I have a few jobs that I think the PMF180 and its ilk might be ideal
for. The main immediate one is to allow me to lift some sections of
floorboard in awkward locations and with minimal damage. In
particular I am hoping that the plunge blade would allow a neat cut
across the width of the floorboard as well as dealing with the
tongues.

I can get the Bosch relatively cheaply at the moment - about £60 with
free delivery from Amazon - but I wonder how it compares to the
alternatives. I'm not interested in the battery models, so the
alternative ones I have come across that I would consider are the blue
Bosch one, which I have seen for about £100, and the Fein obviously.
Now the latter can be had for about £120 for a basic kit, and quite a
bit more for variations with extra blades and attachments. Also I
have seen the PMF180 with a bigger than standard attachment kit for
about £120.

What to do? I guess the main question to ask is how the basic tools
compare - the DIY Bosch vs the blue Bosch vs the Fein. I haven't seen
any reviews of the blue Bosch. Then: is is worth paying more to get
extra attachments at the outset given that they seem to be quite
expensive to buy later on? I've seen cheaper clone blades available
on ebay - are they up to scratch?

Thanks for any recommendations or experiences.

Bob wrote:
I have a few jobs that I think the PMF180 and its ilk might be ideal
for. The main immediate one is to allow me to lift some sections of
floorboard in awkward locations and with minimal damage. In
particular I am hoping that the plunge blade would allow a neat cut
across the width of the floorboard as well as dealing with the
tongues.

It does.

I can't really answer the latter part of this, but it's worked well for me to
do just that.

It is not fast.
It's moderately noisy.
The blades last reasonably well.

Bob wrote:
I have a few jobs that I think the PMF180 and its ilk might be ideal
for. The main immediate one is to allow me to lift some sections of
floorboard in awkward locations and with minimal damage. In
particular I am hoping that the plunge blade would allow a neat cut
across the width of the floorboard as well as dealing with the
tongues.

I can get the Bosch relatively cheaply at the moment - about £60 with
free delivery from Amazon - but I wonder how it compares to the
alternatives. I'm not interested in the battery models, so the
alternative ones I have come across that I would consider are the blue
Bosch one, which I have seen for about £100, and the Fein obviously.
Now the latter can be had for about £120 for a basic kit, and quite a
bit more for variations with extra blades and attachments. Also I
have seen the PMF180 with a bigger than standard attachment kit for
about £120.

What to do? I guess the main question to ask is how the basic tools
compare - the DIY Bosch vs the blue Bosch vs the Fein. I haven't seen
any reviews of the blue Bosch. Then: is is worth paying more to get
extra attachments at the outset given that they seem to be quite
expensive to buy later on? I've seen cheaper clone blades available
on ebay - are they up to scratch?

Thanks for any recommendations or experiences.

They all seem to work. The Fien is apparently the dogs, but at that price
it should be. The Bosch PMF 180 works very well and is more affordable for
DIY use.

They all IMO suffer from the blades being mega bucks & not lasting long.

A very handy tool, but I only use mine (PMF) as an absolute last resort
because of the blade cost.

The PMF would do the job you describe very well.


--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk

The Medway Handyman wrote:
Bob wrote:
I have a few jobs that I think the PMF180 and its ilk might be ideal
for. The main immediate one is to allow me to lift some sections of
floorboard in awkward locations and with minimal damage. In
particular I am hoping that the plunge blade would allow a neat cut
across the width of the floorboard as well as dealing with the
tongues.

I can get the Bosch relatively cheaply at the moment - about £60 with
free delivery from Amazon - but I wonder how it compares to the
alternatives. I'm not interested in the battery models, so the
alternative ones I have come across that I would consider are the blue
Bosch one, which I have seen for about £100, and the Fein obviously.
Now the latter can be had for about £120 for a basic kit, and quite a
bit more for variations with extra blades and attachments. Also I
have seen the PMF180 with a bigger than standard attachment kit for
about £120.

What to do? I guess the main question to ask is how the basic tools
compare - the DIY Bosch vs the blue Bosch vs the Fein. I haven't seen
any reviews of the blue Bosch. Then: is is worth paying more to get
extra attachments at the outset given that they seem to be quite
expensive to buy later on? I've seen cheaper clone blades available
on ebay - are they up to scratch?

Thanks for any recommendations or experiences.

They all seem to work. The Fien is apparently the dogs, but at that price
it should be. The Bosch PMF 180 works very well and is more affordable for
DIY use.

They all IMO suffer from the blades being mega bucks & not lasting long.

You can find a Faithfull set of 9 (or is it 13) blades for around £20
which is a lot less expensive than manufacturer's ones. I have a set
on order, we'll see how they last. (They fit all the tools apparently)

A very handy tool, but I only use mine (PMF) as an absolute last resort
because of the blade cost.

The PMF would do the job you describe very well.


--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk



--
Chris Green

wrote:
The Medway Handyman wrote:
Bob wrote:
I have a few jobs that I think the PMF180 and its ilk might be ideal
for. The main immediate one is to allow me to lift some sections of
floorboard in awkward locations and with minimal damage. In
particular I am hoping that the plunge blade would allow a neat cut
across the width of the floorboard as well as dealing with the
tongues.

I can get the Bosch relatively cheaply at the moment - about £60
with free delivery from Amazon - but I wonder how it compares to the
alternatives. I'm not interested in the battery models, so the
alternative ones I have come across that I would consider are the
blue Bosch one, which I have seen for about £100, and the Fein
obviously. Now the latter can be had for about £120 for a basic
kit, and quite a bit more for variations with extra blades and
attachments. Also I have seen the PMF180 with a bigger than
standard attachment kit for about £120.

What to do? I guess the main question to ask is how the basic tools
compare - the DIY Bosch vs the blue Bosch vs the Fein. I haven't
seen any reviews of the blue Bosch. Then: is is worth paying more
to get extra attachments at the outset given that they seem to be
quite expensive to buy later on? I've seen cheaper clone blades
available on ebay - are they up to scratch?

Thanks for any recommendations or experiences.

They all seem to work. The Fien is apparently the dogs, but at that
price it should be. The Bosch PMF 180 works very well and is more
affordable for DIY use.

They all IMO suffer from the blades being mega bucks & not lasting
long.

You can find a Faithfull set of 9 (or is it 13) blades for around £20
which is a lot less expensive than manufacturer's ones. I have a set
on order, we'll see how they last. (They fit all the tools
apparently)

More like £30+ where I've looked - Amazon & EBAY. Apart from which I don't
want a 'set'. I never use the carbide tile blades for example.


--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk

wrote:
The Medway Handyman wrote:

They all seem to work. The Fien is apparently the dogs, but at that price
it should be. The Bosch PMF 180 works very well and is more affordable for
DIY use.

They all IMO suffer from the blades being mega bucks & not lasting long.

You can find a Faithfull set of 9 (or is it 13) blades for around £20
which is a lot less expensive than manufacturer's ones. I have a set
on order, we'll see how they last. (They fit all the tools apparently)

The blades arrived today, they certainly *look* OK and come in a very
neat little aluminium case. It's 9 blades for £23 including delivery.
The set comprises: scraper, 4 plunge cut blades of different widths, a
standard 270 degree blade, a thick blade that I don't quite know what
it's for, a triangular TC grinding plate and a 270 degree TC cutter.


--
Chris Green

The Medway Handyman wrote:
wrote:

You can find a Faithfull set of 9 (or is it 13) blades for around £20
which is a lot less expensive than manufacturer's ones. I have a set
on order, we'll see how they last. (They fit all the tools
apparently)

More like £30+ where I've looked - Amazon & EBAY. Apart from which I don't
want a 'set'. I never use the carbide tile blades for example.

£23.32 including delivery from Bexpress.

I agree to some extent about sets but I'm not at all sure what I'll
find useful and at that price it's a good place to start. You can buy
the Faithfull blades individually for £2.50 upwards.

--
Chris Green

wrote:
wrote:
The Medway Handyman wrote:

They all seem to work. The Fien is apparently the dogs, but at
that price it should be. The Bosch PMF 180 works very well and is
more affordable for DIY use.

They all IMO suffer from the blades being mega bucks & not lasting
long.

You can find a Faithfull set of 9 (or is it 13) blades for around £20
which is a lot less expensive than manufacturer's ones. I have a set
on order, we'll see how they last. (They fit all the tools
apparently)

The blades arrived today, they certainly *look* OK and come in a very
neat little aluminium case. It's 9 blades for £23 including delivery.
The set comprises: scraper, 4 plunge cut blades of different widths, a
standard 270 degree blade, a thick blade that I don't quite know what
it's for, a triangular TC grinding plate and a 270 degree TC cutter.

Not heard of Bexpress, useful looking site. Can't find that set. Do you
have a part number by any chance?


--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk

Thanks to everyone who replied.

It has convinced me to go for the basic PMF180 package as it seems to
be up to the sort of job I need it for, no one has said anything about
it that has put me off, and it seems is possible to get relatively
inexpensive blades for it by shopping around.

On Dec 2, 9:45*pm, Bob wrote:
Thanks to everyone who replied.

It has convinced me to go for the basic PMF180 package as it seems to
be up to the sort of job I need it for, no one has said anything about
it that has put me off, and it seems is possible to get relatively
inexpensive blades for it by shopping around.

The one thing I've found with my PMF180 is that for some reason the
straight plunge blade seems impossible to secure properly and shakes
loose after a little while (15 - 30 secs sustained use). Not a
difficult thing to fix (tighten the screw) and perhaps it's just me/my
example, as nobody else seems to have mentioned it! Of course, if
anyone has a solution to that, I'd be glad to know it.
Apart from that minor irritation, I wouldn't want to be without mine
now: I don't use it very often but when I do, it's to solve something
that I can't think of any other way to tackle.

The Medway Handyman wrote:
wrote:
wrote:
The Medway Handyman wrote:

They all seem to work. The Fien is apparently the dogs, but at
that price it should be. The Bosch PMF 180 works very well and is
more affordable for DIY use.

They all IMO suffer from the blades being mega bucks & not lasting
long.

You can find a Faithfull set of 9 (or is it 13) blades for around £20
which is a lot less expensive than manufacturer's ones. I have a set
on order, we'll see how they last. (They fit all the tools
apparently)

The blades arrived today, they certainly *look* OK and come in a very
neat little aluminium case. It's 9 blades for £23 including delivery.
The set comprises: scraper, 4 plunge cut blades of different widths, a
standard 270 degree blade, a thick blade that I don't quite know what
it's for, a triangular TC grinding plate and a 270 degree TC cutter.

Not heard of Bexpress, useful looking site. Can't find that set. Do you
have a part number by any chance?

Here's a link:-
http://www.bexpress.co.uk/pageview.p...de =FAIMFTSET

I found it simply by using Froogle (that's Google 'shopping') and
searching for "faithfull multi function tool blade set", then sorting
by price low to high. That's my standard approach for finding low
prices, not always perfect but usually pretty good.

--
Chris Green

On 3 Dec,
wrote:

The Medway Handyman wrote:

Not heard of Bexpress, useful looking site. Can't find that set. Do you
have a part number by any chance?

Here's a link:-

http://www.bexpress.co.uk/pageview.p...de =FAIMFTSET

I found it simply by using Froogle (that's Google 'shopping') and searching
for "faithfull multi function tool blade set", then sorting by price low to
high. That's my standard approach for finding low prices, not always
perfect but usually pretty good.

They seem to be only 4 hole fitting, unsuitable for PMF180. Other
(individual) items seem multi fitting. Is that correct?


--
B Thumbs
Change lycos to yahoo to reply

wrote:


I found it simply by using Froogle (that's Google 'shopping') and
searching for "faithfull multi function tool blade set", then sorting
by price low to high. That's my standard approach for finding low
prices, not always perfect but usually pretty good.

Didn't know that existed - thanks. Very handy.



--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk

wrote:
On 3 Dec,
wrote:

The Medway Handyman wrote:

Not heard of Bexpress, useful looking site. Can't find that set. Do you
have a part number by any chance?

Here's a link:-

http://www.bexpress.co.uk/pageview.p...de =FAIMFTSET

I found it simply by using Froogle (that's Google 'shopping') and searching
for "faithfull multi function tool blade set", then sorting by price low to
high. That's my standard approach for finding low prices, not always
perfect but usually pretty good.

They seem to be only 4 hole fitting, unsuitable for PMF180. Other
(individual) items seem multi fitting. Is that correct?

No, they fit the PMF180 fine, they have four holes *and* a radial
slot, so they fit Bosch, Einhell, Fein and others.

--
Chris Green

"The Medway Handyman" wrote in message
...

They all seem to work. The Fien is apparently the dogs, but at that price
it should be. The Bosch PMF 180 works very well and is more affordable
for DIY use.

They all IMO suffer from the blades being mega bucks & not lasting long.

A very handy tool, but I only use mine (PMF) as an absolute last resort
because of the blade cost.

The PMF would do the job you describe very well.




Cool. I am sending this to myself at work to check out the web.

Thanks for the info .