Sawstop goes PRO, Festool goes Blue and Milwaukee goes Long! All of those stories and more coming up next!
Our first stop today brings us over to Chester’s place, where he uses several of my favorite tools to make an adorable chair for a little girl. That includes a miter saw, jigsaw, hand saw and power drills! And look how this thing turned out! It’s beautiful! To see Chester make this chair for yourself, visit Chester on YouTube .
Sawstop recently announced an updated version of their popular jobsite saw, which is now called the Sawstop Jobsite PRO. So you amateurs can go right ahead and put your wallets away. Rob over at Woodworkers Journal walked us through the changes, including a larger table and updated fence. And of course, it still features its unique blade brake system that will keep both your fingers and your hotdogs safe. For the full preview, visit Woodworker’s Journal on YouTube .
Recently on Instagram, a few of us were discussing limited edition tools, sparked by Murry from Kruger Construction noticing my Black Edition Stabila right up there. That sent me on a mission to find more special editions and ran into the newly announced Festool Emerald Edition systainers. Festool has been selling premium tools at premium prices for over 90 years now, but they’ve only been here in the states for 20. To celebrate their second decade in the USA, they’re now offering 5 different tools with a unique blue systainer. I for one can’t think of a more Festool way to celebrate something than by spending $3,240 on 5 blue boxes. The tools will be nice too I’m sure. You can order the unique kits now at your favorite Festool retailer.
Milwaukee surprised a bunch of us with another special packout, this time it came with 4 measuring tapes, featuring updated Studs. A lot of our favorite channels featured the new tapes, but no one did it with quite the same flair as Austin from Tools at Work. After giving the tapes proper testing, he spends the last 40 minutes trying to reach his keys across the driveway because, you know… the floor is lava. You can find Austin at Tools At Work on YouTube.
I never thought I would be able to say that Jimmy DiResta and I have something in common. But when he posted a video this week featuring something he saved from the garbage, I knew I found my spirit animal! DiResta built a custom cabinet with recycled metal bins for the drawers. After making the shelves for 12 bins, he cut and welded a steel face edge banding to match them. Okay, so none of my projects using thrown away shelves or tables have ever turned out as pretty as this, but otherwise we’re pretty much the same person! You can find him at Jimmy DiResta on YouTube!
Joe sent me this next video where Rescued and Restored took a 1960’s Duncan parking meter that looks like it has been stomped on, beaten up, left out in the rain, and forgotten, and gives it brand new life! I didn’t know I needed a sandblaster, but after watching this restoration I’m not sure how I’ve ever lived without one! If you want to know what the inside of a 60’s parking meter looks like as it is taken apart, revived, and put back together then you need to check out Rescue and Restore on YouTube.
Timothy Dyck spent some time this week forging a spinning top that would keep any kid entertained for an hour, or any ADHD adult for…well forever… Timothy, keep up the good work! You can find his project at Timothy Dyck on YouTube.
It’s time for construction industry news courtesy of construction Junkie. First up, DAQRI, the company behind the “hard hat of the future” is shutting down. The company has been working on the DAQRI Smart Helmet which featured an interactive heads up display, and several cameras and sensors intended to bring Augmented reality to the jobsite. TechCrunch noted that this was only the most recent of several AR Companies to close down, citing stiff competition from tech giants like Microsoft and their Hololens. DAQRI was 10 years old.
Speaking of failures, after the Chernobyl disaster of ‘86, Germany committed to eventually decommission all of their nuclear power plants but often times due to local laws or nosy neighbors, engineers were denied permits to use explosives to bring down the cooling towers. In this case, a tower in Mülheim-Kärlich needed to be brought down from 530 ft to 262 before they could implode it. To do this, they rigged up a small robotic excavator that traveled the rim, eating away at the tower one bite at a time. It took over a year to get it down to 262 feet. Where is the wide timelapse of that? Anyways, even after that exhaustive work was done, they still couldn’t obtain an explosives permit, so they ended up using the same robotic excavator to chew through the support columns for 4 hours until it finally fell. You can watch the entire video and find all of your other construction industry news over on Construction Junkie dot com.