voiceover: the woodwhisperer is sponsered by festool. faster. easier. smarter. and by powermatic. the gold standard since 1921. marc: i'm just enjoying a cup of coffee
routers woodworking reviews, with a few of my new best friends. so what do you guys wantto do for lunch today? rubios! you always want rubios, mfk 700!
(fast music) marc: okay, so many ofyou probably have heard that festool is releasingthree new products. they have two new routers, these two guys, and the mft 3, which is theirnew multifunction table. so i just wanted to giveyou a brief overview of what features might benew and different about these products and thebottom line is i keep getting a lot of questions about it.
a lot of folks know thati've had these for a while, and i've had some time to play with them, so i think it's goodtiming now that they're actually available toshow you what makes these a little bit different. it's not going to becompletely comprehensive. it's just going to give you an idea what makes these tools so great. so let's jump right into it.
so first up is the of 2200. it's 2200 watts that puts it in about the three horsepower class of routers. this thing is powerful. it's kind of like a shaper upside down. so it's key with a motorthat has that much kick, that you have a soft start mechanism, and fortunately this one does. so it slowly ramps up to speed instead
of immediately vroom jerkinginto it's highest speed, and you'll lose control if that happens. this allows you to completely maintain control throughout the cut. a couple of other notable features, built into the handle is the locking mechanismfor the plunge action. a lot of routers have a locking mechanism that only locks on one column
and eventually what winds up happening is the motor gets sort of locked in place and then goes slightly out of position. it sort of gets a little bit skewed. so by locking on both columns, you prevent that from happening. it just locks true every single time. okay, a few other things to note. the turret stops, that's pretty standard.
these are pretty muchon every plunge router, but what makes this different, there's two things. first of all the adjustment, every click here is atenth of a millimeter. that's 1/256th of an inch. that's tiny, okay. they also have this great feature which is the first time i've seen this on a router,
let me explain, when you'rerouting a profile for instance, you know how you sometimes don't get an absolute perfect cut, you just wish you could go just a hair more to get that cleanup cut? well they have a onemillimeter stopped turret here, so you can actually set it up, do your second-to-last pass, and then make that final adjustment,
drop it down that one step, which i think is about a millimeter, and that gives you that final last pass go give you a perfect clean cut. it's a really nice feature just to have it built in like that. a few other things, the ratcheting collet. that's pretty standardon all festool routers. okay so, single wrench operation.
it's actually a lot easier on your wrists. that's really convenient too. dust collection. let's hit that real quick. what makes this unit different, well first of all you've got the dust collection port in the back here, and then you can see thisring sort of isolates the routing chamber essentially and helps
the dust collection bethat much more effective, but you see you plunge down a little bit. this might be the average working height, you still have about ahalf inch of clearance here where air can get in and actually reduce the effectiveness of the dust collection. well they came up witha really cool feature, again another first, this little spring loaded chamber
drops down and closes that space up. so now, you've essentiallycompletely isolated the routing chamber, whichmeans all that dust and debris, whit, right up through the top, which is pretty darned cool. a couple of other things real quick. the ergonomics, it's offset. the motor is offset fromthe base by 30 degrees. okay, you can see if iput my edge guide in here,
the orientation of this, you can see the way the motor is tilted. the reason for that, is that if you think about it, when you use this you'll know, that's the way our body wants to be positioned when we run this stuff. we don't ever want tobe perfectly parallel or perfectly perpendicularto the work piece.
we always want to be slightly skewed, and that's where that 30 degrees comes in. it's something you may not even realize when you're using it, but all of a sudden you go, "wow, this is reallycomfortable to run this thing." okay, the last thing i want to show you is the quick change toollesschange bases here. there's a little lever.
just pull that. the bases pop right off. it has a whole bunch of accessory bases that you can use. for instance this one ifyou need extra wide support. you just pop it in, andyour new base is in place, and this works for everytype of base attachment that they have, whether you're using template guides,
the little swiveling dust collection cup that goes on the bottom, everything connects this way. incredibly fast, incredibly convenient. so really, really nice features. all right, now this is actually, i have to admit this isprobably my new favorite toy at this point and maybetoy is the wrong word. this is a very powerful
and extremely versatile little router. in this position, it justlooks like a laminate trimmer, but that's just reallyscratching the surface of what this thing really can do, and to be honest, i haven't had it long enough and haven't done enough woodworking lately to really exhaust the possibilities of what this thing can do.
first of all, you'vegot your variable speed, and i think probably oneof the most notable things about it is how quick you canchange bases with no tools. it just pops in place, turn the knob, and you're locked down and ready to go. a few other things to point out before i go into more detail on the bases. you see the fine adjustment up here? that's again the 1/256thof an inch adjustment,
1/10 of a millimeter. now what really makes this unit differnet and where it shines,at least in my opinion, is with this base. okay, the standard base just reminds me of most laminate trimmers interms of just the base operation of what you would do with it. you've got your dustcollection port built in, which is actually pretty effective.
the adjustment right here. the handle actually locks in place, and then you can turn the knob and get your fine adjustment from there, lock it down and you're ready to go. this base, the other guyis actually my favorite. now in my edge bandingepisode a while back, i explained that i never use a power tool, just because it's too muchwork or not dependable enough.
i never use power tools to trim solid wood edging on plywood. it just never works out for me, so i always use a block plane. well now that's actually changed, and i'll tell you why. this base allows the routerto be run horizontally. not only that, but whathappens here, you'll notice, well maybe you won't becauseit's a very slight amount,
but this base is mounted to the unit and puts the actual motoron a one degree slope. i think it's about one degree. if not it's very close. it's a very small amount. so what happens is, this router bit when it engages that trim is actually sloping a little bit away. so the chances of gouging your veneer are
slim to none and that's the reason i never used a power tool to trim edge banding because i was always afraid i was going to ruin my veneer, and i have in the past. and it can also be risky justto use a block plane too. this is almost dummy proof. the entire applicaionor the entire operation. so if you do a lot of edge banding on ply, this is definitely going
to be a great investment for you. so let me show you howthat's done real quick. first of all you want to installthe horizontal slope base. the second thing you want to install, which makes the operation really, really, again, dummy proof forlack of a better word, is the installation of this bearing guide. okay, this stops usfrom going in any deeper than we absolutely need to.
so it's a very controlled operation. it doesn't require you to getdown and look from underneath. once you have it all set in place, you just whip it rightaround the work piece and it's done. so let me attach that withthese two little screws. in fact this is just about the only thing that requires a tool. so with the bearing system attached,
this little knob loosens it, and you can actually move it in whatever position you want it to be. the only other thing thati'm going to add to this, this is one of the dust collection shrouds that you can add to it, but it's not for this operation. the one i'm going to add is this guy. see the chamber is wide open up here,
and that's where all thechips are going to want to go. so this guy, again, toolless. pops right in place. snaps into position, andthen you just lock it down. dust collection right through here. so, the first thing i dois i use the micro adjuster and i make sure that the tip of my bit is at what visually looks to be the same height as my base,
because really that's what i want. i want it to be nice and smooth. okay, so that's my starting point. i usually do a little test area first, just to make sure i'vegot it where i want it, and i lock everything downand make any, you know, adjustments i need before that point. i lock everything down and boom you just go through your entire project.
so let me just double check my adjustment, and then i'll clear off the entire piece. (tool whirring) okay, that actually looks perfect, so i'm going to go aheadand finish the entire strip. so that my friends is pretty cool, and for someone who does a lot of work, case work with solid wood edging, huge time saver for me, big time.
now the final thing we'll take a look at here is the mft 3. it's the new and improvedmultifunction table. now there's a lot ofsimilarities to the old table and a few things that makethis one new and better and just learning withtime little improvements that they make here andthere are just dramatic. the fence system is probably one of the most notable changes.
very easy, you know,just a couple of things get loosened and you can move this fence just about anywhere you need it to go. the fence is alsoadjustable so that you can flip it up to support thicker work pieces. the adjustment back here,i mean this is amazing. the other system locked into the holes on the top of the mft, so your unit here waspretty much locked in place.
this guy allows you to pretty much move it anywhere you need it to go, any angle you need it to go, any location on the tablethat you need it to go, and your fence pretty much, well you can move it if you want to but for the most part itstays in the same place, at least the way i use it. you've got these nice stops here,
so no matter what your work height is you could use the adjustable stop there, and the clamping mechanismon the side is actually new. it's sort of a v clampingsystem instead of the, well on the other one it was more of a t track kind of thing, but this v clamping system is amazing. i mean it really allows you to crank down, i should say, without much pressure.
you're able to get a really good grip and a nice tight securefit for accessories and all those wonderful things. probably one of the most notable changes that you'll notice first off ifyou ever used the other table is the fact that this one is now taller. i'm not sure whether there's just been a lot of requests for that, but i know personally i've seen a lot
of pictures on the webof people who use blocks on the bottom of the feet of the old 1080 and the smaller unit. so to make sense, if everybody wants it, make it taller. for me, i think it is actually a more comfortable working height. the other one, like i said, is about, i don't know, looks likeit's about an inch or two,
maybe two to three inches lower. so, pretty significant. but all in all, prettystandard multifunction table, which is, when you get intoit, it's amazing stuff. i mean, there's a lot of things that you can do with what looks like a simple fold-away table with an mdf top, but it's a lot more than that, so it's definitely.
i don't want to go intoall the details here today, but it's something for you to look into. now festool has microsites set up for each one of these products that you can check out on their website, and i'll make sure i havethe links available for you. they go into painfuldetail about everything you might want to knowabout these products, much more than i'm ableto do for you today.
so hopefully at the very leastif you're interested in this, this inspires you to go take alook and find out what you could, see what you can seeon the festool website. now i mentioned earlier that the mfk 700 is quickly becoming myabsolute favorite tool in the festool line, at least one of my favorites. it's basically becauseit solves a major problem for me and that's, you know,
trimming that edge bandingquickly, accurately, safely, with minimal, you know, hardly any dust at allgetting into the air. it's a pretty big deal, and i think if you dowork similar to what i do, you do a lot of casework and things like that where you have to trimlaminate or solid material. you're going to love this tool. the reason i'm bragging about it so much
is because fortunately the mfk 700 is the item that we're giving away for the festool giveaway in may. so, head over to the giveaway page and fill out that little form. answer the challenge question and enter to win an mfk 700. not this one, because this one's mine and you cant' have it,
but fortunately it'll be a brand new one that you get from festool. i'd like to quickly thanfestool for sponsoring all these contests thatwe do on a monthly basis. it's incredible to have thatopportunity to give away really high quality tools for free. you just can't beat that. thanks for watching. please go over to festoolusa.com.
check out these products. check out the microsites, and if you do decide to invest in one, any one of these three, i don't think you're goingto be disappointed at all, and you can brag to your friends too.
