On 04/09/2014 08:07, James Harris wrote:
"John Rumm" wrote in message
o.uk...
On 03/09/2014 10:03, mike wrote:
On Tuesday, September 2, 2014 11:45:56 AM UTC+1, James Harris wrote:
"robgraham" wrote in message

I have a Ferm one that was bought on offer at Screwfix several years
ago and, for the limited use it gets, it's been fine.

I sent my first one back as it was impossible to get the blade parallel to
the fence. The second one I can get it parallel, but you need to lock down
one side while holding the fence in position, and then lock the other - so
its not as quick or repeatable as it should be.

I've seen similar comments. Buying a biscuit jointer seems a bit of a
nightmare. The good ones are way too expensive for the use I would get from
it. The affordable ones just don't seem to be manufactured very well, either
having uncorrectable faults or needing a lot of careful manual adjustment.

Such is the problem with budget power tools in general. However for
many (sanders, drills etc), some slight sloppiness in manufacture /
quality control etc does not render the end result unusable - just less
pleasant to use than a "better" one.

However when tools need precision to work properly (e.g. biscuit
jointers, routers etc[1]) there comes a point where there is only
limited value in the cheap ones.

[1] I would also include jigsaws in there, but most people have such low
expectations of what a jigsaw should be able to do, they don't
appreciate just how crap most of the budget ones are!


You can tell that Tesco have little idea about what makes a good tool when,
in order to describe it the web site says:

"This 900W biscuit jointer from Silverline is a blue and black biscuit
jointer...."

Ah, a blue and black one....

Oh, now they are getting technical ;-)


--
Cheers,

John.

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