jigsaw advice

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After my second dewalt jigsaw has gone faulty it is going back tommorow and i am going to try and get a different model could anyone please advise me on a good quality jigsaw out of the bosch and makita.
 
I have an 18v Dewalt which is very handy but also have a Makita 4340 110v. I would recommend it it is well balanced and the blade changing is very quick. Axminster have it on offer at £109.95 at the minute but I am sure you can get it cheaper. Dave
 
Hi Derek,

I have the Makita, 240v version, bought from Axminster about 5 weeks ago for £99.95. Blade change is certainly easy and it has maximum cutting thickness, claimed, of 135mm - that might work in balsa wood.

It has had just a little use so far but seems fine. The 'soft start' is definitely a plus over those I have used before.

No experience of Bosch.

Cheers,

Trev.
 
Why bother with a jigsaw? Unless its mobility you are after.

Purchase a bandsaw Prices start at around the same price as jigsaws?

A top end jigsaw costs more than the average bandsaw!
 
I have thge Makita mdel befor the current one (hence I got it cheap about £60 IIRC) and I can't fault it one bit, hos coped fine with everything I've thrown at it

Les

Edit: I just remembered though that one of the mags did a review of pro jigsaws in the last yuear and the bosch came out on top - so I gues you pays your money and you takes yer chances!
 
Devonwoody":1s5x6uvn said:
Why bother with a jigsaw? Unless its mobility you are after.

or the cut is too far from the edge to fit the bandsaw throat, or the piece is too big to lift to the bandsaw, or its a cutout in the middle of a piece etc etc.

I have the Bosch 135. Gets a lot of use and is great to use. Thoroughly pleased with it.

Cheers

Tim
 
I have the Bosch GST100BCE, soft start, great depth of cut and with decent blades, nice square clean cuts, no matter what depth. Also very good in metal, perspex etc.

Noel
 
Tim, et al here: one problem that has always bugged me with the cheapo hobby jigsaws that I've used (on the relatively infrequent occasions when I need one), is that they appear to be devils for cutting with flex in the vertical plane on any stock more than about 1/4" thick.

By this I mean that the blade seems to flex randomly, so that although I'm tracking a particular cut line or offset at the top, visible face of the board, the blade is exiting at the bottom of the sheet anything up to about 1/4" to one side or the other...

Is this just my technique coupled with cheapo blades and saws, or something that happens with even the best jigsaws? My solution has been to cut well clear of any line, and then sneak up on it with other tools - but this makes life very long winded - so in fact my real solution has been to leave it collecting dust on a back shelf.

In a departure from my normal hand tool/'fine furniture' regime, I'm about to do some fairly extensive cabinet fitting in our house - which will be lots of man made sheet goods, and probably a festool/woodrat bonanza - and clearly a jigsaw will have its 'on site' trimming uses - if I can trust the @*&** thing to cut to a line with some degree of predictability...
 
Shady.

Your comments re drift I think is applicable with most jigsaws and has commented by reviewers in woodwork magazines. So bring out the bandsaw (and fretsaw for internal cuts)
£300 buys a fairly good bandsaw (s/h even larger)
 
Shady.

This is exactly why I bought the 135. The depth was a bonus but the real winner was the the metal blade guide clamp which holds the blade vertical just above the cut. There are several threads on best blades - I tend to use only Bosch ones and if the piece is thick I turn the pendulum action off..

Seems to do the trick. I have to say though that even though I do make a fair amount of fitted furniture, I don't use the jigsaw much except for cutting scribed edges for closing panels etc. To prevent any blade wander or imperfection in the wall away from the scribed line affecting final fit I bevel the back of the panel to keep the edge being scribed to about 5 mm.

Hope this helps.

DW - just out of interest, how do you use a fret saw to cut out a hole in the middle of a 4 ft by 4ft panel?

Cheers

Tim
 
Devon - you on a commission from some bandsaw manufacturer?? :wink:

I agree that it gives a totally predictable cut, but I'm not lugging my floor standing, cast iron tabled, baby up into the boys' bedrooms to trim a frame to fit a corner or wall.. :lol: Similarly, I'm not lugging the assembled wall unit down, demolishing the study wall to get it out the house, and then reversing the process. Soo, all other things being equal, I have a sudden need for something that does what a jigsaw appears to offer - if it can be trusted - I'm just curious: all the site carpentry/trim books show assorted pros cheerfully using jigsaws to do this, so it's either something I'm doing wrong, or they hide appalling chamfers/wavey edges with great skill...
 
Tim, thanks for that: I can see that blade support as close as possible would help, and your point about thinning the 'fin' where it's going to be scribed/cut makes sense. As usual, comes down to paying for quality, I guess...

It's a relatively new house (ie, the walls are not all exactly square, but they're not insanely rippled/warped): I may get away with a power planer, spokeshave and block plane - so long as I don't have too many tight internal curves...
 
Tim

With great difficulty :lol:

I would have to get out my old B&D jigsaw. Or look for something else to build. :roll:

Don't like jigsaws (they wander)
 
I have the Axminster WHite. It came with a "free" mains drill, and I use the drill more than the the saw. It's OK for rough conversion, but it's useless for anything requiring finesse.

Regarding bevel drift, I find that it is exacerbated if I am careless about the angle of the body of the saw, with respect to the direction of travel. Expecially on curves, if I have the saw a bit twisted, so it is cutting crabwise, the bevel drift is much worse than when I keep the body straight in line with the cut.

So why did I buy this tool? Well I can't actually remember, but I guess I needed portability for one job, as I use my (huge but immovable) bandsaw for most stuff.

Blade-changing is a pain too.
S
 
Hi Derek,

I have had one DeWalt jigsaw. It was a piece of junk, really. A couple years ago I purchased a Bosch 1590EVS (which appears to be the GST135BCE in Europe).

This saw changed my mind about jigsaws. In really thick material (2" exotics) it did lack a perfectly vertical cut. I purchased some Festool blades for it (Trion blades) and that eliminated most of the problem.

In 1" material and less the cut is fine.

I have had opportunity to use a Festool PSB300EQ Plus on two jobs, same material and blades and the cut was nearly perfect--and better dust collection as well.
 
cheers for the advice guys i have went out and got the makita 4340ct havn't tried it yet but i will keep you posted on how it compares to the dewalt.
 
I have the Festool PSB300EQ

Fantastic tool but again you pay for what you get. As i use mine loads i went for it and got this one and never looked back.

It is how much you are going to use it really, if i did not use mine as much as i do i would go for a cheaper jigsaw.

Jase
Coggy
 
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