Popular Woodworking

Top Tools and Products of 2020

- BY THE EDITORS

A round-up of our favorites this year.

In an effort to inform our readers about the latest and greatest, Popular Woodworkin­g has surveyed the rich landscape of tools and equipment available and made our picks of woodworkin­g tools of note for 2020. Here are some of our favorite tools and products we discovered over the last year.

When you are buying a lathe, you will never regret getting more swing and length capacity. But finding space for a long tool in a shop can be tricky. With Rikon’s new design, you get the best of both worlds: a lathe with a 20" bed and 23 7/32" swing and a 40" bed and 31 1/4" swing. Coupled with a 3HP electronic­ally controlled variable speed motor and tons of mass (it weighs in at more than 500 pounds), it is a formidable machine that can do nearly any turning activity. Switching the bed from short to long or anywhere in between is easy, too: The bed extension is motorized and controlled by a knob next to the motor controls.

Festool’s sanders and dust extractors are some of the best in the industry. Festool’s new CT15 dust extractor brings the company’s legendary dust extraction to a new, more affordable price point. It’s surprising­ly quiet, features a HEPA filter and tool actuation. You do miss out on the bluetooth functional­ity and Systainer integratio­n that comes with its more expensive extractors, but if you can live without those, it’s a very, very good dust extractor for connecting to all your portable power tools.

Sometimes, jigging up your drill press to drill precise angles or getting a big piece of wood to balance on a tiny drill press table is just too much. That’s when many reach for a drill guide. Up until now, though, those guides left a lot to be desired.

Rockler’s drill guide is made from metal (and other durable materials) and the gears lock firmly in place at angles from 0° to 60°— there’s virtually no play in the mechanism. The beefy 1/2" Jacobs chuck accepts up to 2 7/8" dia. bits. The V-notches on the plate help you drill precise centers on dowels. And, for all you pen turners, there’s an accessory designed for accurately drilling pen blanks. For a shop without a drill press (or room for one), or someone that’s drilling lots of angled holes, this guide can’t be beat.

At some point, most woodworker­s see a log on the side of the road and think about turning it into lumber. With the introducti­on of Wood-mizer’s new LX25 mill, the power to turn logs into lumber is now more affordable than ever.

First and foremost, the Wood-mizer LX25 is made in the U.S.A. at the same factory its bigger brothers are built. It can handle logs up to 26" in diameter and up to 12' 5" in length (additional 5' extensions extend the length of the mill). The saw is powered by a 7 HP Kohler gas engine (and you can upgrade to a 9 HP if you’d like).

A mill of this size and specs isn’t going to compete with larger mills that let you mill hundreds of bdft per hour, but it’s more than capable for someone wanting to mill a few trees worth of logs on a weekend, or mill beams for your timberfram­e.

And, it retails for $3295 (and is priced at $2995 through the end of October). For a made in the U.S.A. sawmill, that price is hard to beat, especially when you start calculatin­g how much money you’ve spent on lumber over the years.

An aftermarke­t miter gauge for your table saw is one of the first upgrades we recommend. And the Compass MG-36 from Harvey Tools is likely the only miter gauge you'd ever need. Being able to rely on accurate degree markings for crosscutti­ng, a long, solid fence ready to take accessorie­s and excellent fit and finish are all part of what makes this miter gauge a standout.

The locking mechanism, in particular, is a very interestin­g design.

It's easy to lock and unlock with just two fingers, but also locks solidly in place at seven positive stops when you release the buttons. For degrees in between, the large locking knob handles the task. The size and knurled aluminum body make it easy to lock down the fence tightly and securely. The fence expands up to 36" and includes a micro-adjustable flip stop. And, the track on top lets you add other accessorie­s as needed. It's available in both imperial and metric measuremen­ts.

Titebond’s newest glue is a godsend for the person with a small shop and a lot of parts to glue up. This indoor (not water resistant or waterproof) glue was developed to increase production in a factory setting (and is only sold in gallon or larger quantities), but the primary benefit—shorter clamp time—has a place in the home shop, too. Because you only need to leave your parts in clamps for 15 minutes while the glue sets, you can unclamp and glue up your next set of parts. This glue really sped things up while gluing up a whole kitchen’s worth of doors, and we now keep a bottle on hand for other production-type work.

To make an effective chisel, you need a few things: good steel, the right shape and good ergonomics. Narex’s Richter chisels (named for the company's founder, Vaclav Richter) deliver on all fronts, and at an affordable price, to boot.

Forged in the Czech Republic, the tools take a little bit of work to get them ready to work. But once they're set up, they perform just as well as other brands in this price bracket. The handles feel good, and the steel holds an edge well. Like all good tools, these chisels get out of the way and let you focus on the task at hand (and not on the tool).

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