Originally Posted by
bike_galpal
you think this is one of the first high quality tools one should get?? that doesn't make sense to me.
Old front derailleurs had cages made with two parallel flat plates. You could vastly improve the shifting of them by custom tweaking the shape. Typically a little dog leg in the front lower 1cm of the outer plate was a good starting point. The modern derailleur has preshaped plates based on the old school mechanics' tricks.
So no, it isn't one of the first tools you should get... Just a nice to have thing if you enjoy working on archaic front derailleurs...