Pinch Dogs! Never heard of them, had no idea what they were or even what they might look like. So out of one the many drawers in his shop, Lee found a container of Pinch Dogs. He would like to tell everyone that he knew “right where they were all the time”, but it did take a few minutes of looking before he found them. Just like in my shop, I know where most things should be, but sometimes they mysteriously get moved on me.
Anyway pinch dogs are pieces of metal with sharp points on both ends. The idea is as follows: place two boards that you want to join together next to each other, and drive one end of the pinch dogs into each of the boards. The tapered ends of the pinch dogs pull the two adjacent pieces tightly together. When the glue has dried, you simply pry the pinch dogs off the material.
The same concept would work if you wanted to simply hold two pieces of stock together while you secured them together with a mechanical fastener such as a screw or lag bolt. The beauty of these simple devices is that they work like a woodworking clamp, but don’t take up the space that clamps would.
Don’t know how I missed these before, but I fully intend to add them to my tool collection. Just goes to show you that sometimes simple things work best.

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I didn’t realize until a very recent birthday, exactly how much attention she pays to the articles.  As I reported in an earlier post, I have been working on a book about the art of veneering, and she has been proofing these sections as I write them.  In one of the sections of that book I wrote about sanding a veneer surface with a random orbital sander. Since veneers are extremely thin, the mere idea of sanding a veneer at all scared the heck out of me.  But as Lee Jesberger, the fellow woodworker who is trying to teach me about veneering explained, it’s not a problem if you use the right random orbital sander.  As Lee explained, when sanding something as delicate as the thin veneers, there are several issues that need to be addressed, some are obvious, and some are a little more arcane.  

Of course the choice of which grit papers you use as well as the actual composition of the sand paper are of importance, but one also needs to consider the smoothness of the sanding head and the dust collection.  These last two are those arcane concepts I was talking about. If the surface sanding head on the sander has any flutter at all, that flutter will translate into swirls on your surface.  Think about it this way, how much do the outer edges of the sander head move up and down as the sander spins.  If the sander is manufactured with quality parts, this distortion will be negligible.

Most random orbital sanders do have some type of dust collection, the question isn’t do they have a dust collection system, but rather how effective is it.  The act of sanding really is nothing more than polishing the surface of the material.  This is done by removing any sharp edges on the material surface.  The finer the grit of the sand paper used, the finer the rough edges removed.  But what happens to those rough edges?  If they are not removed from the surface area, they can become captured between the sanding material and the surface you are sanding. As you move the sander around the surface of the material you drag this debris along which in turn can scratch the surface.  And this is just the opposite of what sanding is, isn’t it?

While I wasn’t born in Missouri, I still needed that “show me” moment.  I need to see how any random orbital sander could effectively deal with these last two issues, smoothness and dust collection.  So Lee brought out his Festool random orbital sander and proceeded to use it to sand a veneered surface we had just spend considerable amounts of time cutting and gluing.  To say the least, it performed perfectly.  You see Festool, took the time to consider these facts when they designed the Festool Sanders.

I will freely admit that I already have a random orbital sander and I probably didn’t need another one, but I learned a long time ago that one cannot look a gift horse in the mouth. So when my wife presented me with a Festool ETS125 EQ random orbital sander for my birthday, I was at once overjoyed and speechless. And I thank her profoundly for the gift.  

I have just started using the random orbital sander in my shop and I love it.  It performs “as advertised”, and in today’s environment that is a rarity.  But there is a down side to this story, well not really a down side maybe we can call it an opportunity.  Take a look at the picture of the Festool ETS125EQ shown above.  That green hose attaches to a Festool dust collection system. Now my wife didn’t include that as a birthday gift, but she suggested that I might want to add this to my tool collection at a future date.

That got me looking into which dust collection systems were available that would connect to the Festool random orbital sander. This took me to my local woodworking store, where I was able to snag a Festool catalog. As I read through the book I realized a couple of things. The prices for the Festool items are higher than that of many of their competitors for comparable items and that is a big hurdle to overcome. But after a though analysis, there is some justification for this price delta. Festool has taken the time to engineer their tools to work together, which in turn makes our lives easier and woodworking more enjoyable.

Please let me explain. Last year during one of my project, my random orbital sander died.  I went to the local DIY center and purchased a good sander.  It came with a nice plastic case and a dust collection port.  But this plastic case is a different size and shape from than the one my impact driver came in. In fact it is a different size and shape from any other cases in my shop. Not a big deal until one tries to stack the cases together to help organize the shop. Yeah, I fight the organization monster all the time in my shop.  All of the Festool products come in the same size case that are designed to be stacked one upon the other.

Last year’s sander came with a dust port. It was different from the dust port on any of the other tools in my shop. I could use it with the dust bag that attaches directly to the sander, but those, are in my opinion, less than perfect.  Emptying the bag results in me spilling the contents more times than not.  And since it is a unique size and shape an adapter is needed to connect it to my shop vac.

The dust port on the Festool sander connects to the Festool dust collection vacuum using the same hose that all of the Festool products use. In other words the same hose will plug directly into a Festool router, or hand planer or Festool’s Domino joiner.  Speaking of the dust extraction device, Festool’s terminology, it is built into the same size and shape as the case for the sander, and all other cases, allowing you to stack the two tools together. The hoses for the dust extraction are contained within the tool, not on top or wound around the vacuum where they always tend to fall off. There is also a feature that allows the dust extraction tool to start when you start your sander, router, or whatever you have it connected to.  A neat feature when the dust extractor is not located right next to your work space. 

I could go on and on about these features, but I can sum it all up this way.  Festool took the time to integrate their tools to work with each other, not to act as a standalone product. As a woodworker and a Service Engineer, my real job, I really appreciate the effort it took for Festool to do this.  And I also really appreciate the fantastic gift my wife gave me.   I am glad she pays attention to what I write.  Maybe this could become a new way for me to drop hints for Christmas gifts.

For more information on or to purchase any of the products discussed in this post, please click on the highlighted links and images in the post.

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1. Woodworking Tools Festool Domino Joiner

If you recall late last year I wrote about visiting the shop of fellow woodworker, Lee Jesberger.  I went to his shop to investigate his invention, the Ezee-Feed system of in feed and out feed systems for the table saw. In case you missed the posting, the Ezee-Feed system is a set of tables that can be added to all most any table saw that enables a single woodworker to safely and accurately cut sheet goods.  As an added benefit, these tables are easily removed from the saw when not needed.  And re-installation takes only a few seconds.  I have both the Ezee-Feed infeed and outfeed tables attached to my tablesaw, and you would have a real fight on your hands if you tried to remove them from my shop. This is a product that actually does what it claims to d; what a unique concept!

As with most other woodworkers that I have had the privilege to meet, Lee and I soon were deep into discussions about our individual styles of woodworking.   While mine was traditional solid wood work, a lot of Lee’s work involved the application of veneers. I will freely admit that I was impressed not only with the beauty and artistry of his work, but also the beauty of the veneers.  And that was the beginning of the change in my opinions about laminates and veneers.

Over this past year, Lee and I have worked together on several projects.  He was with me from the beginning to the end of the trials and tribulations of adding a bathroom to the basement of my daughter’s home.  And I truly thank him for his contributions to that effort. This project is detailed in earlier posts in the Home Improvement category on this site.  As we worked on these projects, the conversations would occasionally fall back to his passion for veneering. He would often show me pictures of these absolutely beautiful veneers and then explain how he had used them on some of his projects.  The more we talked about veneering the more I became interested.

And that got me to thinking about learning more about this interesting facet of woodworking.  So I approached Lee with a proposition that I hope will benifit not only Lee and myself, but hopefully you as well.  I asked Lee to teach me the art of veneering, starting at the basics and working up to building a couple of projects that will feature the art of veneering.  And while he is teaching me, I plan to document the lessons and put them into an E Book that I hope to soon publish. 

So instead of spending my weekends in my shop, the last several have been spent at Lee’s shop, where he has very patiently explained to me, the ins and outs of veneering.  I have come to understand and appreciate his passion for this form of woodworking.  As the lessons have progressed, I have started to try to equip my shop with the tools needed to do veneering, and to practice the lessons learned on my own.  This is still a work in progress for me.

I have also come to understand that the only thing veneering and laminating have in common are the fact that you glue a material over a substrate.   Veneering is a facet of woodworking that can produce a very fine piece of furniture, Laminating is the stuff that the “chip board mechanics” mass produce. 

So that’s why I haven’t been here as often as I have been in the past.  I want to get to the point that I can add this skill to my own woodworking skill set, it may take a while for that to happen. I promise to let you know how that is progressing.  As for what’s in the future for me besides the veneering lessons, I have about thirteen windows to change in my daughter’s home. I wish that I could tell you that this should go smoothly, but remember that this is the house that shares the love/hate relationship with me.  I promise to tell you about all of the exciting “fun” that project entails as it happens.

So please excuse me, I have to go to Lee’s shop and see what new he has to teach me.

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Information in this article and also in one posted in Fine Woodworking magazine states that the new company, which will be headquartered in Anderson, SC, will continue to manufacture woodworking tools, with a concentration on the DIYer and contractors.  It was not evident what the future holds for commercial users of Delta Power tools. The news release goes on to state that tools currently manufactured in the US will continue to be made here, outsourcing of other currently manufactured parts will also continue as is.

So what does this mean to the woodworkers like you and me? At this point I’m not sure.  Does this signify a major change in power tools, or is Delta simply following the lead of other manufacturers like Grizzly which has its manufacturing offshore. Grizzly maintains distribution centers in the US, its engineering and manufacturing is all done overseas in China and Taiwan. The new company, Delta Power Equipment Corporation, appears to be trying to maintain the status quo by keeping its current marketing in place.  Parts and service are still available at both Delta’s and Biesemeyer’s websites.

My shop contains several Delta tools, so naturally I am concerned about the long term future of the company. At this point I don’t require any repair parts. I hope that fact remains true for a long time, but if I do then I truly hope the company is still there.

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1. Woodworking Power Tools – Band Saw Accessories
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3. Woodworking Power Tools – Routers

Now these are not those big TOOLS that all woodworker crave, but those smaller tools that would be nice to have.  And since I’m a nice guy, and a fellow woodworker I felt that I had to pass the website along to you.  Follow this link to Tooliday.   They are a division of  Tool King,  a major tool supplier.

A word of advice though, if you go to the site and find something you like, buy it don’t wait until later. They have a limited quantity of some of the products offered; when they are gone the offer expires.

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