Newbie jigsaw 'discovery' / blade advice.

David Paste expressed precisely :

Thanks. I never thought to question the quality of the blades that come with the saw. If I were a manufacturer of jigsaws, I would want my product to work perfectly. I wonder how many customers they have lost who think the brand is no good.

McGyver

of blades, which I thought was good. Well, after many frustrating attempts at getting the saw to work well - the blade would bend off to the left so cuts were not perpendicular, the saw would wander with anything other than the lightest of touch even when using a guide, etc, - I resigned myself to the idea that it wasn't such a great purchase after all.

blades for four pounds twenty. Well the difference is almost unbelievable. The saw now cuts straight, perpendicular, and a lot faster. Clearly the blades supplied with the saw were garbage.

From the FAQ:

"Jigsaw blades are simple looking things, but it is important to get ones that are made with decent materials and to a reasonable standard of construction. A blade stamped out of a sheet of steel will never cut a straight line due to having a burr on one side of it! So beware the bundle pack of 50 blades for five pounds."

In general, the coarser the blade, the less it wanders. Fine blades only work on thin material IME

To be fair I've bought jigsaw blades from Lidl and found them ok. But not Aldi.

The bundled blades that came with the Aldi powersaw were fantastic for bendability without snapping - actually quite useful when it came to cutting off square to remove excess studding.