Festool Junkie Blog

Hello Everyone,

Lincoln Hardwood and Tool Company Inc., home of www.FestoolJunkie.com is proud to announce that we have taken on the Walko Workbench System line of tables and accessories. We will have exclusive rights for distribution in the United States. The Walko is an incredibly versatile workbench system and will fit nicely into the Festool System; Faster, Easier, Smarter.

Festool Junkie will begin to update you on information as it comes in. We are anticipating a mid-fall launch date for this product, and the website has been populated with the Walko products and their pricing, so head on over and check it out. As is the case with our Festool products, the pricing does reflect a “landed price”…we are not going to ding you for shipping these awesome benches. There is still some work do be done with descriptions of the products, but I wanted to get this information out to you, and frankly, the Walko is a pretty simple bench to set up and tear down in minutes.

I will be adding a gallery of some of the items as soon as I have my “propeller head” hook me up (apparently, I am experiencing some technical difficulties with the image files), and there will be a lot more to come over the next couple of weeks as soon as we have our demo benches; we will be putting up photos and video as we shoot them for ya.

For now, below is a video of the Euro model that has been around a while. Check it out.

You will be able to Pre-Orders for the benches just as we did the Festool Kapex. If you would like to order now, go ahead and cruise on over to the site. There is a Walko link on the home page that will take you right to the Walko Table section on the website; simply recognize that we will not be shipping until this Fall.

Here at “the Junk” we are still taking on that learning curve as information is coming in fast and furious. Once again, we will have demo tables in our possession in a couple weeks, and begin putting them to the test ourselves back in the shop. Below is an excerpt from the introduction letter to the members over at the talkFestool forum. Mr. Groot has been kind enough to jump in over there if you have technical questions.

Hello, my name is Bart Groot and I am President of WALKO-Tools BV (Europe, The Netherlands)

I will join this forum to answer your questions concerning the WALKO as good as I can.
I am not a native English speaker so please forgive possible mistakes.

First a brief history about the WALKO Workbench:

The WALKO principle is in use for many years already. The system was build out of frustration on the work spot.

The inventor was completely rebuilding a house once again but did not have enough space. Also he was frustrated about al the different “helps” he needed to do his job; beams to saw platters on, a workmate, a kind of work table, an old chair, two stands with a old door on it, and so on. Al these “helps” are fine but they do not do the job like he wanted to: Fast and easy.

Some people around him told him that he should do something with it. Beginning 2003 he signed up for an innovation contest with it and became one of the winners. He started the development of the WALKO together with a technical university and several engineers.

In June 2005 the WALKO Workbench was technically finalised and ready for the “proof of the pudding”. Thoughtful and calm the WALKO was tested on the local market to get reactions from end-users. Reactions were very good and in 2006 we started to gain more and more dealers. Now the WALKO is a big success here.

We experienced three important suggestions from our end-users;
1. It would be nice if there was also a smaller version
2. It would be very nice if it was completely water resistant
3. It would be better if it was lighter in weight

The smaller version, the WALKO-3 was launched early 2007 and is now sold in almost the same quantities as the original WALKO-4.
The water problem is solved by using bamboo table tops, and the whole construction was re-engineered to make it lighter. The WALKO-4 Frame was 24 Kg or 55 LBS, now 19 Kg or 41.8 LBS. These new models will be available in the States soon.

The WALKO Team

Kind regards

This promises to be a very exciting tool for the dudes / dudettes that are constructing on-site. The wave of the future is definitely to take your shop into the field. There is no better combo than, Festool, Walko, and Sawhelper…and guess what, you can find them all on www.FestoolJunkie.com

Here is a few suggestions, and resources that you can view if you absolutely see the pics RIGHT NOW!

Until I get the gallery up, you can always head over to the Junk and check out the Images Tab to view the pictures that I will post here on the blog soon!

Walko Specs PDF Download

Walko-3 Tabletop Hole Pattern PDF

Walko-4 Tabletop Hole Pattern PDF

Thanks for cruisin’ by, and we are very excited to have hooked up with the WalkoDude

Technical Glitches Fixed: