A little rain didn't hamper the turnout for the Festool Roadshow! 

Festool is traveling the U.S. this summer, and the company’s awesome 48-ft semi-trailer truck made its way to Sears Trostel on May 17. Thanks to all who attended the Festool Roadshow 2016 and helped make it a great event!

We were a bit concerned that the dreary weather might discourage people from coming out, but our fears were soon dashed. According to our Festool friends, the Fort Collins stop was one of their most day-brightening and well-attended events so far on the Roadshow. 

Festool is touring the country, and the show is stopping at Sears Trostel!  We’re pretty excited to be chosen to host this free event, which will feature demonstrations of the latest and most popular Festool power tools. We're the first stop for the Festool Roadshow in Colorado.

Come to our Riverside location on Tuesday, May 17 from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm to get up close and in-depth with the entire Festool system. Festool reps and trainers from the company’s Indiana and Las Vegas facilities will be on hand to answers your questions, and introduce you to Festool tools that aren’t yet available to the public.

The show will take place in Festool’s massive 48-foot trailer with dual fold-out stages and 500 square-feet of working area.
 

The SawStop Jobsite Saw is a remarkable piece of technology. It’s like the Swiss Army Knife of table saws! It has everything on board that you need for a table saw on a jobsite — or anywhere that mobility is important or space is tight. It is reliable, lightweight, easily portable, powerful, durable, and of course, SAFER that any other saw on the market.

Not only is it an excellent performer on the construction site, it’s great for fine woodworking, too.

We’ve carried the SawStop brand at Sears Trostel for many years, and we use the saws in our own shop. We’re happy to report that their use has saved several ST employees from serious injury during that time.

The SawStop Jobsite Saw has many great features. See them in this video...then stop by our Riverside store and check out the Jobsite Saw for yourself!
 

“After I graduated college, strangely, that’s when I wanted to choose a career path. You’re supposed to choose it BEFORE you go to college, right?,” says Tyler Morris in amusement when talking about how he came to be a professional woodworker.

“It all began when I had a summer job working for the Forest Service, and they had a little woodshop in the basement,” he says. Tyler was 22-years-old and working on his degree in Wood Science at Colorado State. The job required him to live at a remote post in the Colorado mountains, and he had plenty of free-time at night and on weekends.

“I began messing around in that basement woodshop and started to enjoy it,” says Tyler. After that, his relationship with wood began to change.

After graduation he decided he wanted to pursue woodworking as a profession. While Tyler didn’t learn anything about woodworking in his wood science classes, he was schooled in the anatomy of wood and identifying different woods. 

Once he made his career decision, Tyler soon began working for a woodworking company. “I really took that job seriously. I worked really hard at it, and I became like the right-hand man rather quickly,” he says. He received most of his training in woodworking on the job, plus learned a lot on his own.

“After a couple of years working there, I decided I could do this on my own,” says Tyler. He eased into business slowly in the summer of 1997, making custom pieces for friends and family, while also doing carpentry work for a local builder.  Tyler’s custom woodworking business began to grow, and he credits Sears Trostel in helping the business make the leap forward. “I wouldn’t be in business if it wasn’t for Sears Trostel,” Tyler says. “Back then I was getting a lot of jobs through Sears Trostel.”  Tyler had established a relationship at ST over the years, and had proven himself a reliable resource for referring ST customers who were wanting custom pieces. Today, you’ll still run into Tyler at the Riverside location, hand-picking his hardwoods and plywoods — but no longer for custom projects.
In 1998, Tyler hired his own right-hand man, Steve Wright, and they’ve grown the business from a custom woodworking business, into a primarily production-work shop. With the advent of e-commerce, in 2002 TylerMorrisWoodworking.com went online, selling their signature corbels, recipe boxes and trays — and started serving the needs of many, rather than a few. Today you’ll also find TMW wares on Etsy.com and Amazon.com.
>> Check-out the Tyler Morris Woodworking Etsy shop

>> Find TMW products on Amazon

Soon after going online, Tyler’s first corporate client came on-board. Rhinebeck Animal Hospital, in Tyler’s hometown of Rhinebeck, NY, placed an order for custom Baltic birch wood urns to hold the ashes of cremated pets. The animal hospital continues to order the urns today, and TMW has shipped 1000s of pieces to NY since 2003.
Now, approximately ten corporate clients keep the Tyler Morris Woodworking shop hopping with regular orders — from things like urns, to scraper sticks, to branded cutting boards engraved with both New Belgium Brewery and TMW logos. 

“They just keep coming back,” says Tyler. And he’s very happy with that.