Your best (and worst) / most surprising woodworking related purchase this year

[MikeK]

On the subject of LN, their socket chisels, while sharp as hell, do have the annoying habit of the handle coming out the socket and falling on the floor. I'm tempted to epoxy those in.

I had the same problem with two of my LN bevel chisels. The inside of the socket was a slightly flattened cone and the handle was making contact with the handle in two small areas. I was tempted to take some material off of the handles, but they would still not fit well in stretched part of the socket. I bought the chisels directly from LN in Maine, and when I notified them about this, they had Dictum in Munich send me replacements and I returned the bad chisels back to Dictum.

If you haven't contacted LN, or the distributor where you bought them, LN should exchange them.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

My DeWalt was iirc 70Nm. I looked at a Panasonic (I'm not about to buy into a raft of powertools), as they have a good name for reliabilty and battery quality, but saw it was only 40Nm (iirc). The Milwaukee is 135Nm. The side handle is not an ornament.

 

[Bojam]

A good buy.

I have a modest diy workshop/half garage: mitre saw, pillar drill, grinder, inexpensive lathe. I got myself an Axminster 1950 bandsaw specifically to cut 'blanks from planks'. With the addition of a couple more blades its become one of the most used tools I have, good for so many other things.

I recently bought my first PT and bandsaw. Both from Holzprofi (France). Far Eastern manufactured (Taiwan) but the quality seems very good to me. Solid machines and well calibrated straight off the crate. Together they have been pretty transformational for my workflow. Resawing ("planks from planks") is great, especially since I work a lot with reclaimed timbers. The PT means I can square up and final dimension stock fast and with precision. I don't mind handplaning but having to flatten and square up all my stock by hand got pretty tedious after a while. I don't have a tablesaw due mainly to space limitations. The tracksaw with MFT is good but the bandsaw is now my go to for all ripping and I'm getting accurate and surprisingly clean cuts using sharp Tuffsaws M42 blades (various TPI for different purposes). I carefully tuned up the bandsaw having watched loads of youtube videos and the excellent "ultimate bandsaw collection" from @Peter Sefton. The versatility of the bandsaw gives it the edge over a tablesaw for me if you can't have both.

 

[Nelly111s]

My "best" thing this year was getting some new abrasive! 3M Xtract™ Cubitron™ II Net Disc 710W (3M Discs). Have used Abranet for a while (and it's still best for woodturning), but the 3M stuff is great. Better even than my new Festool Rotex which I use it on!
Bought it after watching this from Katz-Moses. In my use (mainly sanding hardwood) its better than Abranet and about half the price! My unit is next to a small car body shop - they have also converted the the 3M stuff, too.

Second best thing and the most used machine in the shop is a Felder Hammer A3-41 spiral P/T. The finish on olive wood is amazing. It's super accurate and repeatable and easy to use.