Reciprocating saws with dust extraction

[Harry Bloomfield]

FYI Eclipse used to make a "pad handle" to hold broken hacksaw blades. Holds blades in either direction. They look like a big Stanley utility knife handle, the old #99 model, and are cast metal - called a no.12 pad saw handle and there are several on eBay right now for under a tenner (no longer made AFAIK)

At a pinch, just wrapping several layers of tape around a blade works, but a blade holder wouldn't be that difficult to carve out from a bit of timber.

 

[GhostIntMachine]

I too have used TCT blades for cutting cement boards. That was 20+ years ago. They were extremely rigid boards from Selco. Angle grinder aside, I couldn't think of anyway of cutting them. It was a very slow process. Unlike hardiebacker boards, you could not score and snap them. Oh, and I had to use masonry drill bits to drill through the stuff and a larger one to countersink the head. They were so hard that the head would not pull in without a counter sink.

I rarely need to use a jigsaw on cement fibreboard, fortunately. For sawing the stuff, at least the 12 to 18mm stuff I tend to deal with, you absolutely need a PCD (polychristaline diamond) saw blade on the circular saw and a saw with good dust extraction - TCT blades wear out really quickly. I have tried diamond jigsaw blades, but to date they haven't been all that successful. Another useful strategy is to use a diamond masonry dust on a 115mm angle grinder - beware, though, this is very dusty too

I had not realised that variable orbital was not standard on recip saws. Again thanks. I guess I need to do more research.

It certainly wasn't when I bought the Milwaukee a few years ago. I believe that Milwaukee have it on a couple of their cordlesses, but I think they may still be alone in doing that. If anyone knows of other makes/models of cordless which have orbital I'd be glade to hear about them

 

[GhostIntMachine]

At a pinch, just wrapping several layers of tape around a blade works, but a blade holder wouldn't be that difficult to carve out from a bit of timber.

True, but the Eclipse handle will also hold file tangs, pad saw blades, etc so it has its uses

 

[opps]

t certainly wasn't when I bought the Milwaukee a few years ago. I believe that Milwaukee have it on a couple of their cordlesses, but I think they may still be alone in doing that. If anyone knows of other makes/models of cordless which have orbital I'd be glade to hear about them

Other than yours, and the Festool one, the Flex RSP DW 18 also has a pendulum action and 180 degree blade rotation.

According to the guys at FOG, the Festool one is made by Flex

 

[GhostIntMachine]

Other than yours, and the Festool one, the Flex RSP DW 18 also has a pendulum action and 180 degree blade rotation.

According to the guys at FOG, the Festool one is made by Flex

I'm not really surprised that Flex made it. Festool, like a lot of other German tool firms, has bought in some products from elsewhere for decades (as well as "rolling their own", e.g. the Vecturo multitool gearbox is made by Fein).