Opinions on Tools

[David Cefai]

The "Tell it like it is" thread here got me thinking.

All the tool discussions here centre on tools available in the USA, obviously reflecting the preponderance of American members on this board.

However there also seem to be a number of Europeans. The question is how many? If I were to ask a question about Ferm or Casal tools will there be people wha can answer?

Maybe the Europeans aren't asking 'cos we don't want to be greeted by a deafening silence:)

Any Europeans out there?

[Ken Fitzgerald]

There are Europeans here....one Moderator is a South African......at least one gentleman from Ireland just recently asked and received assitance in buying a used bandsaw. I know of at least one turner who posts here from Italy.....

Of course we have folks from Austrailia, New Zealand.....Canada.....South America.....

[Jay Allen]

I would be interested in their response too. Some of their tools/equipment has made it into our market, at least in the commercial/industrial area. With the exception of Festool and Metabo, you don't see much in the hobbiset range.
They "convert" things to run on our power supply. I wonder if that happens the other way? Are there "American" tools in the European market?

[John Sanford]

Elu, a European brand, is part of the Stanley collective (via Black and Decker adn possibly via DeWalt, I don't know the exact history). AEG, a German toolmaker was aquired some time ago by Milwaukee Tools, and both are now part of the Techtronic family along with Ryobi. DeWalt itself markets in Europe now (perhaps having supplanted Elu), to the extent of being involved as a sponsor with MotoGP. Of course, there's also Bosch, a European company with tentacles everywhere. I'm pretty sure Makita, Hitachi and Panasonic all export to the EU, not exactly American companies, but the tools sold will be similar or the same as what is sold here, save for the power considerations.

In a similar fashion to Bosch, there's the Walter Meier Group, aka WMH, with brands such as JET, Wilton and Powermatic. JET is a brand sold in Europe.

[Keith Outten]

There are registered Members here from 39 countries.
.

[ian maybury]

Hi David, I'm the Irish guy who was helped with a used Agazzani purchase.

I can offer some views on European tools equipment, but I'm not that experienced, and actually rely heavily on US and UK websites to stay up to speed on what's available.

Most local woodworking businesses in Ireland (and I think the UK) are aimed more at markets arising from joinery, house construction and fit out - there's not that much art/high end cabinet making. We've just had a major kitchen and bedroom furniture boom here (small shop led), but it's collapsed and many have gone out of business. They were feeling the heat from e.g. highly automated German makers of good flat pack stuff and fittings anyway.

In general it'd be fair to say that whatever we get here or in the UK (from Europe) you guys get in the US too - I presume that it's because the US market is so large that it just sucks in everything. (I worked in the US for some years back in the 1980 and early 90s - my observation was that you could have a very nice and profitable small business there specialising in something so unusual/niche that over here you couldn't make a living on it)

Germany and the German speaking countries may be a little different to this, in that there are definitely brands over there we don't see here. Against that if you look at somebody like Dieter Schmid http://www.fine-tools.com/ in Berlin (a good high end hand tool supplier) his offering isn't much different to the US.

Axminster Tools http://www.axminster.co.uk/ (a good profile of what's available unless you go to specialist suppliers over here) and Rutlands http://www.rutlands.co.uk/ are probably the two biggest mail order outfits in the UK, although there's lots more general type outlets doing power tools too. (which are usually quite a bit more expensive than in the US)

There's quite a decent layer of speciality shops in the UK too, but these tend to be quite a lot smaller. There's a couple of lists of UK manufacturers and sellers here: http://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/Links/Manufactures-Sites/ and http://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/the-list-this-way-to-online-tool-store-heaven-e-commerce-t960.html

We get the Borg's too, but usually they are (a) local ownership (not the US chains), and (b) they don't seem to stock anything like as much higher end tools and material as in the US. (They tend to head for for cheapo stuff of such poor quality that it's almost useless, and is only ever likely to be bought by a very very naive householder just getting into DIY. When I hear you guys grouching about crap oak at xyz I laugh a little, because the only way we get oak is from a specialist timber merchant)

It's fair I think to say that the DIY/hobby end over here tends to be much lower spend than the US variety. There's a very clear division between the DIY/hobby level, and professional woodworking businesses too. The former tend to buy stuff that's so cheap that it doesn't work very well, and anyway we don't get much in the way of the big specialised importers you have like Grizzly, Harbour Freight or even Laguna. (the closest is probably Axminster's selling of Jet stuff through a sister company named Brimarc) Many of the machines sold to the latter come from the Italian or German makers many of you are familiar with - SCM, Agazzani, Centauro and the like, but there's lots of highly specialised more production oriented equipment about too. Industrial suppliers tend to sell almost only to industrial customers. e.g. http://www.holzkraft-maschinen.de/ or http://www.machines4wood.com/index.cfm

Prices are generally quite a lot higher here - especially in the case of power and machine tools. (+30 - 40% % on most things maybe) I've for example bought quite a lot of stuff in the US over the past year (hand tools, clamps, speciality stuff - power tools are 60Hz which messes that one up), and shipped it over here at quite a substantial saving. (e.g. don't ask me how it can be, but Bessey clamps for example are much better priced in the US than in Europe)

The only real exception to that that I see is European machines. Felder for example seem to charge in the US more or less the Euro price x the exchange rate - although there is more discounting in the US now.

Hope this helps. We don't seem to have anything like the same tradition of small woodworking businesses over here. (Although with a 3.5M population we actually don't have the critical mass to have much of anything in particular in Ireland). My thanks again by the way for all the help I've had from this site - that and the US tendency towards improvement, openness and an easy helpfulness are much appreciated.

Ian