Joe writes:
Those of you who said you needed a variable speed multi tool now won't
have to go to the big $$ brands for what you need. The variable speed
HF tool is on sale for $59.99, #67537. The speed range is listed at
10K to 20K RPM (or wiggles per minute, WPM?) but I have no idea
whether sub 10K is useful or not or even available in other tools. At
20% of the price of Fein this is an even better way to try out the
system. BTW, my $39.95 model is still doing nicely. Plan to do some
home made blade mods next week after unexpected nail encounters.


Have they improved the blade mounting system?
Blades coming loose seemed to be the only common complaint of the
non-variable HF multifunction tool....

$59.95 does sound like a good deal relative to the Fein.
I don't see how Fein can get away with selling their multitools at
prices in the $400-800+ range. In fact, I just saw on Amazon that the
Fein FSC 2.0 (which includes maybe a dozen blades) has a list price of
$1,022 and a retail price of $817.

Can it really be worth 10-20x the price of the Harbor Freight tool?
We are not talking about a 500 pound cabinet saw or other large
precision power tool. It really is just a vibrating motor on a
stick.

Can even a pro carpenter justify spending that much for what is still
essentially a non-precision rough-carpentry tool? At that price, it
would be one of the most expensive tools on any jobsite for something
that is not used nearly as much as other staples like a skill saw,
drill/driver, contractor saw etc. Plus at that size and price, who would
want to take the risk of it "walking off the job site" or otherwise
getting lost?

I just don't see how that type of price differential can be justified
except in perhaps a couple of niche situations where money is no object.