TTS Tooltechnic Systems to buy Sawstop

[Admiral]

Look for the Festool parent company to fund enforcement of the SS patents against Bosch in Germany and the EU, to get the licensing revenue prior to patent expiry as well as to stick a pin in the eye of their competitor, they've got the deeper pockets to do it than SS had; also look for improvements in the SS technology and new patent filings based thereon, Festool is much deeper in engineering talent than SS could ever afford.  This is the way the patent game is played.

[Bentley]

I don't know why a lot of people think Festool will raise SawStop prices. The same feeling was expressed on Facebook a few days ago. If anything, since Festool is a much larger company than SawStop, they can absorb some of the manufacturing and marketing costs keeping the prices the same. Plus Festool will probably put the technology on other tools like a band saw. As far a Mr Gass goes, he'll either retire on an island somewhere, or become a lobbyist in Washington DC.

Bentley

[Rob Young]

My hope is that TTS Tooltechnic will put forth some engineering to fix some of the niggling little "faults" in the design of the SawStop. I've experienced three of their big cabinet saws now that have had the same exact problem with the arbor lift mechanism and two of those also had the same mechanical failure in the big-red-slap-button. The electronics behind the button were fine, the button itself failed. All for want of a little bit more robustness in the molding process.

The arbor problems were due to poor selection in the way some of the internal components attach, causing an eventual failure. Not a difficult fix, but annoying when you have to stand on your head to get inside or take off the whole cast iron top.

First arbor issue was handled under warranty. All subsequent issues not so. Even though Festool isn't going to be making the saws, perhaps their warranty style comes down from on high at TTS.

[Robert Adams]

I don't know why a lot of people think Festool will raise SawStop prices. The same feeling was expressed on Facebook a few days ago. If anything, since Festool is a much larger company than SawStop, they can absorb some of the manufacturing and marketing costs keeping the prices the same. Plus Festool will probably put the technology on other tools like a band saw. As far a Mr Gass goes, he'll either retire on an island somewhere, or become a lobbyist in Washington DC.

Bentley

Have you seen what happens to festool prices... Festool has good engineering but many of their tools are not built that much better than the competition when you look at the differences in design. Where they excell is not in the build quality of the actual tool but in the enginuity of the tool.  

     As for using the tech more .... Back before they were building table saws they had a bandsaw with the sawstop on it as well as a commercial upcut saw which is a very dangerous saw. They had videos on youtube years ago when youtube was a new thing. 

      Gass probably will haunt the woodworking tools community for years unless he has an idea to start suing other industries for not buying someones safety tech.

[Admiral]

Gass likely has a consulting contract with the buyer, for several years at least; that's how it is done in M&A.