The new Woodcraft store had its grand opening yesterday and today, they have
been open about 2 months. Have you ever seen 80 cars and trucks parked in
front of a Woodcraft store before? I talked to the owner of all the Texas
Woodcraft stores and he indicated that with 2 cash registers the line went
to the back of the store on Friday. Apparently one customer camped out
Thursday night to save $75 on a Jet mini lathe.
Delta had their large trailer on the lot showing their tools with few people
looking, walking into the store however it was packed with at least 100
customers and probably 20 reps and employees. Oh yeah, that Scott guy from
American Workshop was there but no one seemed to be interested.
I finally found a hose reducer to adapt my Kreg pocket hole jig to my
Festool vacuum for $4, less a 10% discount.
I got to see that bench top planer looking machine that carves wood surfaces
with a router type bit. Very Noisy! It was located at the end of a hall in
the back of the store but you could here it clearly every where in the
store. It sure was nice then they turned it off.
Delta's new Omni jig comes in a box no shorter than 48" long. It must be
very well packed in the box.
Kreg was there showing all its new stuff. Fein was there showing its new
Fein Multimaster. Steel City was there showing everything and the Steel
City stuff looks very well built with attention paid to details. Jet was
there but not showing any thing new, I was surprised that they did not have
the new planer/jointer combo machine on hand.


And then glowing brightly in the front corner of the store was the
FESTOOL rep and display.... AAAhhhh!
He was demonstrating the circle saw, Domino, cordless drills, the Rotex
sander, the smaller less expensive ROS sander, vacuum cleaner, router,
etc. He showed the single hand held ROS and I was impressed. He turned the
sander on, sat it down on some wood, and put his index finger on top to
guide it and to hold it in one spot.
I gave the Rotex a spin and it indeed is a fantastic sander. I sanded about
1 square foot of "splintery rough cut" cherry down to almost "ready for a
finish" smooth in about 20 seconds using 120 grit sand paper. The
aggressive setting has to be seen to be appreciated. Dust was only
detectable on the edge of the board and there was so little that a wet
finger would have removed it all. Sooooo I bought one, the 125, and the rep
threw in 2 Festool Polo shirts and 2 Festool caps.

and then my wife and i headed straight to the quilt store.. '~(