Tom wrote:

I just bought a Bosch PFZ 500 E reciprocating saw for cutting small
blocks of wood to go in my woodburner. It's ok, not as fast as a
circular saw but rather less noisy which is good as I will be using it
often and it will annoy the neighbours less.

For faster cutting you need an orbital or pendulum action, which looking
at the description I suspect that may not have. Using coarse "green
wood" blades (if available) however would also help.

The manual suggests only using replacement blades with an 'M' shank.
Are these 'M SHanks blades' some kind of generic fit for other
electric saws. I hope so because the replacement Bosch parts are much
more expensive than jig-saw blades; I thought they would be similarly
priced.

Here I think you may have a problem - it looks like Bosch have set out
to produce a clone of the astoundingly useless (but oddly quite well
selling) B&D scorpion saw! One of its many failing being its proprietary
non standard blades which greatly limit choice.

One of the big attraction of "standard" reciprocating saws is the range
of cheap blades available. Looking at the photos the blades pictured for
your Bosch they don't look exactly like normal blades (the shank has an
extra bit on it). However it would be worth buying a pack of cheap
ordinary blades to see if it will take them.

Toolstatation sell the silverline green wood ones, which are fine for
hacking firewood:

http://www.toolstation.com/search.html?searchstr=49641

On the plus side, Bosch do usually make good blades, so there are plenty
worse brands you could be stuck with.



--
Cheers,

John.

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