John E wrote:

Hello John. Thanks for this. I've been reading some customer reviews on the
Fein multimaster, and one comment which comes up is that the accessories
(e.g. for sanding and the saw blades) are expensive, rather flimsy and wear
out quickly. One poster suggests that the 'flimsyness' could be due to
applying too much pressure. Do you have a view about this?

The tool itself is anything but flimsy - the thing that strikes you the
moment you pick it up is just how solid it feels. The blades however
vary in robustness and really need to be treated separately:

Take sanding for example, since sanding pads seem to last rather better
here than when used on an ordinary detail sander. Things like the
carbide rasp are also very long lasting.

Of all the accessories, the ordinary cutting blades are perhaps the most
vulnerable. They are fairly fine toothed and hence you need to be
careful not pushing them too hard since they need time to clear swarf.
You will also need to watch for nails, or going right through the frame
and hitting masonry since this could take the edge off a blade. In the
case of a segment blade, all is not lost however since you can just use
another part of the blade. The danger (to the blade) comes when making
more substantial cuts where there is a temptation to try to cut faster.
For example it is a very good tool for lifting T&G floorboards with
minimal damage - you can cut through the tounges, and make very fine
cuts across the top of a joist, but you need to take it easy (I did
manage to shatter a lump off a HSS segment blade doing this once -
fortunately there was enough blade left to finish the job)

The carbide or diamond edged blades seem to last well and are much more
forgiving.

I ask, because this looks like the most suitable all-round tool for me -
taking account of the need to buy something which will be useful for a lot
of other projects too.

It is a very versatile tool for getting you out of situations that would
be very hard by other means. Recent examples include chopping of a
section of 40mm solvent weld waste pipe where the cabinet and other
pipes resulted in only one side of the pipe being visible, and there
being no easy way to get any other type of saw in there. A quick plunge
cut with a general purpose blade[1] solved that. Another similar cut was
used to trim of the bottom of some metal conduit buried in a wall - just
exposed enough of the conduit at the cut location and plunged a hacksaw
blade into it.

[1] This was a blunt blade with a good many of its teeth missing - the
result of an accidental plunge too far through a wood frame into a lump
of concrete that ought not have been there. However even knacked blades
will continue to cut, although they get a bit hotter in wood.

--
Cheers,

John.

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