Replies

1. 
   Scrit | Mar 05, 2006 02:40pm | #1

   Depends on where you draw the line, really. I reckon that the biscuit jointer was an innovative tool some 40 or so years back when Steiner Lamello introduced it. Made hand jointing of MFC (melamine) readily achievable.

   What about the SDS hammer drill? Yes what they do could be done by hand before (ever used a star drill?), but they certainly make masonry fixing a LOT easier, cheaper and faster.

   Didn't someone once say that the last new concept in woodworking was the ratcher bit brace?

   Scrit

2. 
   shopteacher | Mar 06, 2006 03:04pm | #2

   Cordless drill.  I now use screws where nails would have gone (trim on buildings, etc.) and enables me to disassemble and reassemble without damaging the workpiece.  Granted, we could have always worked this way but the drill makes it a realistic way of working.

3. 
   Lataxe | Mar 08, 2006 05:16pm | #3

   I use a (borrowed) Fein multi tool only ocassionally; but the tool is a bit of a revolutionary thing for the friend who lends it me.  He's a tiler and plasterer but also does surrounding joinery, electrical and plumbing tasks.  He says the Fein has made many tedious preparation and finishing tasks not just quick and easy but also possible, where before he had no practical way to achieve the effect he wanted.

   He opines that the tool cuts, sands and scrapes difficult profiles in places where nothing else can.  (Coo, I sound like an advert). I myself find their vibrating bendy saw blades just the tool for dealing with unwanted protrusions in difficult areas of furniture, when lack of foresight has made me assemble something before doing all the necessary trimming and holing.  Previously I would have just left some of these flaws (although that may be just my ineptitude with hand tools).

   Although it isn't stricly a new tool, a small consumer-level drum sander (the 16 inch wide type for about £700) has enabled me to make stringing and banding to very accurate dimensions.  Again, I suppose a competent hand tool user could do the same, although not so quickly I think.  It's also an easy alternative to final-dimensioning difficult-grain planks (if you can't master handplaning and scraping, or are too lazy, like me).

   The innovative tool I like best is the Woodrat.  It turns an already multi-purpose tool (a router) into a super-multi purpose tool.  It also allows cack-handed people like me to make perfect dovetails and mortise/tenon joints, not to mention awkward stuff like dentil moulding.  (And it lets you do this in a way that looks handmade, with variable spacing and tiny-profile dovetails). Woodrat owners have invented many techniques and jigs to do fantastic things with this machine - even more than the many exotic joints already contained in the Woodrat handbook.

   Lastly, a mention for Lee Valley, many of whose tools I have and use frequently.  Many are just refinements and perfections of existing tools but they work so well it's tempting to say that they're almost like a new tool type.  Try their spokeshaves, for instance.

   And I suppose tablesaws with integral sliding carriages and riving knives would be a revolutionary new tool for American woodworkers.  :-)

1. 
   mufti | Mar 08, 2006 09:52pm | #4

                I think I set a daft target and thank you for your tilt at it. I agree with you re the Fein except for some of the interior build quality. My on/off switch failed on and when I looked inside I found a bit of bent wire linking it to a remote operating switch. later, probably from that wire touching a live connection, the motor burned out. It's discounted clearance replacement seems O.K.

                Stringing and banding is frankly beyond me. I rationalize this by saying I prefer Shaker simplicity.

               I have a Little Rat (and two cats) and yes, it's great. If I should live long enough I will get full value from it, at the last show sighting the inventor seemed to be playing with supplementary add ons.

              Yes, Lee Valley.

               I am hobby only (it masks incompetence) being adaptable rather than adept. At the turn of the last century my grandfather was a cabinetmaker in the U.K. and Canada. I take after him only in that my  fingers heal as fast as his did.