Festool price increase

I don’t think I’ll ever buy any of them. Way too expensive. They may be good, but not 4 times
as good which is about how much more they cost.

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

I can’t justify the prices before the increase anyway.

-- If you think healthcare is expensive now, wait until it's free! PJ O'Rourke

I know guys that drank the Festool koolaid and it is all that they can talk about. People who have it love it. I will stick with what I have

-- making sawdust....

They are great tools but I live on a fixed income and have a wife who likes to spend the money in my account after she has gone through hers before the end of the month. Maybe I’ll have some of them if I ever win the lottery.

-- With God's help all things are possible- even woodworking. Woodworking is not just a hobby, it is an (expletive deleted) expensive hobby.

this is a test

-- A mind, like a home, is furnished by its owner

Kids buy $200.00 sneakers – this does not make them Michael Jordon!
Guys buy $1000.00 golf clubs- this does not make them Tiger Woods!
Guys buy a $120k Porsche, it does not make them a good driver!
Girls buy $150 jeans, it does not make them a movie star.

Perception is not reality——-Festool may be a great tool, but a great tool in the hands of a poor worker will produce marginal projects at best!

Just because someones spends 4 times the cost for a tool—-this does not make them a craftsman or an artist.

Festool markets to a limited demographic of people who can afford, some want to own and some wish to own—many of them feel the tool creates the project not the man.

I market and advertise products for a living——- it is amazing what perception will drive people to buy or simply feel they must have !

If you look at some of the fantastic projects on this site not produced with a Festool your question will be answered!

-- Bill - - Ad-Marketing Guy, Ramsey NJ

Ditto. I couldn’t afford any of them.

-- Bruce from Central New York

I realize they are good tools, but there is a point where tool quality can become meaningless. My Porter Cable ROS and Ridgid shop vac together were less than $200. I don’t see how anyone in their right mind can justify $700+ for the same setup with Festool. It would have to have an auto sand feature where I tell it to sand a panel starting with 100 grit and stop when it reached 220, while I am at lunch. I would then consider buying one.

-- I don't make mistakes, only design changes....www.dgmwoodworks.com

I still WANT A DOMINOE !!!!!!!!!!!!

-- work from your heart and your spirit will live forever

I couldn’t justify the expense before, I certainly can’t after a 15% bump.

can you imagine how nice garyk s 1st place box would have been if he only had some fesstools ?? lol

Give it a little time guys and we’ll soon see Festool knockoffs from China. And like the majority of you, Festool is way out of my price range. Now even more so.

-- Bob Vila would be so proud of you!

These seem to me to be those shiny things that you see at a wood store that are nice to touch and hold but you end up on the other side of the room looking at the more sensible tools that most people use. I’m not saying they aren’t good quality, but I can’t hardly afford a new $200 router, much less one of these babies.

Eventually, we will get to the point where there are new models every year with little improvements. When this happens, the guy who has everything will go and buy “replacements” for the older models he bought when they first came out. Then, we can all go to ebay and have a bid war on them. (Seems like this may have already started…)

-- He said wood...http://hickbyassociation.blogspot.com/

To each his own.

For me, dust collection with the few power tools I have is an absolute necessity (for my health and for my family’s health and for the cleanliness of my shop/house), so I’m starting to slowly add some Festool tools to my shop. It isn’t something I’m going to do quickly, by any means, but I think it a worthy goal – I saved up for most of two years to be able to afford the sander and dust extractor I purchased last week.

It all comes down to priorities. I’d rather spend my money on Festool than on granite counter tops in the kitchen or $7000 worth of upgrades in a new car or another hunting rifle or a boat.

I certainly don’t think having Festool is going to make me a better woodworker. But the convenience and safety features of Festool make my woodworking experience more enjoyable. So to me, the cost is worth it.

-- Ethan, http://greystonegreen.blogspot.com/

Thanks for all the replies!

Ever since I saw The Wood Whisperer's reviewcast of the Domino, I’ve wanted one. The rest of the Festool catalog seems too high-end for me, compared to the other more moderately priced tools out there. I completely agree that the dust collection system, and the majority of the other tools, are just out of the hobbyist / small production shop price range.

But the Domino is unique. I think it is brilliant to provide a tool that creates standardized mortise and loose tennon joinery. It provides all the benefits of biscuit joiners, but at a far superior strength. It may not be right for every project, and may not help me improve my joinery skills, but I really think it would be handy!

-- 10 fingers, 2 eyes, and healthy lungs. for now. :P

I think the Domino is a great tool for anyone that has to do mortise and tenon work. It is truly unique. If you are a pro, you can easily justify this one. It would be my second choice behind a multi-router

-- jim

I already own a full-size, non-benchtop, Powermatic Mortiser, so the Domino doesn’t appeal to me. If I didn’t have the mortising machine I would probably consider a Domino. I was able to try on hands-on, and it’s a well-made, solid tool, with a far better feel than most biscuit cutters.

Some of the other Festool products have features and power that just isn’t available on competing tools. Try to demo a Rotax sander…

-- - Please help keep Lumberjocks an enjoyable escape by refusing to participate in political discussions. Simply spit out the bait and ignore the thread...

Price increases at the time that the economy is going down the dumps and into a deep recession seems suicidal to me for a company to attempt. I know Festool isn’t the only company thats announcing price increases, I’ve heard DeWalt and Grizzly announced it also. Who knows, these price increase announcements just may be a sales ploy to scare people into buying now. If anything, eventually I think some tool prices are going to drop just to get rid of the inventory. With the drop in jobs in the home building trades I doubt that your going to see price increases in tools related to that trade, maybe even lumber will come down in price for awhile. But the bad part is after awhile we may also start seeing even less quality.

Festool’s ongoing development and tooling costs must be enormous -
you have to realize that Dewalt dwarfs them yet is behind in
terms of innovation.

I have Festool stuff. It’s good, not the holy grail but still very, very
good. I have had most of it for 5 years or so – so much of what
I own is “last generation” gear. It really annoyed me when the
current generation of Festool introduced yet more innovations that
make working with the gear faster and more accurate.

If I did the guided circular saw thing again I would look at EZ-smart
today. It has a repeatability system that is superior to the Festool.

Festool I would only recommend to Pros who know that shaving a
bit of time can make you more money – or to well-to-do hobbiests
who just want to own nice tools.

Festool is amazing stuff in regard to dust collection. Some months
ago I did a vertical flush-trim cut in a house with a Festool router
and vacuum. With anything else I own that cut would have “fogged”
the whole kitchen and taken an hour to clean up. With the Festool
router/vac combo cleanup took 2 minutes.

-- Would you like to recession-proof your present business using the internet? - my revealing 9-page free report gives you the straight facts: http://copymatch.com/rec/cap.html

We have the large Festool circular saw, several tracks and the multifunction table. They have proven to be very useful, and have paid for themselves. That said, I’m not one who has “drank the Festool punch”. Lately, we have issues with the saw heeling, which we have been entirely unable to find out how to fix. This results in cuts that are not straight, or as clean as they should be.
The prices are unnecessarily high. They know that their clientele is the type that is not a professional and thinks that expensive equals better. Several people have mentioned that their tools are very nice. In some cases, this is a fair judgment. That said, take a quick look through a Festool owners group and you’ll see all the problems that people are having. Many of their tools are having problems performing basic functions that a harbor freight tool would have no issue performing.
The Domino is a great demonstration piece, but it’s just that. There are other ways to do the same exact tasks without many of the issues the Domino has (try drill bits and dowel pops). One of the big selling points of the Domino is the assortment of tenons available for it, which are also drastically overpriced. Look through the Festool owners groups and you’ll find that those tenons are fairly regularly too thick to fit in the mortises. The proposed solution? Microwave them.

Also, the Wood Whisperer’s review of the Domino was mentioned. Keep in mind that he is sponsored by Festool and Powermatic. That review was an ad, not a review. He is not someone to look to for a review of a tool, for more than one reason. He never says a bad word about any of his advertisers, so keep that in mind when he “reviews” something. That said, I’m not saying anything bad about Powermatic. In fact, I don’t have any problems with any Powermatic machine I’ve ever used.

There are many other things that make me dislike Festool. One quick one is that their screwgun uses a quickchange adapter that will not accept 1/4” shank bits. When a Woodcraft employee was trying to sell us this screwgun, he acted like he was giving us some super secret knowledge by telling us to file down the shanks of ALL of our other bits. No thank you!
Festool was overpriced, and I think they may have just priced themselves out of contention.

I didn’t mean for this to turn into a huge rant, but them’s the breaks.

-- http://www.kunkelandson.com

Grizzly announced early in 2008 that 2009 prices would be higher. Everything is higher…. except the amount of $$$ coming in….
-JJ

-- JJ...... I guess you could say I'm a 54 year old "juniorjock". — Make things with wood.

The way I see it the currency has devalued in America with too much being imported and to little being exported. Couple that with some awful credit blunders and you have money that has no value.
That gets reflected as price increases when in fact it is devaluation.
I watched our news tonight and saw a pawn shop in Hollywood filling up with hocked $45,000.00 dollar watches and rare paintings etc.

That kind of says it.

Bob

-- A mind, like a home, is furnished by its owner

I do own a few Festools. I was looking to buy a jobsite table saw for my summer job and the older model ATF55 was the same price and in moment of weakness I bought it. It did everything I asked of it. A few years later, I was going to have to cut inside a client’s house where dust collection was an absolute must. The CT22 and the circular saw did the trick. They are definitely not for everyone, but the saw way out performed my top of the line Milwaukee, but it also was 3x the price. They paid for themselves but if I were not doing the work professionally, I would not have bought them. As a school teacher, I could not have afforded them, but the summer job made it possible.

-- jstegall