Phil Addison wrote:

The next draft I may do on the web anyway so as to play with some of
these dears


OK. (dears/ideas??)

Yup got a bit click happy in the spell checker there.... (did I
accidentally click on dears there? Oh well CBA to go back and look!)

I was thinking of the way that Bosch for example have DIY tools that are
green (and of variable quality), and a pro range which is blue and on
the whole pretty good, etc. Wicks do grey bodied stuff which tends to be
decent brands badged for them, while the other colours (black mostly)
can be any old tat.


It's just that you put the colour in brackets. I (the reader) am not
sure if they just happen to be that colour, or if Bosch etc really call
them their Green Pro Range, or whatever. I don't want to march up to a
trade counter boldly saying "I want an xyz from their green pro range"
only to be told they are yellow this year. Its a trivial point - forget
it.

I would guess if you went into a tool shop and asked for a blue Bosch
they would know what you were on about, if you asked the same question
in Homebase however they may look at you funny (since it should be
obvious that they are all green!) ;-)

Bosch themselves do distinguish quite clearly between the ranges, for an
example see:

http://ukptocs.bosch-pt.com/boptocs-...p?ccat_id=9580
http://www.bosch-pt.com/uk/en/start/...s/Overview.htm

I did hint at that (i.e. cut smooth and fast and in straight line... I
was kind of leaving the factoring the imprecations of that new found
ability to the reader)


I was looking for 'how the better performance is achieved', so that if
you say it is by e.g. having a sturdy sole plate, I can make a point of
checking the sturdiness of one I am buying. This is so I can pick up a
tool in a shop and check if it seems to have the pro features without
actually having to use it to see if it can cut straight and true. Mind
you, a dealer that would lend you one to try out as well would be nice -
some hopes!

That is the killer test really. With the jigsaw you can perhaps see the
sole plate and if it has a non scratching clip over cover etc. But all
the other factors only become apparent when you use it.

This doesn't seem to offer an extra "range of things you might do", just
more accuracy.

Oh, thought of a good one... making patterns that you will use to guide
a router.

Another example:

I wanted a radiator shelf in my dining room that would match the general
shaping of the table etc. This oval ish, but with the occasional little
flourish or pointy bit. I had a nice bit of hardwood ready, and
carefully marked out all the curves such that it would have a bow front,
plus some corner details. At the time the only jigsaw I has was a 30
quid B&D "nothing special" one. It was just about possible to cut out
the shape I had marked, but the finish left much to be desired. since I
was going to be using the edge I had just cut with a bearing guided
cutter on a router it was important to get the quality of the finish as
high as possible since every tiny mark or undulation in the cut surface
would be picked up by the router and copied into the final profile.
Hence many hours of careful sanding were needed to get a surface good
enough to use. Had I have had my Makita jigsaw then it would have been a
very much more straight froward job: cut, quick sand, route.

This may be getting too detailed, but are there specific examples of
what tasks can be done ok with a cheap one and a good one. I have a
cheapo jigsaw and its OK for hacking out cutouts for pipes under my
sink. Using it to cut some chipboard flooring to fit round a projection
produced some wavy cuts though - not that it mattered much, the skirting
covered it.

Wavy cuts are a good example - it is hard to do a long cut that is not
with that type of tool. Part of this is that the lack of blade guide
accuracy means it wanders off line and you need to keep dialling in
adjustments to get back on track. With the better tool, it is that much
better at going where you want it to in the first place. I guess it is a
case with a jigsaw that even small errors in accuracy get multiplied
quite fast by the nature of the thing.

Not possessing a pro jigsaw, just how is a tool-less blade fixed in?

You see the little lugs at the top of the blade:

http://www.axminster.co.uk//images/p...s/T101D_xl.jpg

The jaw mechanism grabs onto those and pulls them into the blade holder.
The jaws are opened by giving a quarter turn to the blade guard, you pop
the blade in the hole, and then release the guard which locks the blade
in under spring tension.


--
Cheers,

John.

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