This week, we find out if a sander can be worth $600. Then we find a Bosch Profactor tool that OVER performs, and watch some of our favorite reviewers attempt to break some tools. THIS is your Power Tool Week In Review!
VCG Construction | Flex vs Milwaukee
We have several tool stories for you, starting with Nick over at VCG who hit a towering 400k subs this week, despite Vince being on his channel sometimes. Grats guys! This week they also tested the new FLEX Turbo Impact vs its Milwaukee Gen 3 rival. After their typical rigorous testing process, they both agreed “From our testing me and Nick kind of agree that they’re very comparable impact drivers. Especially when you start increasing the battery size on the Milwaukee” Okay that is all cool and stuff, but who won? Well, there is obviously a clear cut winner…“The clear cut winner in this test is you the consumer.” If you want to decide yourself then head over to VCG.
The Wood Whisperer | Sanders
This is MR. Nichole Spagnuolo, or Marc if you’re a close friend. Okay, we may not be close, but I know he’s a fellow connoisseur of ultra high end sanders, and this week, Marc took time away from his fine woodworking to give us an incredibly detailed comparison between the popular Festool ETS EC and the Mirka Deros. These are not budget sanders. They’re not even cordless. These are perfect examples of pro level tools, intended for professional challenges. Even if you have a pro challenge that needs addressing, you’d be an idiot to spend over $600 on a sander without learning as much as you can about your options, and Marc has you covered. Best of all, a tool like this would be lost on your average tool guy. But Marc is uniquely qualified as a master craftsman, to notice and highlight the slight differences that will make one of these sanders the best one for you. For the full review, head over to The wood whisperer, and I highly recommend watching the full 17 minutes.
Doresoom Tool Reviews | EGO Mower
Spaceman Nate is back, and this time he’s got a new EGO 21” select cut for what appears to be his first ever mower review. Now the select cut isn’t exactly new, with the one exception being the XL model with a huge 10ah battery, and we’ve seen several reviews on this model so far. But Nate has a habit of being a stickler for details, and this review was no different. Nate loves the quiet operation, the LED lights and how it easily stows upright and out of the way. He does however take issue with the bar extension for the handles, and the $600 price he paid on sale. But most notable, was the ability to mow his entire lawn, and then move the same battery into his string trimmer, finishing the entire job with one battery. Must be nice. For his full review, head over to Doresoom Tool Reviews.
Torque Test Channel
The team at Torque Test Channel threw on their safety goggles and headed into their evil lab to determine if the new Bosch Profactor GDS 18V 740N 1/2″ Impact Wrench lives up to the hype. This is actually their new ½” Impact Wrench, which benefits from all of the new Profactor features including their non-turbo bi-turbo brushless motor, which they say delivers up to 740 foot lbs of fastening torque and 1,180 foot lbs of breakaway. So how’d it do? Shockingly well. Making this the first high torque we’ve tested that is actually under rated) Yup, Bosch has been trying to make some noise with their new Profactor series, and in this case, they’re doing it. For the full review, head over to Torque Test Channel.
Quick Reviews
There were a few more tool reviews we think you’ll want to see this week, including Philly Fixed who gets his hands on the enormous Metabo HPT 2 ¼ Horsepower Router,
Shop Tool Reviews tries to kill the FLEX battery chargers,
and Workshop Addict who reviews the Metabo HPT one handed recip saw, that also takes jigsaw blades… which then… I guess… does that make it a barrel grip jigsaw? Ummm… Blessed be the barrel grip? Sure! Blessed be.
Construction Junkie / Ohio Power Tool | Father’s Day Gift Guides
It’s Father’s Day soon, which means one thing. Okay, Two things. Ugly ties, and Father’s Day gift guides. But fortunately, ours don’t include any ties. First up, Shane over at Construction Junkie put together a fabulous collection of father’s day gifts, guaranteed to put a smile on your tradesman Dad, including a Werk hoody, breaker finder, hex keys and a trim puller.
You guys want weird stuff. For the more traditional power tool fan, the team over at Ohio Power Tool put together their own list of 15 father’s day favorites, including tools from DeWALT, Bosch, Milwaukee, GearWrench, Metabo, and some of the coolest hard hats I’ve ever seen, from Lift. If you have a tool fan Dad, we’ll link to both lists below.
Tool Talk
Last week on Tool Talk, we asked you how we could best celebrate hitting 100k subscribers, and you had a ton of great ideas. You were all pretty unanimous on breaking up the $2000 GD into a bunch of smaller ones, which we’re planning to do.
We also love the idea of planning a long live show on a Saturday, and we’re already working on getting as many of our YT friends involved as possible.
The idea has also been floated to raise money for a charity during the event, which we love. Today we’re closing in on 96k, so it’s going to get here fast. We’re really hoping we can do this before Sarah goes into labor, but we’ll see. If you have any more ideas, leave them below.
For this week’s Tool Talk, we’re turning to the World of Concrete, which ended yesterday! Yeah!… But as we mentioned last week, we didn’t go. But thanks to the many years we have attended, we’ve been getting the press releases all week, and anxiously dug through them looking for big news. But we didn’t really find anything.
Except this cart. That’s the Overland 950 series Power Wheelbarrow, which I’m going to assume is 50 points better than the 900. So do I need a battery-powered 6 wheeled 950lb capacity wheelbarrow? That’s a stupid question. Anyways, the pickins seem to be thin at the WoC, and we think we know why. You see, this is the 2021 World of Concrete that was supposed to happen back in January.
So the WoC was moved to June, but here’s the thing. Next year? It’s back in January. Which means the next WoC is only 6 months away, and hopefully COVID will be even more of a distant memory by then. So why spend 100s of thousands of dollars on mega booths at this event? Why indeed. We’ll keep digging through press releases, and try to have a full recap by next week’s episode. For this week’s tool talk, we want to put you guys on staff. If you either attended WoC, or if you know of any interesting announcements we might miss, let us know below, so we can all pretend we were there.
Last week we saw the launch of HILTI’s new exoskeleton, which you can watch right here.
We want to thank SKIL and Ohio Power Tool for sponsoring this episode. Guys, we couldn’t do it without you.