I wish, but I don’t, and I would probably not trust them anyway (not after 5 different owners have lived here, remodeled, made extensions, etc…) 
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This is a great thread!
To echo a few comments. I think that a table saw is one of the most versatile tools in the shop and if you set it up right and build a few accessories you can do just about anything you’d do with a miter saw. A benchtop can be perfectly adequate if you buy something like one of the Kreg Rip-cut and a decent circular saw for ripping down big boards to manageable sizes. I have a massive table saw and I still rip down sheet goods with the rip cut just because it’s far easier to manage.
I really really really want a Saw Stop (aside from their safety features their rip fence is one of the best on the market) but I haven’t been able to justify the upgrade from the one I have now.
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I have several of these things and none of them are particularly trustworthy.
I have found that those with separate modes for detecting live power and ‘magnetic / conductive stuff’ provide some utility.
The live power detection is passive and works by picking up the alternating field from the wiring. Although this can be suppressed if the wiring is in metal trunking, that’s normally done on surfaces.
You then have the various methods of detecting ‘metally stuff’ which is generally either detecting magnetic interactions or doing a ‘guitar pickup’ job and looking for conductive elements interacting with a magnetic field.
Of those that claim to do both, I’ve found that the ones that ask you whether they’re shouting for metal or listening for live wires seem to be less crappy.
Never tried a Fluke or other professional grade unit. The walls here have sufficient humidity and other stuff in the plaster as well as old pipes from gas lights that much of the wall says “stud” uselessly.
As suggested above, marking up the wall with tape and scanning in a grid to them mark up your routes for where you think wires and pipes are is a good way to go. If necessary pop some floorboards too, you should be able to correlate pipes and wires in the walls with there they enter. I have a bunch of CAD drawings of where all the wiring and pipes I found or added went which is slowly becoming more complete.
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And I probably won’t buy a $1000+ Fluke to find out how good they are.
Sigh, it’s 2021 and we have autonomous cars but no sure way to know how not to drill directly into plumbing.
I guess I’m only left with Kryptonite then!
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I purchased the Franklin Sensors Prosensor 710 earlier last year and it works soo much better then my previous stud finder. Easily one the best tool splurges I have done. My house is built out of drywall and wooden studs and this works great. It does not detect wiring, only studs.
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@Julien It’s been a while since you’ve gone completely overboard with a project.
Check this out.
For what it’s worth, I use a Zircon, similar to the one @MindlessCorpse mentioned.
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NOW we’re talking.
The joy of tinkering with a nerdy solution will more than make up for the (probably) disappointing end result.
You might have just triggered me (and it’s been a while, indeed!)
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@neilferreri HAH I hadn’t seen that one! We actually use high end gaming mice optical flow sensors in robotics - literally take them out of the mouse and hook them up to custom electronics. They give great odometry in relatively clean situations. Nice execution @Julien!
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The missus won’t be happy, I was supposed to work on the remodeling tonight and now I have to look into this Walabot thing and check out videos and probably fall into this new rabbit hole 
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Here’s a borescope that I’ve actually used with aircraft and looking in walls. Has a pretty good focal length, but it does need a 3/8" (9.525mm) hole to insert. Strangely, last time I bought one it was 50% less, at least in USD:
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I’ll give you my (albeit American) opinion.
For stationary tools: Delta and Jet are basically like Nikon and Canon - excellent pro / adv. amateur level equipment that will give you solid fences, repeatable results and good buy for the buck.
Powermatic and Laguna are the Hasselblads of the stationary woodworking world. You would never waste your money buying one of these tools…but they are expensive unless you’re doing this for a living.
If you buy a tablesaw, the key is the fence. Everything else is gravy. You need a stable, repeatable, easy to adjust, hard to knock out of whack, fence. If you can fit a Biesemeyer fence on your machine, do it. Unifences (Delta) are great too.
I would say that after a tablesaw, the next most important tools are the planer and jointer…and you need both (or a combo). This is how you’re going to consistently prepare your stock and is the only truly time-effective way to get things true and straight (you can hand plane, rout, and do voodoo…but it takes substantially longer). I would STRONGLY recommend investing in an 8" jointer. Expensive, but the luxury of being able to joint the majority of woods (up to 8" wide) is a huge time saver. When I started, I had the 6" Delta and was never happier than when I upgraded to the Powermatic 8" Helical Head…it’s a beast. If you’re going to go 6", get a LONG bed (longer than the Delta…I think Jet makes a long bed jointer that folks lie).
Lastly - dust collection for the big boys…I have an Oneida cyclone (Industrial 2HP). I also have the Oneida Dust Cobra for my CNC and small tools. I like the Oneida products.
When it comes to handheld tools: If you’re not buying a tablesaw and thinking about a circular saw, consider a track saw (strongly). They’re fantastic. I have a DeWalt - which is a lot cheaper than the Festool. I believe Makita makes one also.
Unless you’re taking your stuff on location a lot, get corded tools. They’re cheaper, stronger, and will last you longer. I went through a phase of purchasing cordless tools and found myself constantly having to re-buy batteries or have them rebuilt. I don’t go out on location all that much, so I now buy mostly corded tools. That said, I LOVE my Bosch cordless drill, driver, impact drill…it’s awesome and the batteries (for 2 years) seem to last forever. I did not had the same luck with DeWalt & Porter Cable batteries.
For routers, I own 7 of them (seems crazy, right?). I have a 3 1/2 Porter Cable under a Jessem table and a 1 1/2 plunge Porter Cable dedicated to my Leigh jigs. I have a Bosch Colt handheld router, and a small Porter Cable cutout router and a DeWalt cutout tool. My Shapeoko has the Carbide router. I also have a Dewalt 6-something plunge router (don’t remember the model) which is fine. …but I really like my PC routers. Festool makes overpriced routers…I don’t deal with them.
You’ll want to get a biscuit joiner. I have the DeWalt…again, I’m in the states. Festool makes an overpriced one - as does Lamello (obviously)…I can’t speak for the others…I believe Makita makes one that has been reviewed well and isn’t over priced. The Porter Cable seems to not be as flexible…so I stayed away from that one.
Off the top of my head, that’s what comes to mind. If you have any specific questions, feel free to ping directly.
- Gary
EDIT: I didn’t realize how old this thread was and how many responses this thread had…this info may be old hat by now.
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Thanks Gary, this will definitely still be useful down the road when I look at expanding my tool set.
Right now I’m about to start using the Bosch track saw and miter saw I ended up getting, and while I read the user manual (that’s a sign of how anxious I am to not get hurt…never read a power tool manual before), I keep thinking of @WillAdams’ advice to count to 10 on my fingers before each cut to be able to still do it after the cut.
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Pretty much every power tool accident I’ve ever seen has involved one or more of the following:
- failure to read and follow the operating instructions
- callous disregard for the power and danger of the machine and its cutting edges
- willful removal of guards or defeat of other safety devices
- EDIT: making an assumption about the state of the tool without verifying it with a check which ensures that the state of the tool matches what you will do next (see below for an example)
So long as you read and understand all the operating instructions, and keep in mind the forces involved (tablesaw kickback is no joke) you’ll be fine, just always check everything and never make any assumptions (example of the latter, cutting resinous pine w/ a circular saw which caused the guard to get stuck, with disastrous consequences to the just laid flooring when the saw was put down so that the bare, still spinning blade sent the saw skating across the pristine surface of the floor).
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The above by @GJM is solid advice. Start with quality tools instead of buying cheap and later realizing you will need to upgrade, even if it means longer time to buy what you need.
From me, I would add to also consider Makita and Bosch tools. Kind of pricey, but very reliable. DeWalt has gone downhill over the past few years and will probably never return to what they once were. Keep everything clean after use and oiled on occasion.
One last thing when purchasing high priced equips, look up the list of replacement parts and see if most parts are available and reasonably priced. A lot of companies will sell a product at one price, then jack the price of replacement parts so high that you might look elsewhere first.
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Constructions methods may be different in France than they are in the US. Most structures have 16 inch center studs. Buildings that have metal studs still use the 16 inch spacing. So you can measure from a corner and estimate where studs are and verify with a meter. So do you know what standard they use where you are in France. They have older methods of finding studs with magnets which are effective because they see the nails holding up your wall board. We have standards for building here that require metal covers over the wires and pipes that run through walls. If you have a modern house you may have some of the same standards but if your home is older nothing like that exists. So it is a mixed bag of how your home was built, materials used and construction standards used locally.
However common sense tells you if you have an outlet you have a framing structure immediately to the right or left of it. There will be a wire that either goes straight up or runs at a right angle to the next outlet. If you have a bathroom or kitchen on the other side of a wall there will most likely be a water pipe or waste water pipe possibly in the joining wall. Some plumbing all comes from below the foundation and other have all the plumbing coming from over head. A look in the attic space will help with how your plumbing is laid out in your house. If you have access to the basement or under your house that will also help identify where your plumbing is located.
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This sort of thing should be added to your list of reasons for accidents. Not sure it’s a callous disregard in this case, but perhaps more of an assumption that the tool is so good it is able to behave the same way for all materials, which is certainly not true.
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Thanks. Good point. I’ve edited it.
As much as I like the concept of Sawstop technology, I hate the legal environment which makes it a successful business model which would not exist if the litigants who sue after cutting themselves after removing guards and other safety devices were tried by a jury of other woodworkers (or better still shop teachers).
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Sometimes I think the legal system is there to compensate for natural stupidity because Darwinism doesn’t work fast enough!
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In ancient times really stupid people were killed off by their own stupidity. Now days they live on and make more stupid people and so on and so on.
*Let’s kill all the lawyers" is a line from William Shakespeare Henry VI that makes all these stupid people possible to be driving Rolls Royce cars.
I think we will some day be like the movie Idiocracy if society keeps moving in the direction it seems to be headed.
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