I am putting in a new hardwood floor in one of the rooms, part of the project requires me to pull the baseboards and cut back the casing so the new wood can slide under the casing. That would require a lot of saw work with an offset cabinet saw or something similar . . . or it would serve as an excuse to buy more power tools
I've wanted a ROTO-ZIP spiral saw for quite a while, seems like it would be useful for a lot of small projects. But with this project I have a bunch of casework to cut so I figured I could justify the tool.
I paid $99 for the basic kit, it includes the tool, some metal cutting blades, some spiral cutting bits, a small plastic case to hold the bits, a right angle cutting adapter and a wide mouth tool bag that is more than large enough to hold all this stuff and a bundle of other accessories they will gladly sell you. For another $29 I picked up the special wood saw blade and the special adapter to use it. That is seen attached in the photos below.
First, the downside, this is a 5.5 amp tool. Basically not a lot of torque. With the cutting blade attached for wood, it was not too hard to bog down the motor when the blade was pushed well into the wood.
On the upside, the tool is really pretty handy and does exactly what I hoped it would do. It does it pretty well too. One the back of the tool body are the on/off controls and the speed control. Both are easy to use, but the on/off control pulls out which seemed somewhat counter-intuitive. I figured you normally press the switch to turn something on, not pull it? But on this tool you pull it.
The wood cutting blade allows for accurate cuts. I was able to get pretty close into the work and only needed a chisel clean up the corners.
I've not used the spiral or metal cutting blades. I suspect that they will work better with the low 5.5 amp motor than the wood cutting blade. Still the wood cutting blade worked pretty well, despite the lack of a high torque motor. For a lot of cuts the torque would not be an issue, but when cutting to maximum depth does test the motors.
Still, its a nifty little tool and I see it as being useful in the future. Sort of like a high capacity "Dremel" tool.
I've wanted a ROTO-ZIP spiral saw for quite a while, seems like it would be useful for a lot of small projects. But with this project I have a bunch of casework to cut so I figured I could justify the tool.
I paid $99 for the basic kit, it includes the tool, some metal cutting blades, some spiral cutting bits, a small plastic case to hold the bits, a right angle cutting adapter and a wide mouth tool bag that is more than large enough to hold all this stuff and a bundle of other accessories they will gladly sell you. For another $29 I picked up the special wood saw blade and the special adapter to use it. That is seen attached in the photos below.
First, the downside, this is a 5.5 amp tool. Basically not a lot of torque. With the cutting blade attached for wood, it was not too hard to bog down the motor when the blade was pushed well into the wood.
On the upside, the tool is really pretty handy and does exactly what I hoped it would do. It does it pretty well too. One the back of the tool body are the on/off controls and the speed control. Both are easy to use, but the on/off control pulls out which seemed somewhat counter-intuitive. I figured you normally press the switch to turn something on, not pull it? But on this tool you pull it.
The wood cutting blade allows for accurate cuts. I was able to get pretty close into the work and only needed a chisel clean up the corners.
I've not used the spiral or metal cutting blades. I suspect that they will work better with the low 5.5 amp motor than the wood cutting blade. Still the wood cutting blade worked pretty well, despite the lack of a high torque motor. For a lot of cuts the torque would not be an issue, but when cutting to maximum depth does test the motors.
Still, its a nifty little tool and I see it as being useful in the future. Sort of like a high capacity "Dremel" tool.