Re: Rangate 300 Lift Cart
Not sure how it compares to Barth/Felder, but I have 2 Rangate lift carts in service since beginning of 2023 and 1) they are worth?the price and 2)they are underrated in performance specs. The casters are soft enough to roll smooth over uneven surfaces without the chatter, and the carts are heavy enough?to never question stability/tipping ability. They are stout enough to slide lumber across safely and have enough range of motion to unload at-level from a box truck deck. I'd buy more again when needed without hesitation.?
I’ve been doing more rough carpentry jobs in my garage and was thinking a rolling cart would come in handy. I currently have the Barth 300 and 500v in my basement shop and wouldn’t be without them. Has anyone purchased or seen the Rangate cart? I’m wondering how it compares to the Barth 300 or Felder FAT300 in terms of build quality. It’s a lot more expensive than the Felder.?
-- Brett Wissel Saint Louis Restoration 1831 S Kingshighway Blvd (at Shaw Blvd) St Louis, MO 63110 314.772.2167 brett@...
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I’ve been doing more rough carpentry jobs in my garage and was thinking a rolling cart would come in handy. I currently have the Barth 300 and 500v in my basement shop and wouldn’t be without them. Has anyone purchased or seen the Rangate cart? I’m wondering how it compares to the Barth 300 or Felder FAT300 in terms of build quality. It’s a lot more expensive than the Felder.?
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Summer Sale Alert: Unleash the Power of Precision with Noga Magnetic Bases!
Just got this after the discussion this morning on indicators and bases. I have no idea if this “sale” makes them better than you can find elsewhere, but it is worth looking, note they are free shipping over $75.
Brian Lamb
blamb11@...
www.lambtoolworks.com
Begin forwarded message:
From: All Industrial Tool Supply <sales@...>
Subject: Summer Sale Alert: Unleash the Power of Precision with Noga Magnetic Bases!
Date: July 10, 2023 at 11:11:35 AM MST
To: blamb11@...
Reply-To: sales@...
|
O ya that machine will jump to the front of the line . lOL? To bad u didn’t get to see shipping warehouse ?,,,, ya all in dark maybe that’s y mac,,,
Designing and building for 50 years
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
On Jul 10, 2023, at 11:03 AM, John Huelsenbeck <johnh@...> wrote:
? I saw one of the Kappa 590s turned on and functioning in the showroom.?
As for the ability to choose colors: this is what Pinosh told me while we were touring the powder-coating area of the factory. They had a color chart there, which I commented on. This is when he dropped the bombshell that you can choose your own colors! I'll confirm this because that bit of information seems to be the aspect of the tour that has garnered the most interest here on FOG!
JH
John Huelsenbevk,
Thank you for the Felder factory in-site. ?
Two things;
Can the show room run the machines? ?
And we could have picked our colors?!? Damn sales person never told me that was an option!
Wade
On Jul 10, 2023, at 7:34 AM, John Huelsenbeck <johnh@...> wrote:
? I just returned from a trip to Munich, Germany, where I was visiting my daughter and working with a colleague. As you might know, Hall in Tirol is only about a two hour drive south of Munich. I had a few open days and decided to make a personal roadtrip to the Felder factory. A little backstory is in order here. My Felder sales representative, Fergus Cooke at the Sacramento store, once mentioned that if I found myself in Austria, he might be able to arrange a tour of the factory. I took him up on his offer. He contacted a sales colleague in Hall, Pinosh Kumar, who contacted me. We arranged a time to meet at the Felder factory. I expected something formal such as a short guided tour with hard hats, canned talking points, etc. Instead, Pinosh guided me on an informal, 2.5-hour long, tour of the factory. Not only was the tour informal, but I received no safety lecture, was not required to sign a disclaimer stating that if I were stupid enough to fall into a machine, I would not blame Felder, and we didn’t even wear a hard hat. (Nobody there did.) Instead, Pinosh and I chatted while he described what we were seeing and we both dodged forklifts. ?It was a blast! 1. We started in the main offices, which we walked through to get to the factory area. All of the offices are along one long hall, including the offices of the executives.? Engineering, production, marketing, and sales were all located along this hallway. The company was founded by Johann Felder in the mid-1950s. He recently passed away and the company is now run by his children and grandchildren. The company hierarchy is relatively flat. Colleagues greet each other, from high to low, with a simple, “Hallo.” Pinosh pointed out that I had walked by Martin Felder as we made our way to the factory floor. Moreover, J. Felder’s grandchildren work in all aspects of whatever part of the company most interests them, such as marketing or sales. There is no free ride, though it is expected from the start that the Felder relative will lead that part of the company. It is a family-owned company, after all. 2. Even though the buildings were not laid out this way, Pinosh made the point of showing me how a machine is made from start to finish. So we started in the building where lasers cut the raw material (sheets of steel) into the right shape. Then, workers would use big metal bending machines to bend the cut-out shapes. The machines were accompanied by computers; depending on which part was being bent, the program would indicate which bending tools to insert into the machine and a tool magazine would bring the appropriate tool to the factory worker. This is a theme I saw repeated on many of the machines. 3. The next step was to see the assembly of sub-parts of the machines. Here, they would use jigs to position the parts where they could be welded together. I saw several outriggers assembled for Felder sliders. 4. Once the main parts are assembled, they are powder coated in another building. The machine is hooked onto a ceiling-mounted sliding rail assembly that can move it through washing, drying, painting, and then baking (at 180 degrees celsius). This is where I learned that you can order your Felder tool in any color you like! Of course, there is some additional cost, but because each machine is tagged with an owner, with all of the?owner-specified customizations, they can change out the paint and you can get that pink A3-41 you’ve always dreamed of! ? 5. Next we visited an area where they make all sorts of parts for the equipment they sell. Most notably, here I saw how they manufacture the Silent Power cutting heads from circular steel blanks. The milling is done in CNCs. Tolerances are checked and the cutting heads are fussed over until they are perfect (or, I suppose, within some tolerance of perfection). I learned that there is not a machine that will install all those tungsten carbide cutting heads. Maybe they start new employees with screwing in the cutting heads as some sort of hazing ritual? 6. The final assembly floor was my favorite part of the tour. By this time, they have installed the machine onto the pallet on which it will be delivered to your house. The machines roll down this area several abreast. Factory workers have cubbies on both sides of this central work area from which they can draw the parts to install on the machines. The machines that are being worked on all differ. You might have a Felder brand table saw, followed by a Format4 thicknesser, followed by a Hammer A3 in line here. At the end of this assembly area, the machines are tested. This includes running wood through the machine. They had a large dust extraction unit in the testing area to which the tested machine would be hooked up and adjusted. Finally, the machines are wrapped in plastic and sent to the shipping area, which I did not see. As part of the tour, we also stopped by a separate factory building where Felder does education. Here, Austrian students, some as young as 14, learn as part of their technical training. Like Germany, Austria has an education system in which students are placed on different paths depending on inclination and ability, with the end result being either attendance at university or a certificate and a job in industry. Felder participates in the training of students on the technical path. Felder educates cohorts of 15-20 students who are paid 50,000 euros a year by the government. In addition, I believe Felder provides a bonus. I was stunned by this information. Graduate students in the UC system aren’t paid this much! When I get the chance, I’ll talk to my Austrian colleague about the Austrian system and confirm the details from her. By the time I was at that part of the tour I was becoming tuckered out, so I may not have all the details about this correct. (Early in my trip I contracted a nasty stomach bug that dogged me the entire trip.) After the factory tour, Pinosh and I drove in his personal car to the showroom, which is near to, but not adjacent to, the factory. This is likely the largest showroom of Felder products around. I attached a few photos of the showroom. We wandered around looking at?machines and chatting, but by this time I was feeling a little guilty about the amount of time Pinosh had spent with me. After about 20 minutes, we returned to the start of the tour and parted ways. The next morning, before returning to Munich, I came back to the showroom on my own so I could spend a more leisurely time checking out the machines. I chatted with a few salespeople there. One of them gave me a part that had broken on my Hammer K3. (The little plastic clip on the outrigger that fastens down the tape scale split on first use. I joked that I traveled 6000 miles for that replacement part.) My sincerest thanks go to Pinosh for the great tour and his time. If you have the chance, I encourage you to travel to the Felder factory and arrange a tour. It was fun and educational! Attached photos: Photography was not allowed on the factory floor. The photos of the older machines are from the office area. The other photos are from the showroom. I realized only while selecting photos to attach here that many of the photos seem to have the KF700 as the focal machine. This is the machine I'm currently lusting after. Mmmmm.
<IMG_8251.jpeg> <IMG_8250.jpeg> <IMG_8255.jpeg> <IMG_8257.jpeg> <IMG_8261.jpeg> <IMG_8264.jpeg>
-- John Huelsenbeck Department of Integrative Biology University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, CA 94720
(510) 502-5887
|
I saw one of the Kappa 590s turned on and functioning in the showroom.?
As for the ability to choose colors: this is what Pinosh told me while we were touring the powder-coating area of the factory. They had a color chart there, which I commented on. This is when he dropped the bombshell that you can choose your own colors! I'll confirm this because that bit of information seems to be the aspect of the tour that has garnered the most interest here on FOG!
JH
John Huelsenbevk,
Thank you for the Felder factory in-site. ?
Two things;
Can the show room run the machines? ?
And we could have picked our colors?!? Damn sales person never told me that was an option!
Wade
On Jul 10, 2023, at 7:34 AM, John Huelsenbeck <johnh@...> wrote:
? I just returned from a trip to Munich, Germany, where I was visiting my daughter and working with a colleague. As you might know, Hall in Tirol is only about a two hour drive south of Munich. I had a few open days and decided to make a personal roadtrip to the Felder factory. A little backstory is in order here. My Felder sales representative, Fergus Cooke at the Sacramento store, once mentioned that if I found myself in Austria, he might be able to arrange a tour of the factory. I took him up on his offer. He contacted a sales colleague in Hall, Pinosh Kumar, who contacted me. We arranged a time to meet at the Felder factory. I expected something formal such as a short guided tour with hard hats, canned talking points, etc. Instead, Pinosh guided me on an informal, 2.5-hour long, tour of the factory. Not only was the tour informal, but I received no safety lecture, was not required to sign a disclaimer stating that if I were stupid enough to fall into a machine, I would not blame Felder, and we didn’t even wear a hard hat. (Nobody there did.) Instead, Pinosh and I chatted while he described what we were seeing and we both dodged forklifts. ?It was a blast! 1. We started in the main offices, which we walked through to get to the factory area. All of the offices are along one long hall, including the offices of the executives.? Engineering, production, marketing, and sales were all located along this hallway. The company was founded by Johann Felder in the mid-1950s. He recently passed away and the company is now run by his children and grandchildren. The company hierarchy is relatively flat. Colleagues greet each other, from high to low, with a simple, “Hallo.” Pinosh pointed out that I had walked by Martin Felder as we made our way to the factory floor. Moreover, J. Felder’s grandchildren work in all aspects of whatever part of the company most interests them, such as marketing or sales. There is no free ride, though it is expected from the start that the Felder relative will lead that part of the company. It is a family-owned company, after all. 2. Even though the buildings were not laid out this way, Pinosh made the point of showing me how a machine is made from start to finish. So we started in the building where lasers cut the raw material (sheets of steel) into the right shape. Then, workers would use big metal bending machines to bend the cut-out shapes. The machines were accompanied by computers; depending on which part was being bent, the program would indicate which bending tools to insert into the machine and a tool magazine would bring the appropriate tool to the factory worker. This is a theme I saw repeated on many of the machines. 3. The next step was to see the assembly of sub-parts of the machines. Here, they would use jigs to position the parts where they could be welded together. I saw several outriggers assembled for Felder sliders. 4. Once the main parts are assembled, they are powder coated in another building. The machine is hooked onto a ceiling-mounted sliding rail assembly that can move it through washing, drying, painting, and then baking (at 180 degrees celsius). This is where I learned that you can order your Felder tool in any color you like! Of course, there is some additional cost, but because each machine is tagged with an owner, with all of the?owner-specified customizations, they can change out the paint and you can get that pink A3-41 you’ve always dreamed of! ? 5. Next we visited an area where they make all sorts of parts for the equipment they sell. Most notably, here I saw how they manufacture the Silent Power cutting heads from circular steel blanks. The milling is done in CNCs. Tolerances are checked and the cutting heads are fussed over until they are perfect (or, I suppose, within some tolerance of perfection). I learned that there is not a machine that will install all those tungsten carbide cutting heads. Maybe they start new employees with screwing in the cutting heads as some sort of hazing ritual? 6. The final assembly floor was my favorite part of the tour. By this time, they have installed the machine onto the pallet on which it will be delivered to your house. The machines roll down this area several abreast. Factory workers have cubbies on both sides of this central work area from which they can draw the parts to install on the machines. The machines that are being worked on all differ. You might have a Felder brand table saw, followed by a Format4 thicknesser, followed by a Hammer A3 in line here. At the end of this assembly area, the machines are tested. This includes running wood through the machine. They had a large dust extraction unit in the testing area to which the tested machine would be hooked up and adjusted. Finally, the machines are wrapped in plastic and sent to the shipping area, which I did not see. As part of the tour, we also stopped by a separate factory building where Felder does education. Here, Austrian students, some as young as 14, learn as part of their technical training. Like Germany, Austria has an education system in which students are placed on different paths depending on inclination and ability, with the end result being either attendance at university or a certificate and a job in industry. Felder participates in the training of students on the technical path. Felder educates cohorts of 15-20 students who are paid 50,000 euros a year by the government. In addition, I believe Felder provides a bonus. I was stunned by this information. Graduate students in the UC system aren’t paid this much! When I get the chance, I’ll talk to my Austrian colleague about the Austrian system and confirm the details from her. By the time I was at that part of the tour I was becoming tuckered out, so I may not have all the details about this correct. (Early in my trip I contracted a nasty stomach bug that dogged me the entire trip.) After the factory tour, Pinosh and I drove in his personal car to the showroom, which is near to, but not adjacent to, the factory. This is likely the largest showroom of Felder products around. I attached a few photos of the showroom. We wandered around looking at?machines and chatting, but by this time I was feeling a little guilty about the amount of time Pinosh had spent with me. After about 20 minutes, we returned to the start of the tour and parted ways. The next morning, before returning to Munich, I came back to the showroom on my own so I could spend a more leisurely time checking out the machines. I chatted with a few salespeople there. One of them gave me a part that had broken on my Hammer K3. (The little plastic clip on the outrigger that fastens down the tape scale split on first use. I joked that I traveled 6000 miles for that replacement part.) My sincerest thanks go to Pinosh for the great tour and his time. If you have the chance, I encourage you to travel to the Felder factory and arrange a tour. It was fun and educational! Attached photos: Photography was not allowed on the factory floor. The photos of the older machines are from the office area. The other photos are from the showroom. I realized only while selecting photos to attach here that many of the photos seem to have the KF700 as the focal machine. This is the machine I'm currently lusting after. Mmmmm.
<IMG_8251.jpeg> <IMG_8250.jpeg> <IMG_8255.jpeg> <IMG_8257.jpeg> <IMG_8261.jpeg> <IMG_8264.jpeg>
-- John Huelsenbeck Department of Integrative Biology University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, CA 94720
(510) 502-5887
|
John Huelsenbevk,
Thank you for the Felder factory in-site. ?
Two things;
Can the show room run the machines? ?
And we could have picked our colors?! ?Damn sales person never told me that was an option!
Wade
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
On Jul 10, 2023, at 7:34 AM, John Huelsenbeck <johnh@...> wrote:
? I just returned from a trip to Munich, Germany, where I was visiting my daughter and working with a colleague. As you might know, Hall in Tirol is only about a two hour drive south of Munich. I had a few open days and decided to make a personal roadtrip to the Felder factory. A little backstory is in order here. My Felder sales representative, Fergus Cooke at the Sacramento store, once mentioned that if I found myself in Austria, he might be able to arrange a tour of the factory. I took him up on his offer. He contacted a sales colleague in Hall, Pinosh Kumar, who contacted me. We arranged a time to meet at the Felder factory. I expected something formal such as a short guided tour with hard hats, canned talking points, etc. Instead, Pinosh guided me on an informal, 2.5-hour long, tour of the factory. Not only was the tour informal, but I received no safety lecture, was not required to sign a disclaimer stating that if I were stupid enough to fall into a machine, I would not blame Felder, and we didn’t even wear a hard hat. (Nobody there did.) Instead, Pinosh and I chatted while he described what we were seeing and we both dodged forklifts. ?It was a blast! 1. We started in the main offices, which we walked through to get to the factory area. All of the offices are along one long hall, including the offices of the executives.? Engineering, production, marketing, and sales were all located along this hallway. The company was founded by Johann Felder in the mid-1950s. He recently passed away and the company is now run by his children and grandchildren. The company hierarchy is relatively flat. Colleagues greet each other, from high to low, with a simple, “Hallo.” Pinosh pointed out that I had walked by Martin Felder as we made our way to the factory floor. Moreover, J. Felder’s grandchildren work in all aspects of whatever part of the company most interests them, such as marketing or sales. There is no free ride, though it is expected from the start that the Felder relative will lead that part of the company. It is a family-owned company, after all. 2. Even though the buildings were not laid out this way, Pinosh made the point of showing me how a machine is made from start to finish. So we started in the building where lasers cut the raw material (sheets of steel) into the right shape. Then, workers would use big metal bending machines to bend the cut-out shapes. The machines were accompanied by computers; depending on which part was being bent, the program would indicate which bending tools to insert into the machine and a tool magazine would bring the appropriate tool to the factory worker. This is a theme I saw repeated on many of the machines. 3. The next step was to see the assembly of sub-parts of the machines. Here, they would use jigs to position the parts where they could be welded together. I saw several outriggers assembled for Felder sliders. 4. Once the main parts are assembled, they are powder coated in another building. The machine is hooked onto a ceiling-mounted sliding rail assembly that can move it through washing, drying, painting, and then baking (at 180 degrees celsius). This is where I learned that you can order your Felder tool in any color you like! Of course, there is some additional cost, but because each machine is tagged with an owner, with all of the?owner-specified customizations, they can change out the paint and you can get that pink A3-41 you’ve always dreamed of! ? 5. Next we visited an area where they make all sorts of parts for the equipment they sell. Most notably, here I saw how they manufacture the Silent Power cutting heads from circular steel blanks. The milling is done in CNCs. Tolerances are checked and the cutting heads are fussed over until they are perfect (or, I suppose, within some tolerance of perfection). I learned that there is not a machine that will install all those tungsten carbide cutting heads. Maybe they start new employees with screwing in the cutting heads as some sort of hazing ritual? 6. The final assembly floor was my favorite part of the tour. By this time, they have installed the machine onto the pallet on which it will be delivered to your house. The machines roll down this area several abreast. Factory workers have cubbies on both sides of this central work area from which they can draw the parts to install on the machines. The machines that are being worked on all differ. You might have a Felder brand table saw, followed by a Format4 thicknesser, followed by a Hammer A3 in line here. At the end of this assembly area, the machines are tested. This includes running wood through the machine. They had a large dust extraction unit in the testing area to which the tested machine would be hooked up and adjusted. Finally, the machines are wrapped in plastic and sent to the shipping area, which I did not see. As part of the tour, we also stopped by a separate factory building where Felder does education. Here, Austrian students, some as young as 14, learn as part of their technical training. Like Germany, Austria has an education system in which students are placed on different paths depending on inclination and ability, with the end result being either attendance at university or a certificate and a job in industry. Felder participates in the training of students on the technical path. Felder educates cohorts of 15-20 students who are paid 50,000 euros a year by the government. In addition, I believe Felder provides a bonus. I was stunned by this information. Graduate students in the UC system aren’t paid this much! When I get the chance, I’ll talk to my Austrian colleague about the Austrian system and confirm the details from her. By the time I was at that part of the tour I was becoming tuckered out, so I may not have all the details about this correct. (Early in my trip I contracted a nasty stomach bug that dogged me the entire trip.) After the factory tour, Pinosh and I drove in his personal car to the showroom, which is near to, but not adjacent to, the factory. This is likely the largest showroom of Felder products around. I attached a few photos of the showroom. We wandered around looking at?machines and chatting, but by this time I was feeling a little guilty about the amount of time Pinosh had spent with me. After about 20 minutes, we returned to the start of the tour and parted ways. The next morning, before returning to Munich, I came back to the showroom on my own so I could spend a more leisurely time checking out the machines. I chatted with a few salespeople there. One of them gave me a part that had broken on my Hammer K3. (The little plastic clip on the outrigger that fastens down the tape scale split on first use. I joked that I traveled 6000 miles for that replacement part.) My sincerest thanks go to Pinosh for the great tour and his time. If you have the chance, I encourage you to travel to the Felder factory and arrange a tour. It was fun and educational! Attached photos: Photography was not allowed on the factory floor. The photos of the older machines are from the office area. The other photos are from the showroom. I realized only while selecting photos to attach here that many of the photos seem to have the KF700 as the focal machine. This is the machine I'm currently lusting after. Mmmmm.
<IMG_8251.jpeg> <IMG_8250.jpeg> <IMG_8255.jpeg> <IMG_8257.jpeg> <IMG_8261.jpeg> <IMG_8264.jpeg>
|
Sounds amazing thanks for posting this, if only I would have known I could get my saw in victory pink! Tolve construction
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
On Jul 10, 2023, at 8:34 AM, John Huelsenbeck <johnh@...> wrote:
? I just returned from a trip to Munich, Germany, where I was visiting my daughter and working with a colleague. As you might know, Hall in Tirol is only about a two hour drive south of Munich. I had a few open days and decided to make a personal roadtrip to the Felder factory. A little backstory is in order here. My Felder sales representative, Fergus Cooke at the Sacramento store, once mentioned that if I found myself in Austria, he might be able to arrange a tour of the factory. I took him up on his offer. He contacted a sales colleague in Hall, Pinosh Kumar, who contacted me. We arranged a time to meet at the Felder factory. I expected something formal such as a short guided tour with hard hats, canned talking points, etc. Instead, Pinosh guided me on an informal, 2.5-hour long, tour of the factory. Not only was the tour informal, but I received no safety lecture, was not required to sign a disclaimer stating that if I were stupid enough to fall into a machine, I would not blame Felder, and we didn’t even wear a hard hat. (Nobody there did.) Instead, Pinosh and I chatted while he described what we were seeing and we both dodged forklifts. ?It was a blast! 1. We started in the main offices, which we walked through to get to the factory area. All of the offices are along one long hall, including the offices of the executives.? Engineering, production, marketing, and sales were all located along this hallway. The company was founded by Johann Felder in the mid-1950s. He recently passed away and the company is now run by his children and grandchildren. The company hierarchy is relatively flat. Colleagues greet each other, from high to low, with a simple, “Hallo.” Pinosh pointed out that I had walked by Martin Felder as we made our way to the factory floor. Moreover, J. Felder’s grandchildren work in all aspects of whatever part of the company most interests them, such as marketing or sales. There is no free ride, though it is expected from the start that the Felder relative will lead that part of the company. It is a family-owned company, after all. 2. Even though the buildings were not laid out this way, Pinosh made the point of showing me how a machine is made from start to finish. So we started in the building where lasers cut the raw material (sheets of steel) into the right shape. Then, workers would use big metal bending machines to bend the cut-out shapes. The machines were accompanied by computers; depending on which part was being bent, the program would indicate which bending tools to insert into the machine and a tool magazine would bring the appropriate tool to the factory worker. This is a theme I saw repeated on many of the machines. 3. The next step was to see the assembly of sub-parts of the machines. Here, they would use jigs to position the parts where they could be welded together. I saw several outriggers assembled for Felder sliders. 4. Once the main parts are assembled, they are powder coated in another building. The machine is hooked onto a ceiling-mounted sliding rail assembly that can move it through washing, drying, painting, and then baking (at 180 degrees celsius). This is where I learned that you can order your Felder tool in any color you like! Of course, there is some additional cost, but because each machine is tagged with an owner, with all of the?owner-specified customizations, they can change out the paint and you can get that pink A3-41 you’ve always dreamed of! ? 5. Next we visited an area where they make all sorts of parts for the equipment they sell. Most notably, here I saw how they manufacture the Silent Power cutting heads from circular steel blanks. The milling is done in CNCs. Tolerances are checked and the cutting heads are fussed over until they are perfect (or, I suppose, within some tolerance of perfection). I learned that there is not a machine that will install all those tungsten carbide cutting heads. Maybe they start new employees with screwing in the cutting heads as some sort of hazing ritual? 6. The final assembly floor was my favorite part of the tour. By this time, they have installed the machine onto the pallet on which it will be delivered to your house. The machines roll down this area several abreast. Factory workers have cubbies on both sides of this central work area from which they can draw the parts to install on the machines. The machines that are being worked on all differ. You might have a Felder brand table saw, followed by a Format4 thicknesser, followed by a Hammer A3 in line here. At the end of this assembly area, the machines are tested. This includes running wood through the machine. They had a large dust extraction unit in the testing area to which the tested machine would be hooked up and adjusted. Finally, the machines are wrapped in plastic and sent to the shipping area, which I did not see. As part of the tour, we also stopped by a separate factory building where Felder does education. Here, Austrian students, some as young as 14, learn as part of their technical training. Like Germany, Austria has an education system in which students are placed on different paths depending on inclination and ability, with the end result being either attendance at university or a certificate and a job in industry. Felder participates in the training of students on the technical path. Felder educates cohorts of 15-20 students who are paid 50,000 euros a year by the government. In addition, I believe Felder provides a bonus. I was stunned by this information. Graduate students in the UC system aren’t paid this much! When I get the chance, I’ll talk to my Austrian colleague about the Austrian system and confirm the details from her. By the time I was at that part of the tour I was becoming tuckered out, so I may not have all the details about this correct. (Early in my trip I contracted a nasty stomach bug that dogged me the entire trip.) After the factory tour, Pinosh and I drove in his personal car to the showroom, which is near to, but not adjacent to, the factory. This is likely the largest showroom of Felder products around. I attached a few photos of the showroom. We wandered around looking at?machines and chatting, but by this time I was feeling a little guilty about the amount of time Pinosh had spent with me. After about 20 minutes, we returned to the start of the tour and parted ways. The next morning, before returning to Munich, I came back to the showroom on my own so I could spend a more leisurely time checking out the machines. I chatted with a few salespeople there. One of them gave me a part that had broken on my Hammer K3. (The little plastic clip on the outrigger that fastens down the tape scale split on first use. I joked that I traveled 6000 miles for that replacement part.) My sincerest thanks go to Pinosh for the great tour and his time. If you have the chance, I encourage you to travel to the Felder factory and arrange a tour. It was fun and educational! Attached photos: Photography was not allowed on the factory floor. The photos of the older machines are from the office area. The other photos are from the showroom. I realized only while selecting photos to attach here that many of the photos seem to have the KF700 as the focal machine. This is the machine I'm currently lusting after. Mmmmm.
<IMG_8251.jpeg> <IMG_8250.jpeg> <IMG_8255.jpeg> <IMG_8257.jpeg> <IMG_8261.jpeg> <IMG_8264.jpeg>
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I just returned from a trip to Munich, Germany, where I was visiting my daughter and working with a colleague. As you might know, Hall in Tirol is only about a two hour drive south of Munich. I had a few open days and decided to make a personal roadtrip to the Felder factory. A little backstory is in order here. My Felder sales representative, Fergus Cooke at the Sacramento store, once mentioned that if I found myself in Austria, he might be able to arrange a tour of the factory. I took him up on his offer. He contacted a sales colleague in Hall, Pinosh Kumar, who contacted me. We arranged a time to meet at the Felder factory. I expected something formal such as a short guided tour with hard hats, canned talking points, etc. Instead, Pinosh guided me on an informal, 2.5-hour long, tour of the factory. Not only was the tour informal, but I received no safety lecture, was not required to sign a disclaimer stating that if I were stupid enough to fall into a machine, I would not blame Felder, and we didn’t even wear a hard hat. (Nobody there did.) Instead, Pinosh and I chatted while he described what we were seeing and we both dodged forklifts. ?It was a blast! 1. We started in the main offices, which we walked through to get to the factory area. All of the offices are along one long hall, including the offices of the executives.? Engineering, production, marketing, and sales were all located along this hallway. The company was founded by Johann Felder in the mid-1950s. He recently passed away and the company is now run by his children and grandchildren. The company hierarchy is relatively flat. Colleagues greet each other, from high to low, with a simple, “Hallo.” Pinosh pointed out that I had walked by Martin Felder as we made our way to the factory floor. Moreover, J. Felder’s grandchildren work in all aspects of whatever part of the company most interests them, such as marketing or sales. There is no free ride, though it is expected from the start that the Felder relative will lead that part of the company. It is a family-owned company, after all. 2. Even though the buildings were not laid out this way, Pinosh made the point of showing me how a machine is made from start to finish. So we started in the building where lasers cut the raw material (sheets of steel) into the right shape. Then, workers would use big metal bending machines to bend the cut-out shapes. The machines were accompanied by computers; depending on which part was being bent, the program would indicate which bending tools to insert into the machine and a tool magazine would bring the appropriate tool to the factory worker. This is a theme I saw repeated on many of the machines. 3. The next step was to see the assembly of sub-parts of the machines. Here, they would use jigs to position the parts where they could be welded together. I saw several outriggers assembled for Felder sliders. 4. Once the main parts are assembled, they are powder coated in another building. The machine is hooked onto a ceiling-mounted sliding rail assembly that can move it through washing, drying, painting, and then baking (at 180 degrees celsius). This is where I learned that you can order your Felder tool in any color you like! Of course, there is some additional cost, but because each machine is tagged with an owner, with all of the?owner-specified customizations, they can change out the paint and you can get that pink A3-41 you’ve always dreamed of! ? 5. Next we visited an area where they make all sorts of parts for the equipment they sell. Most notably, here I saw how they manufacture the Silent Power cutting heads from circular steel blanks. The milling is done in CNCs. Tolerances are checked and the cutting heads are fussed over until they are perfect (or, I suppose, within some tolerance of perfection). I learned that there is not a machine that will install all those tungsten carbide cutting heads. Maybe they start new employees with screwing in the cutting heads as some sort of hazing ritual? 6. The final assembly floor was my favorite part of the tour. By this time, they have installed the machine onto the pallet on which it will be delivered to your house. The machines roll down this area several abreast. Factory workers have cubbies on both sides of this central work area from which they can draw the parts to install on the machines. The machines that are being worked on all differ. You might have a Felder brand table saw, followed by a Format4 thicknesser, followed by a Hammer A3 in line here. At the end of this assembly area, the machines are tested. This includes running wood through the machine. They had a large dust extraction unit in the testing area to which the tested machine would be hooked up and adjusted. Finally, the machines are wrapped in plastic and sent to the shipping area, which I did not see. As part of the tour, we also stopped by a separate factory building where Felder does education. Here, Austrian students, some as young as 14, learn as part of their technical training. Like Germany, Austria has an education system in which students are placed on different paths depending on inclination and ability, with the end result being either attendance at university or a certificate and a job in industry. Felder participates in the training of students on the technical path. Felder educates cohorts of 15-20 students who are paid 50,000 euros a year by the government. In addition, I believe Felder provides a bonus. I was stunned by this information. Graduate students in the UC system aren’t paid this much! When I get the chance, I’ll talk to my Austrian colleague about the Austrian system and confirm the details from her. By the time I was at that part of the tour I was becoming tuckered out, so I may not have all the details about this correct. (Early in my trip I contracted a nasty stomach bug that dogged me the entire trip.) After the factory tour, Pinosh and I drove in his personal car to the showroom, which is near to, but not adjacent to, the factory. This is likely the largest showroom of Felder products around. I attached a few photos of the showroom. We wandered around looking at?machines and chatting, but by this time I was feeling a little guilty about the amount of time Pinosh had spent with me. After about 20 minutes, we returned to the start of the tour and parted ways. The next morning, before returning to Munich, I came back to the showroom on my own so I could spend a more leisurely time checking out the machines. I chatted with a few salespeople there. One of them gave me a part that had broken on my Hammer K3. (The little plastic clip on the outrigger that fastens down the tape scale split on first use. I joked that I traveled 6000 miles for that replacement part.) My sincerest thanks go to Pinosh for the great tour and his time. If you have the chance, I encourage you to travel to the Felder factory and arrange a tour. It was fun and educational! Attached photos: Photography was not allowed on the factory floor. The photos of the older machines are from the office area. The other photos are from the showroom. I realized only while selecting photos to attach here that many of the photos seem to have the KF700 as the focal machine. This is the machine I'm currently lusting after. Mmmmm.
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Re: Advice on dial indicator for checking run of a drill press/input on Novs Voyager Drill Press
In addition to the great advice received, I'd buy a point set with the indicator.? They are not very expensive and come with 10-12 different tips.? Most indicators use the same threads so the tips seem interchangeable.
If only drilling in wood this is irrelevant but if drilling in metal. I've come to depend on my pin gauges to tell me how my old Moore Jig Bore is drilling.? I like to build stuff using pins and I know that usually my holes are oversized .0015-.002.? Drilling
a hole and measuring it with a pin gives you information on how the runout affects the bore.? Sometimes the angular contact bearings used on drill presses will show runout when not under load but will tighten up loaded as that is how the bearings are designed.?
I'm not familiar with the Nova but if you work much with metal, pin gauges tell you a lot and you don't need an expensive precision set for most work.
Dave
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I have three dial indicators - two Wen and a Teclock. The Wen’s were very inexpensive; the price of the Teclock is lost in time. All three are serviceable and give repeatable results. For setting up machines they seem to be adequate,
One of my mag bases is the old style with separate arms. The other is a brand name with an articulated arm like the one in David Best’s r]suggestion. Both work, but the articulated one is much easier to use. I use these very sporadically, and there is a definite
learning curve to the old style and I have to re-climb that learning curve every time I use it. The old style has a fine adjuster that my articulated arm does not. I rarely feel a need to use that fine adjuster.
Some bases attach to a ug on the back of the indicator, and others attach to the shaft of the indicator. I favor gripping the shaft, particularly when trying to get parallel to a saw table. Make sure your base and indicator are compatible.
I have the Nova Voyager. I like the computer speed control. I usually use the speeds suggested by the machine, but some folks disagree with those suggestions. It has a relatively generous work table. Other than the fancy DVR it is a pretty basic light drill
press.
It has no work light, and I went through several iterations before I found a light that works. No laser designator, but I’m not sure those are that helpful.
I tried once to update the computer, but was not successful. One day perhaps ?I’ll try again. One has to install a program on a laptop and take the laptop to the drill press to do the update. That is a real nuisance, and the update instructions are not easy
to follow.
Not too long ago I was having issues with run-out. The quill seemed to be true, so I replaced the original chuck with an Albrecht (maybe I am spelling that correctly) keyless chuck with integral Morse taper. I should have spent the time and effort to remove
and re-set the original chuck to try to get it aligned better before I spent the money on a new chuck. The Nova depth indicator occluded the upper ring on the keyless chuck just enough that I could not tighten the chuck. Fortunately a friend was able to mill
a little off the bottom of the depth indicator and now the chuck works the way it should.
By the way, the new chuck cost $500 through a US supplier. I found out too late that an outfit in the UK would sell it and send it to me for half of that.
To make a long story short, it is a decent consumer-grade drill press. I love the DVR and will never go back to changing belts, but would certainly look for that feature in sturdier drill presses if I had to replace my Nova.
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John Hinman
Boise ID
K700S and A941
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Re: Advice on dial indicator for checking run of a drill press/input on Novs Voyager Drill Press
More details here on the specific models and arm lengths: ??https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjzxbBU
David Best
DBestWorkshop@...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/davidpbest/collections/
https://www.youtube.com/@David_Best
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Re: Advice on dial indicator for checking run of a drill press/input on Novs Voyager Drill Press
By the way, many dial indicators come with only a small ball tip. A broad flat tip is essential if you want to measure to a point, like a saw tooth. If an indicator comes with a wide flat tip as an extra, that is a real plus.
The indicator that comes with the OneWay has a good flat tip.
(I guess I actually have 4 indicators, including the one that came with my OneWay).
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John Hinman
Boise ID
K700S and A941
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Re: Advice on dial indicator for checking run of a drill press/input on Novs Voyager Drill Press
I have three dial indicators - two Wen and a Teclock. The Wen’s were very inexpensive; the price of the Teclock is lost in time. All three are serviceable and give repeatable results. For setting up machines they seem to be adequate,
One of my mag bases is the old style with separate arms. The other is a brand name with an articulated arm like the one in David Best’s r]suggestion. Both work, but the articulated one is much easier to use. I use these very sporadically, and there is a definite learning curve to the old style and I have to re-climb that learning curve every time I use it. The old style has a fine adjuster that my articulated arm does not. I rarely feel a need to use that fine adjuster.
Some bases attach to a ug on the back of the indicator, and others attach to the shaft of the indicator. I favor gripping the shaft, particularly when trying to get parallel to a saw table. Make sure your base and indicator are compatible.
I have the Nova Voyager. I like the computer speed control. I usually use the speeds suggested by the machine, but some folks disagree with those suggestions. It has a relatively generous work table. Other than the fancy DVR it is a pretty basic light drill press.
It has no work light, and I went through several iterations before I found a light that works. No laser designator, but I’m not sure those are that helpful.
I tried once to update the computer, but was not successful. One day perhaps ?I’ll try again. One has to install a program on a laptop and take the laptop to the drill press to do the update. That is a real nuisance, and the update instructions are not easy to follow.
Not too long ago I was having issues with run-out. The quill seemed to be true, so I replaced the original chuck with an Albrecht (maybe I am spelling that correctly) keyless chuck with integral Morse taper. I should have spent the time and effort to remove and re-set the original chuck to try to get it aligned better before I spent the money on a new chuck. The Nova depth indicator occluded the upper ring on the keyless chuck just enough that I could not tighten the chuck. Fortunately a friend was able to mill a little off the bottom of the depth indicator and now the chuck works the way it should.
By the way, the new chuck cost $500 through a US supplier. I found out too late that an outfit in the UK would sell it and send it to me for half of that.
To make a long story short, it is a decent consumer-grade drill press. I love the DVR and will never go back to changing belts, but would certainly look for that feature in sturdier drill presses if I had to replace my Nova.
--
John Hinman
Boise ID
K700S and A941
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Re: Advice on dial indicator for checking run of a drill press/input on Novs Voyager Drill Press
I like the Oneway multi-gauge. ? It’s not the best suited for the drill press; but it works and is much better for other machines like jointers , fences ect…. ? About a hundred bucks?
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David P. Best