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Ever wanted to feel like the Six Million Dollar Man while on the job? Now, you can.
Ever wanted to feel like the Six Million Dollar Man while on the job? Now, you can.
Woodworking can be tiring, especially for contractors and installers when work must be done overhead. The weight of the tool, and just generally holding your arms over your head, can stress muscles and joints.
Science fiction solved this years ago, inventing imaginary exoskeleton suits with a supporting frame and tiny, but powerful, motors that increase the users’ strength and agility to win the day. Just ask Sigourney Weaver and Matt Damon.
The real world caught up – most notably in the military – but those suits typically cost tens of thousands of dollars. But now, while the prices are still high (around $3,495), these sci-fi wonders are finally becoming available to the general public in the form of Festool’s new ExoActive exoskeleton.
Slip it on like a backpack, adjust and buckle in, pop in a standard Festool 18-volt battery and you can work overhead for hours. The suit has arm supports with sensors in the joints that read arm movement, letting you put your arms down any time you like, but helping out with overhead movement when your arms are up.
There’s a controller on one shoulder strap (or you can use a phone app) to set the exoskeleton to levels of weight support. You can also set the working area for just overhead, say, or maybe chest height, or the full range from waist up.
Festool says the suit reduces the weight load for shoulder muscles as much as 30 percent. For actual numbers, the suit offers 50 Newtons of support for each arm – in English, that’s about 11 lbs. In other words, using a 4 or 5-lb. hammer drill overhead, the tool will be essentially weightless. And easier tasks with less weight but a lot of repetitive up-and-down motion, such as painting or drywalling a ceiling, your arms won’t start aching after a half hour.
Of course, the lifting assist only helps your back, shoulders and arms, but not your hands – you still have to grip the tool. So, even if your arms can go all day your hands may not; at least, not until someone comes up with powered exo-gloves. Sigourney Weaver will probably be the first to know.
A.J. Hamler is the former editor of Woodshop News and Woodcraft Magazine. He's currently a freelance woodworking writer/editor, which is another way of stating self-employed. When he's not writing or in the shop, he enjoys science fiction, gourmet cooking and Civil War reenacting, but not at the same time.
