Hammer- Steel head (easy repair), with 2x cobalt plates (mining speed), and thaumic handle
either luck or silky modifiers- with the rest being redstone.
Pick- Cobalt head, paper binding, thaumic rod.
luck/silky, and a tonne of redstone. (mining speed 18)
Lumber Axe- Steel head, cobalt plate. Green slime handle.
didn't bother with modifiers. Would suggest a lava crystal for insta-charcoal.
Cleaver- Manyullym blade thaumic plate & 2 thaumic rods
Beheading, luck- quartz for the rest
Cutlass- Manyullym blade, paper guard and thaumic rod
Luck, beheading and quartz
Also excavators/hammers behave slightly different underwater- facing the side of the water block in your head, not the solid block you target.
I think a cobalt head would be faster than a paper head plus the extra redstone that paper gives you. Isn't there a limit to how many modifiers can go on speed anyway? And that paper pickaxe is going to break really quickly.
Cobalt head gives a lot more than the 50 redstone given by the extra modifier. There isnt a limit on speed, other than 50 redstone/modifier. (so 200 redstone costs 4 modifiers)
Why not use electric on everything?
Personal taste- Electric doesn't 'fit' that well with the rest of the mods design; think about it- you have a medieval/magical system of forging and upgrading tools. Its pretty awesome in its own right. Then you slap on a circuit and battery- suddenly its a powertool. (facepalm) -Theres also a couple of exploits with spiny/stonebound effects.
Each to their own I guess.