Mac Disaster

A few months ago I was looking for a 165mm mains circular saw & ended up with a Macalister from B&Q for £45. Spec looked good for the money.

Less than 3 months old, relatively little use & it started playing up.

Cross cutting a 2 x 4 & it started to fight back badly, could only just hang on to it.

Appears that the bearing on the shaft had gone, causing the blade to wobble like a dado head.

It went back for a full refund this morning. I've ordered a Makita 5604R.

I should know better by now. Last time I buy any kind of B&Q power tool.

Reply to
The Medway Handyman
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It's interesting to see over the months how you've come round to buying pro tools. I think your road to Damascus was when you finally tried an impact driver.

Reply to
dom

I'm amused by your comment ( no reflection on TMH). Provided that you control an impact driver properly, it is useful. Do not be prissy with it. Ensure that you put significant pressure on it before striking it.

Reply to
clot

Yes, agreed. It was actually the Makita jigsaw, reinforced by the Makita impact driver. I won't buy anything but Makita from now on, it's just so good and 'does exactly what is says on the tin'.

You just don't realise the difference until you use the kit every day. It's not just the longevity, its the way they do the job.

Reply to
The Medway Handyman

We are talking electric impact drivers

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Reply to
The Medway Handyman

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?id=29438&ts=74156I wondered if someone would come back with that comment. It is still critical to ensure that you put enough pressure on the appliance whether manual or otherwise powered. If you do not put pressure on it then you have a small useless bowl!

Reply to
clot

Its certainly a safe way to know you will get something that is at a minimum "good" and will last (and I have never been disappointed with any of my Makita kit), but don't discount the other quality brands since each will have tools that come out as "best of breed".

For example, the Makita portable planar thicknesser is a very good machine, but I think my DeWalt DW733 has the edge on it in a number of small but important details. The big 9" Hitachi circular saws are very nice, as are Trend and Freud routers etc.

I think the jigsaw test is an ideal way to convince anyone who doubts the value of decent tools. The Makita in particular is just *so* much better than most peoples experience of a jigsaw as to be really quite surprising even if you are expecting it to be lots better.

Reply to
John Rumm

I will never buy a Makita product. This recall notice is a lie. A user in New Zealand lost an eye when his sander pad broke apart, and Makita didn't want to compensate him until forced to by public opinion.. Losing an eye is NOT a "minor injury".

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cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), Makita U.S.A. Inc., of La Mirada, Calif., is voluntarily recalling about 350,000 electric orbit sanders. The pads on the sanders can break apart during use and strike the operator, posing an injury hazard to consumers.

Makita U.S.A. Inc. has received 13 reports of pads coming apart, including three minor injuries that resulted from pieces of the pad striking consumers.

Reply to
Matty F

Presumably the user was using eye protection as recommended in the instruction manual?

Reply to
Andy Hall

Your loss I guess.

You need to read it a little more carefully. It says "Makita U.S.A. Inc. has received 13 reports of pads coming apart, including three minor injuries". It seems unlikely that a New Zealand user would have reported a problem to Makita USA. So it is probably true, that they have only had minor injuries reported, and that the recall is voluntary in the USA.

Reply to
John Rumm

Have you got a link to the original report on that?

Reply to
dom

I use a mix of Makita and Hitachi big circular saws. Haven't bust the Makitas yet, I'm forever having to dismantle almost all of the Hitachis to bend the damned splitters straight again.

I used to like Skil, until they went rubbish a couple of years ago.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

You say splitter rather than riving knife - are you talking about Skil in the US market?

My experience of Skil has been ok. I used to have a 10 year old compact 160mm Skil CC I used for panels, and bought a Skil Orca about

2 years ago (same product with updates still available).

The older one had a nicer cast aluminium base plate, but otherwise very similar build quality.

The Orca certainly hasn't been treated gently - lots of deep ripping in green oak.

If I was spending my money again, I might scrape together the (quite a bit of) extra cash required for festool or maffel - for those jobs where really high quality accurate cuts are required but the job is fixed or too big or too awkward for a tablesaw.

Reply to
dom

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?id=29438&ts=74156>>> I wondered if someone would come back with that comment. It is still

Indeed, having spent more years than I care to remember using power impact wrenches it's very noticeable how the amount of pressure applied to the tool has an effect on how effective the impact wrench is - it's also extremely funny to watch an inexperienced person see the tool jump off the fixing when they forget to hold the tool down upon pressing the trigger!

Reply to
:Jerry:

"The Medway Handyman" wrote in message news:f61gvi$dnm$ snipped-for-privacy@registered.motzarella.org...

Isn't that the point here, whilst all groups benefit from having semi-pro and fully pro people from the trades, what is often forgotten by those same people is that they might in a month use a tool more than an average DIYer does in a year - IOW if the DIYer is going to build their own house than the expense of buying pro tools makes sense how ever you look at it but for someone who just does the odd DIY job around it doesn't, the price certainly reflects the build quality but not always the accuracy during the tools designed life span (which will be measured in operating hours).

Reply to
:Jerry:

Newspaper reports have now vanished from their archives. I note that the eye-losing accident occurred many months after the recall was announced in the US on March 7 2003. In NZ we cannot claim against manufacturers for such accidents, so it is not considered so necessary to publicise recalls. But that would have saved the guy's eye.

Here's a Usenet discussion with all the points that are sure to be made:

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*&rnum=14&hl=en#71ddfbcd60fbcea0

Reply to
Matty F

So would have wearing eye protection...

Reply to
:Jerry:

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*&rnum=14&hl=en#71ddfbcd60fbcea0..

and did he follow the manufacturer's instructions about wearing eye protection?

Why would they pay anything if he didn't?

Reply to
Andy Hall

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seems to be just one person with an axe to grind, whilst the other posters disagree with him.

Are you and "Pete" the same person?

Reply to
dom

No I don't know who Pete is. I think most of New Zealand would agree that Makita badly stuffed up their handling of that case.

Do some of you guys sell or work for Makita? I only got involved in this because of comments such as these:

"I won't buy anything but Makita from now on, it's just so good and 'does exactly what is says on the tin'."

"Its certainly a safe way to know you will get something that is at a minimum "good" and will last (and I have never been disappointed with any of my Makita kit)".

To refute that completely I refer you to some of Makita recalls. I suggest that everybody check for recalls for all of their power tools.

----------------------------- PRODUCT RECALL: Makita 7-inch Angle Grinders

Makita U.S.A. Inc., of La Mirada, Calif. has announced a voluntary recall of Makita 7-inch Angle Grinder. Consumers should stop using the recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed. The guards on some of these angle grinders will not fully cover a hubbed grinding wheel. As a result, if the hubbed grinding wheel comes apart during use, it could hit the user, possibly causing serious personal injury. The recall only involves Makita GA7011C 7-inch angle grinders.

----------------------------------- TITLE: CPSC, Makita U.S.A. Inc. Announce Recall of Chain Saws

Name of Product: Makita Chain Saws Units: About 3,400 units Distributor: Makita U.S.A. Inc., of La Mirada, Calif. Manufactured in: Germany Hazard: The flywheels on some of the chain saws can come apart during use, which could cause serious personal injury.

-------------------------------------- Makita Circular Saw Recall

In the interest of end user safety Makita Australia is undertaking a voluntary recall of circular saw models 5606B, 5806B, 5740NB for modification of the saw blade guard assembly.

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Reply to
Matty F

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