Popular Woodworking 2008-12 № 173, страница 36

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■ before I started working al this magazine, 1 saw loolsas things that came in boxes. But during the last 12 years, my view haschanged. I now see tools as triumphs of marketing, engineering or both.

After you meet t he people who make and sel I your tools, you never look at the tools the same way again. I know the guy who designed my jack plane, and the man who came up with the idea for SawStop. Because we know these people, you might think that we cut them a lot of slack when selecting the winners of our Best New Tools award each year.

Nope. Today we wrapped up our selection process, and we spent most of that time ripping apart the candidates, exploring what we didn't like about them. Ii's a bit like telling your spouse that you don't like the way she gets her hair cut. But we have to do this. Not only for you, but for the engineers and marketing people who conceive of these tools, figure oui how to make them and successfully bring them to market.

We owe it to these people to select ihe tools that are like nothing that anyone has ever made (such as the Joint maker Pro). Or tools that have innovative features lhat revive an established form (such as the new Festool router). Or tools that take an old idea and use it to make a new tool that works better than we could have imagined (such as the Veritas skew rabbet planes and the Bosch jigsaw blades).

These tools might be manufactured of steel, glass-filled nylon and brass, but they really are made of guts, gray matter and gumption.

—Christopher Schwarz, editor

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^the YOcnners:

Bosch Bridge City Tools Byrd Tool Colt Delta Festool Gramercy Jet Makita Powermatic Veritas

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