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These are $20 if you find a good coupon:
Cheaply built? Yes.
Noisy? Yep.
Vibrate like crazy? Ya, mon.
Useful? VERY VERY.
It’s called a “multi tool” and I guess it can be used for sanding, as it’s shown in the photo, but I have a standalone sander like it and hardly ever use it.
The killer app for this is as a SAW. It copies a very expensive tool originally made by Fein for which the patent ran out in the early 2010s. For this reason it was somewhat of a specialty item and you might not be too familiar with it. However, the trick with the HF version is to ignore the noise and vibration the unit makes and buy decent BIMETALLIC saw blades at your local big box store or online. It is wicked good for plunge cutting (cutting directly into the middle of something, like a drill, rather than cutting from an edge, as a band saw requires).
It cuts through:
* Stainless fasteners (and of course mild steel)
* Rusted nuts
* Fiberglass
* Replacement foam core
* G10, within reason
* Aluminum, even better than you’d expect
* Semicured epoxy (or, of course, cured)
* Wire rope, if held taut, though maybe not cables like sidestays, although I haven’t tried
* Rope, if you’re missing a knife
* Wood, of course
And can fit:
* Most anywhere, especially after you figure out that the saw blade can be mounted at 90 degrees to the body of the saw so it can poke into all kinds of nooks and crannies.
This is almost as useful as a Sawzall, with much more finesse. I’ve found it indispensable in core repairs for scraping off residual rotten balsa core/resin after the skin has been removed, and for flush trimming epoxy-soaked replacement core jammed around the edges of repairs. It’s also handy for shearing off the ends of overlong fasteners after they’ve been bolted or screwed in.
Again: it’s $20, with a coupon, and a couple of good blades are less than $10.
Cheaply built? Yes.
Noisy? Yep.
Vibrate like crazy? Ya, mon.
Useful? VERY VERY.
It’s called a “multi tool” and I guess it can be used for sanding, as it’s shown in the photo, but I have a standalone sander like it and hardly ever use it.
The killer app for this is as a SAW. It copies a very expensive tool originally made by Fein for which the patent ran out in the early 2010s. For this reason it was somewhat of a specialty item and you might not be too familiar with it. However, the trick with the HF version is to ignore the noise and vibration the unit makes and buy decent BIMETALLIC saw blades at your local big box store or online. It is wicked good for plunge cutting (cutting directly into the middle of something, like a drill, rather than cutting from an edge, as a band saw requires).
It cuts through:
* Stainless fasteners (and of course mild steel)
* Rusted nuts
* Fiberglass
* Replacement foam core
* G10, within reason
* Aluminum, even better than you’d expect
* Semicured epoxy (or, of course, cured)
* Wire rope, if held taut, though maybe not cables like sidestays, although I haven’t tried
* Rope, if you’re missing a knife
* Wood, of course
And can fit:
* Most anywhere, especially after you figure out that the saw blade can be mounted at 90 degrees to the body of the saw so it can poke into all kinds of nooks and crannies.
This is almost as useful as a Sawzall, with much more finesse. I’ve found it indispensable in core repairs for scraping off residual rotten balsa core/resin after the skin has been removed, and for flush trimming epoxy-soaked replacement core jammed around the edges of repairs. It’s also handy for shearing off the ends of overlong fasteners after they’ve been bolted or screwed in.
Again: it’s $20, with a coupon, and a couple of good blades are less than $10.
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