mentioned, it's very frustrating. You grow up in this country and even in my small rural school, not the place you would think people would think metric, they understood Inch stuff was obsolete thus they taught stuff largely in metric with Inch stuff as more of a supplemental. You go to college (engineering), all courses are metric as inch was not allowed. Then I started work now inches come up for some things, not for others. It's frustrating since nothing is done in inch, any calculation, items that matter are all metric, we then have to convert back for the customer, even when the reality is they don't really think in inches either, everyone is just stuck in this mindset that inches are a thing even when no one wants to be using them. But when you work on things that are 40-70 years old, you have to deal with it. Designing new stuff in inches is embarrassing, depressing and as an engineer un-professional. Even more frustrating when you find yourself working with drawings that are pre-mid 50s where they are done not just in inch but in fractions. Inch is bad, fractions are just insane, they were banished long before inch stuff went away, yet woodworking tools use them like they didn't go extinct 50+ years ago. Sure fire quick way to make mistakes in something costing 10's of thousands of dollars or even get people injured because of a simple math mistake due to fractions or the in-ability to do proper tolerancing with them.
This gets back to Festool. I found them because they were metric, and then discovered the other nice features they had going on (dust collection, slick 32mm cabinet tools, etc). Soon as the inch announcement was made, thoughts on buying a lot of their stuff ground to a halt. They just eliminated the primary purpose for buying them. People will generate various excuses for it all, but in the end of the day no company should be doing anything but metric. Societies work to improve and standardization is one of the keys of this. But it's also simply an insult on Festools part to act as if everything in this country (and Canada) is inch and everyone wants it this way. It's not true, people want metric, but companies/industries deprive people of it based on the re-occuring myth that the US isn't metric. From family members to strangers I've discussed with, even those who you would think would never want to work in Metric general want to, and find it so much easier, but having things like tools and building materials be mislabeled makes it hard. People have no issues working on their cars, people stopped buying inch hand tools long ago. I've had several contractors work on my house of various trades, all agreed they just wish we were doing things in metric.
Festool should have never even offered tools in inch in the US. But ignoring that, the Metric tools should have just continued. Now people don't have any real option. Thus why I could be buying thousands of dollars of tools from them, I'm not.
To those who think "dual rulers". The answer is a huge no. Tools should make no mention of inch based measurement. It's both supporting that which should be removed and insulting to all those who have zero issue with mm. Further telling customers who just bought a tool that their tool is broke and send it in for a repair to fix it's measurement system is a no go. Also it makes for long term issues as identifying what a tool is as metric or inch if you are buying or selling it a problem. Plus the reduced resale value of inch tools when a person wants to upgrade or changes their tool needs.
Festool could have offered both. They could have also either continued metric tools as direct sales, or have some dealers sell metric direct. As a last resort even have some dealers send batches of tools to Festool for repair so then customers could buy them in metric direct with no hassel. It's pretty clear if a dealer offered routers and saws for sale that they had all ready sent to Festool, people would jump on that deal. It wouldn't fix the issue that the tools model number verses what it is don't match, but it would be a start. And don't bring up stickers. People spend a lot of money on a tool, they don't want a sticker. Someone who has older Festool Tools and then buys a new saw doesn't want to have a mixed system, why should they have to deal with this just because they upgraded something.
As is, I'm still in a pause far as buying tools from Festool because of this. And if I did just buy an inch tool, how long till Festool gets it in their heads that North America doesn't even work in inches, but instead Cubits and Barleycorns and stops selling inch labeled tools. Scales get adjusted to 1/6ths to make it easier for folks as everyone one knows it is 6 Barleycorns to the Stick and then 6 Sticks to the Foot and then 6 feet to the Cubit, so much easier.
Sorry for the long first post. I never had intentions to get to this, I just assumed 2 odd years ago this would quickly resolve itself, but it hasn't. When they made the announcement, I assumed that someone at Festool USA had anger Festool proper and this was Festool's way to get back at Festool USA by insulting North Americans, but after 2 years I would think it would have resolved. What ever the reason was, nearly 2 years is a long enough experiment to bring it to an end.
