Merry x-mas to me! I spent some x-mas money on myself and bought a much needed new jigsaw. This should hold me until I can buy my dream bandsaw. I bought the Bosch 1590 to replace my crappy Skil saw that would never cut at
90o consistently. I bought the Bosch after reading a review in Woodworkers Journal (June 2005), they gave it their highest marks just below the Festool. Anyway, I tried it today and Wow!! Huge improvement over my piece of crap Skil saw. One day I will get that bandsaw, ...
Congrats! I made the same jump about 8 months ago, and couldn't agree more - what a difference! My recent pleasantly surprising discovery is that this jigsaw, with the Bosch Progressor Wood blade, can cut acrylic sheets (ie plexiglass) with almost no chipping - wow! Andy
got the same one too, and i replaced my dewalt, that I could never to cut at right angles. love it. then went on to get the circular saw from bosch, to replace the old chepo skillsaw. cant believe the distance. Have come to the conclusion that i will never buy "inexpensive" tools, because in the long run they just turn out to be "cheap".
Here's a fact you probably don't want to know. The Chinese can make bearings, or most anything else, as well as anyone. The reason you see so much Chinese crap in this country is that that's what the importer is buying. If he buys quality, the big profit margin shrinks. Crap is more profitable. Lots of American made crap too if that's what you want. Here and in China, you get what you pay for.
Nowhere is China's ability to operate at either end of the quality scale demonstrated better than the in the bicycle industry.
China can export the most god-awful crap in the world to be sold for $39 in the kid's bike department at Wal-Mart. Think of the wholesale price for that complete bike, after shipping, taxes, local assembly, and everybody's profits!
On the other hand, from different factories, they are exporting high-end, full-suspension mountain frames designed in the USA by companies like Specialized, along with high-quality titanium and carbon fiber road bikes. Some of these frames can command thousands of dollars. That's for the frame ONLY, with the purchaser or shop installing some of the best Italian, Canadian, French, American, and Japanese components available.
Chinese made parts even up in competitions that even non-riders have heard of, like the Tour de France, and the Olympics.
One of my favorite bikes is a fantastic mountain bike with a Chinese frame (Giant), Italian fork (Marzocchi), American rear shock (Fox), French wheels (Mavic), German tires (Continental), Japanese and Canadian drive train (Shimano / Raceface), American stem and seat post (Thompson), American brakes (Hayes), and an Italian saddle (Selle de Italia). Many people have no idea it's a Chinese frame, and many of the parts where I listed the origin are probably manufactured in China or include Chinese made parts.
On the other hand, stores are flooded with poor quality, knock-off auto parts from China. Wal-Mart seems to have found the magic formula for finding cheap, poor quality Chinese goods of every category.
I also have it. It's a revelation after using a POS B&D and even a much cheaper and older Bosch. Although I bought it as a GST 135BCE and it's made in Switzerland, AFAIK, it's identical to the 1590,
Cheap tools can be just fine, the real trick is to know when to spend on a decent one, and when cheapies will be perfectly adequate. For instance, I have 5 right-angle disk grinders; 1 good, 1 chiwanese cheapie and 3 cheaper models got from garage sales for about $5 each. I cannot tell the difference between any of them. It's a real bonus not having to stop halfway and mess about changing disks, etc
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