On Wed, 26 Feb 2014 11:03:01 -0800, "Tom Dacon"
wrote:

Not a Festool hater, by any means (track saw, router, and Domino) but
I'm not "getting" the drill or jigsaw. My wife even commented that
the ROS looks nice. ;-)

I admit that I don't use a jigsaw very much and I'm quite happy with
my Bosch the few times I need it. Why do you think the drill and
jigsaw are better than the myriad of others? I've asked others this
before but I just wanted your take. Thanks.


I forgot to mention the track saw, in which I'm also partners with my
fingerless friend. Best purchase we've ever made. We can slide sheet goods
right from the truck onto a work table and break them down, right to the
finished line, without having to fire up the table saw for big cuts. Saves a
huge amount of time and turns what's often a two-person job into a solo
operation. Hell of a tool.

The CXS drill is mostly because of my bad shoulders. Forty years of wooden
boat repair and restoration have pretty much wrecked them, so I now have a
heck of a time holding tools up over my head. The CXS drill is Festool's
smallest at 10.8 V, but it's lightweight, has more power than I expected,
and has proven to be pretty good for what I do with it nowadays. I keep the
spare battery on the charger and swap them whenever I need to, but I don't
run a portable drill as hard as I used to and so it doesn't turn out to be a
problem. An inconvenience is that it only goes up to 5/16 diameter bits. So
I'm thinking of adding a C15 to the shop for heavier work and larger drill
bits, in spite of the additional weight (and cost!).

I have the Bosch 12V (10.8V) and 18V drills and drivers. The smaller
ones are the most used. I'm not seeing the difference. "It makes
holes!" ;-)

I got the jigsaw to replace an ancient Makita that's started to rattle so
loud that my wife says she can hear it from the house. As advertised, it
claims that its splinter-guard inserts will handle the issue with breakout
on top of the piece, and that was the main reason I got it instead of the
very-highly-regarded Bosch. But in practice that aspect hasn't worked out
very well, and in addition the plastic shroud that's part of the dust
collection system somewhat obscures my view of the cutting line, so the
premium cost of the Festool name was pretty much wasted in this case. I've
gone back to using it like I was doing with the Makita, which is to use
hollow-ground down-cut blades. With that scheme I can follow a mark within a
few hundredths of an inch if I keep my wits about me. If you can believe it,
Starrett now even makes a combination up-cut and down-cut blade that leaves
a clean edge on both the top and bottom of the piece.

Interesting. I'll have to look into the Starrett blades, though I
haven't had a lot of tear-out with the Bosch (I threw away a few
older-crappy saws).

I guess what I'm not "getting" is the router. I've got a Porter-Cable 890
that lives permanently in the router table, a couple Porter-Cable 690s that
I use handheld, and recently a new Dewalt 611 which is a nice little 1 1/4
hp machine, a sort of big brother to a trim router. It has a good depth
adjustment mechanism, but has the drawback that it accepts only 1/4" bits.
All these machines are working out OK for me, so I'm not feeling like I need
to up my game in that area.

I had a PC7518 motor in a table, a PC691, and a Bosch Colt trim
router. I wanted something bigger for hand-held but wanted it
controllable. The OF1400 has very nice depth adjustments and the
plunge control really smooth. I guess I just liked it better than
anything else I found. I wouldn't buy a router (other than a trim
router) that didn't take 1/2" bits (so didn't bother looking further
at that OF1100).