Me too. It is my tool of last choice in that if I can't find another way of doing something I will reach for the Multimaster. It would probably be my tool of first choice except for the fact that the blades are so damn expensive and the sort of jobs that it is used for means that they blunt quite quickly.
Andrew
title, but now realise looking at it that I must have had a copy many years ago - I remember a good deal of the illustrations. Not sure the copy I had had the electric motor bit at the end though.
Interesting to note that it includes the same basic error (as in many books) attributing the flight ability of an aeroplane to the Bernoulli effect.
Message-ID: from Adam Aglionby contained the following:
Everything about the multimaster is expensive. I'll wait till someone rips off a copy.
or you can find a billable job to charge one to ;-)
Forget it. Fein have bucket loads of patents on different aspect of their technologies and products. Since there is nothing else on the market that does the same, then it would suggest that either Fein defend their patents or that would be contenders believe that they might.
Regarding the cost... The basic tool is not particularly expensive. Arguably the accessories are relatively so if considered out of context.
However, it's important to look at it in the context of time used and saved. Once that is factored in, if there is a worthwhile time saving, there is a cost saving that makes the cost of the accessories irrelevant.
I'll give you an example. Yesterday I was doing a tiling job where it was easiest to support the first row on a batten attached to the wall - actually screwed through to studs for rigidity. The (Ardex) adhesive was really rather good and I had forgotten to remove the battens once the adhesive was nearly cured. As a result, after removing the screws, the battens were stuck to the edges of the tiles. These are 10mm stone, so there is enough contact area to achieve that. The batten wouldn't come away. I wanted to remove it without damaging the substrate or the tile edges or indeed risking lifting the tiles.
I decided that it would be easier if the batten was divided into sections of one tile (300mm), so fitted the HSS segment saw blade. This could be positioned between the not yet grouted tiles and the
50x25mm batten was cut through in each place in about 15 seconds.The fine grout blade was then fitted and the adhesive, where it existed, cut through next to the batten.
Finally, the sections of batten could be gently popped away by levering at the back of the batten. Job done in about 3-4 minutes with no damage.
Set in that context, the products and accessories are very inexpensive.
You are having a laugh surely. Cheapest very basic jobby with no accessories is £120. Going up to £170 if you want a few bits.
Blades at £40!!!!!!!!!!!!! Which according to several reviews I've read don't last 5 mins.
Lets face it, its a detail sander without the pad. Outrageously over priced for what it is.
Give it a few years & Aldi will have a version at £30.
There is ALWAYS another way to do a job.
The carbide and diamond ones last very well. The ones to watch are the HSS or e-cut, which also last well so long as you can avoid trying to cut masonry with them (not always as easy as it sounds when plunging them into unknown stuff). You can usually pick up blades on ebay for less than other places.
(One other thing to bear in mind is the last time a bought a quality norton 115mm hard masonry disc it cost £20 more than the pro Bosch grinder it went on! So £40 or £50 blades are not restricted to just the multimaster).
The simple blades however can be made by chopping up a fine tooth saw and drilling a mounting hole in it.
That's what dribble said as well...
You probably thought that about £100+ jigsaws too. Try one first (or watch some of the videos on the fein site) before judging.
Of course. Sometimes the other ways will cost you more than the multimaster though.
Two recent examples:
Fitting a sink and unit in a neighbours kitchen, got everything into place (including slide in dishwasher on rails which made everything very cramped, and realised that one of the waste connections was 3" too high because there was an extra bit of trap that I had not accounted for. It was surrounded on three sides by copper pipes. No room to get a hacksaw in there, and the bottom of the pipe solvent welded into place. So I stuck a long narrowish blade in the multimaster, cranked it round to about 70 degrees, got the tool into position, switched on and plunged it straight through the offending pipe. I could have done it by taking the dishwasher out, and cutting and resoldering the copper pipes, but that would have added significant time and hassle to the job.
Fitting a shaver socket in a bathroom that is already fully tiled. The cable run had been dropped down from the loft on the other side of the wall in chase, all that remained was to cut a 47mm deep metal box into the wall and hook it up. Marked out the box outline on the centre of a tile, cut a perfect rectangle out of the tile with a carbide saw, then SDSed the wall behind to fit the box. I could have done that with a small diamond disk in a 115mm angle grinder, and spent the next hour vacuuming the dust out of the bathroom.
In the context of what can be achieved and time saved, I don't think that that's expensive at all.
Like all blades, you need to pick the correct one for the job. If people are lazy and try and use an HSS blade for cutting ceramic, of course it won't last 5 minutes. There are a wide range of blades available and only the diamond blades are in this price bracket. I tend to buy blades in Germany or the U.S. where they are a lot less expensive than in the UK.
Rather more than that. There are various forms of pad and various sanding devices
It depends on context. I've been able to replace four or five older B&D type tools which purported to do some of the jobs I can do properly and much more quickly with the Multimaster.
That would be surprising if it happened. The mass market tool manufacturers haven't done this, so grocery stores would be a bit of a stretch.
True. There's also the time taken to figure out what, the time to choose and get out the tool, time to look for the bits for it and time to realise that this tool wasn't the best approach.
Or instructors are still teaching that every day - what is the error John?
Geo
The message from Geo contains these words:
It is certainly a widely held belief that the 2 factors that give lift are the aerofoil section (Bernoulli effect in action) and the angle of attack of the wing. I too would be interested to learn why I have been misinformed all these years although to be honest the explanation that first came to mind was the simplified one in which the pressure reduction above the wing is down to the greater distance the air has to to travel over the top of an aerofoil.
Yup, I would agree with that. You will note however the book omits the sec "According to Bernoulli?s Law, greater speed means a lower pressure. The air pressure under the wing is greater than the air pressure above it. The result is that the wing, and consequently the whole aeroplane, is pushed upwards and so the heavier-than-air machine is held up in the air."
Which if you take this as an explanation of flight, how do you explain the ability of an aircraft to fly upside down?
Again this is a real enough description of the Bernoulli effect, however in the book it is sighted as *the* way in which the wing gets lift, with no mention of the far more significant contribution of the reactive force found by vectoring a huge mass of air downward by virtue of the wing angle.
OK, I've watched & I'm weakening!
I see the use in various areas if its as good as the video. Whats this E Cut blade for?Will it cut chipboard & copper pipe?
I've also noticed the flexible scraper blade apparently suitable for stripping out silicone sealant - a regular job & a PITA sometimes. Anyone used that?
These are universal offset (i.e. flush cutting) blades that will cut wood, plastics, and soft metals:
Yup.
No, not tried that yet.
In fact I noticed that they also call the wood only versions of this blade "E-cut"... so chose with care if hacking off a pipe!
The Supercut is basically a larger version.
Yes, and it's brilliant. You can whizz away sealant very quickly and the tool doesn't scratch or dig into the surroundings.
"The Medway Handyman" wrote in news:f8gbdv$257$ snipped-for-privacy@registered.motzarella.org:
No. you need a hacksaw for that
mike
Provided that you want to wreck plastic fittings.
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