My Christmas present to me
Let me just say at the outset I love it. There are a couple of annoying things, but on the whole it is right up there with my fave tools.
What is it? Here you will find photographs and a video of it in action.
The blades come heavily packed in a high density grease, I dipped mine in turps and wiped the grease off without any trouble. There is no assembly required. Fitting in the blade is as easy as it could possibly be: Slide the shaft in, press a single button and press the blade home with a satisfying click. The blades, although not close to scary sharp, are sharp enough to use out of the box.
It's operation is very easy, simply present the blade to the wood and start cutting. The depth of cut is controlled by how hard you press onto the wood and the speed is as fast as the hardness of the timber allows or as slow as you want to move your hands. Control is effortless and in soft woods extremely precise. The first real job I did with it was to cut the rebates into some hardwood stringers for a new set of stairs. (Photos in a.b.p.w. )
The timber is unknown but looked to me to be ironbark - one of the hardest Aussie hardwoods. (If there is a harder, denser one, I won't be working with it!)
I had started on the job using a hammer and chisel but the density of the timber made it very slow going indeed. I knew this tool was coming so I let the job wait until it arrived. I am very glad I did. As the rebates in stringers are necessarily cut at an angle to the grain and only 40mm or so wide, it was a challenge to get the cutting technique right, but by the eighth and last rebate I could do a reasonable job of it in about 15 min. About the same length of time I spent getting the first couple of mm cut with a hammer and chisel.
This must be the safest power tool on the market. While it is running you can touch the end of the blade (no pressure) without even breaking the skin, I think the only way to hurt yourself accidentally would be to drop it on your foot. Hearing protection is a must. As with other power tools extended gave my hands that tingly vibration feeling for a few minutes after I turned it off. The metal part of the grinder got very hot, and although there are screw holes for a handle on either side there was no handle supplied. This added a certain level of annoying 'gotchas' when I repositioned my grip to get the best angle of attack.
By far the most annoying thing was the switch on the grinder. It is a very delecate thumb slide common enough on many grinders. Unfortunately there is no lock position, so for the first ten minutes of operation I was constantly turning the chisel back on after it had tripped off. I tried adjusting my technique but with the metal case getting hotter, I found myself moving back to where the switch is located to avoid getting burnt and consquently switching the motor off. I fixed this with a wedge shaped sliver of wood pessed into the switch and loosely taped into position. Normally I wouldn't dream of jamming a power tool in the on position but since it would be near impossible to accidentally injure yourself with it (though I am sure if you really tried you could) it didn't seem to be much of a risk.
I can't imagine reccomending a tool that requires modification right out of the box, but this is one big exception. It does every cut well, neatly, powerfully, with absolute control and near perfect safety. I love it.
Mekon