Quote from: Cheese on May 14, 2022, 10:58 PM

So, I own a Trion and I like it...I own a Carvex and I hate it...I also own a P1 cc and I love it. For those who've done this modification, what are the advantages? What does this modification provide that a standard Carvex doesn't? What exactly is the itch that this modification scratches?

Don’t expect an answer to your question @Cheese - just as I never expected a response to mine.  It’s been my overwhelming experience on here that anything direct, anti-grey-and-green, real-world or logical will be ignored by the hobby-shop faithful. I also have a P1CC and it’s blade doesn’t wander, it cuts at 90 degrees to the surface all of the time, and it doesn’t need stamps or Chinese Amazon grubscrews so the owners can get it to work properly.

Interestingly enough - my P1CC actually broke down recently. It was repaired FOC out of warranty by the UK importer, but before they played ball, I posted on here seeking advice on possibly replacing it with a Carvex. The answer from the honest was an almost unanimous ‘don’t’.

I’d rather have a mind opened by wonder, than closed by faith. If you dare to challenge the order, you’re labelled as a ‘pouter’.

Huh?

I responded with an initial post and a follow-up. I'm just a hobbyist. Is a hobbyist's opinion not good enough for you? How much of a response do you need to feel acknowledged?

We have realistically zero presence with Mafell here in the US. So, it not surprising that there a few fans here.  As I have always said, I consider a jig saw to be one step up from a recip saw and don't expect much more from it than that. I rough cut parts to be flush trimmed with a router or small notches and things, that's about it. I bought the Carvex when I needed a replacement after the fire. Previously I had a Bosch (corded) with the ratchet-type screw-lever thing for tightening the blade. I never really liked that mechanism, but it was ok as a saw. I let someone use it one time and they somehow overly unscrewed that thing and it wouldn't tighten after that. I had to send it for repair. The other jig saw I had was the first generation of the Makita 18v cordless. That was the most disappointing tool purchase I ever made. I was very expensive, very heavy, and cumbersome. All it had going for it was "handy". I could pull it out, make a cut and put it back in seconds, no cord to wind up. The new ones may be better, but they will never get a chance. The plug-it system is just as easy to deal with as cordless, so I'm quite happy with mine.
I bought the Carvex, over the Trion, simply because of weight. Have you ever held the two side-by-side? The difference is incredible.

Serious joke aside, I love/hate the Carvex, but it cuts straighter than anything but P1CC and Trion.

You haven't tried many jigsws then, have you? The Carvex is worse then €25 big box store jigsaws.

Just because of the problem we talk about here in this thread. The shaft is allowed to go wherever it wants. It lacks a roller in the back as support, and the adjustable jaws on the side of the blade just lead to a sparkfest.

My 25 year old Metabo is 25 times better. Not one hitch in 25 years and still working as on the day I bought it. My used Carvex is 4 years old, strobe light is permanently on on one side, and the blade change mechanism jams all the time. Sometimes, when fiddling with the mechanism, the spring releases, almost taking out your eye when the blade ejects with force. Honestly??

I only keep my Carvex because it came for free and I can use a cordless jigsaws for some things. It works fine with laminate flooring, you don't need much precision there.

I got the saw basically for free because it was part of a lot of Festools I bought. Resold some of them I don't needed, kept a few, and figured I'd try out the Carvex and sell it off if I didn't like it.

To be honest, I dare not sell it with a straight face.

I have two Carvex's a PS 420 EBQ this is an older unit "not under warranty" and a newer PSQ 420 EB. The older saw the blade shakes and will not start a straight cut unless I push the saw into the material prior to starting it then it will cut straight but not a safe way for me to do it. The newer saw has no looseness in the blade it is held in place against the carbide at all times I do not even have to pull the blade back to adjust the carbide, this is the way my old Bosch Swiss made saw is, so I installed a 4mm x 10mm grub screw in my older saw and adjusted it so that it is under tension when I install a new blade and loose enough to eject, it is held against the carbide with a light tension from the grub screw but still has room that I can take the blade and pull it away from the carbide with my finger under grub screw tension. it now works like my new saw and my older Swiss made Bosch. But because of the thicker Festool blade it will cut a better 90deg than my old Bosch does. I truly believe the thicker Festool Carvex blades are a game changer for me.

Quote from: FestitaMakool on May 16, 2022, 05:53 PM

Serious joke aside, I love/hate the Carvex, but it cuts straighter than anything but P1CC and Trion.

You haven't tried many jigsws then, have you? The Carvex is worse then €25 big box store jigsaws.

A few.. Bosch blue and green, Makita, DeWalt and Festool’s + listening to the people that bash these tools daily where Bosch triumph for price/performance

Just because of the problem we talk about here in this thread. The shaft is allowed to go wherever it wants. It lacks a roller in the back as support, and the adjustable jaws on the side of the blade just lead to a sparkfest.

If it sparks it’s wrongly or not adjusted properly (Yes it’s a PITA to do this, but it works - better keep to the same blade thickness..) Do you use Festool blades? Mafell too will perform much worse with thin blades, if they even fit? - all jigsaws will do…

My 25 year old Metabo is 25 times better. Not one hitch in 25 years and still working as on the day I bought it. My used Carvex is 4 years old, strobe light is permanently on on one side, and the blade change mechanism jams all the time. Sometimes, when fiddling with the mechanism, the spring releases, almost taking out your eye when the blade ejects with force. Honestly??

Yes, it’s a high maintenance tool to get the most of it - They made the tools better in the past, at least some - if I spot an old Metabo for sale I’ll see if I can jump on it! 

I only keep my Carvex because it came for free and I can use a cordless jigsaws for some things. It works fine with laminate flooring, you don't need much precision there.

Yes you do, that material chips like nothing else, unless the skirting is very thick.. but any jigsaw can cut relatively straight in so thin material

I got the saw basically for free because it was part of a lot of Festools I bought. Resold some of them I don't needed, kept a few, and figured I'd try out the Carvex and sell it off if I didn't like it.

To be honest, I dare not sell it with a straight face.

Off course you can, but are your saw well? Judging by your experience it’s seems well worn?

Good to have you swinging again Alex 
Well, we might not be agreeable in all aspect’s, but see above.

Used with the thicker Festool blades, carbides adjusted properly, I get much better cuts than any other jigsaw I’ve used before.
Handling: None of the Carvex’s are pleasing to me, but I like mine D handle better than the barrel grip which is too long and back heavy.

@Alex
- Why don’t your Carvex have a rolling back guide?
Mine has..

They do, but by default the blade starts out not touching the roller. That is part of the problem.

@FestitaMakool just to correct you - the Mafell takes standard Bosch-type bayonet blades and there's zero difference in cut quality or accuracy between any of them, irrespective of their thickness. I regularly use 6 or 7 different types ranging from the T101AO fine-cut, super-thin scrolling blade, all the way through to their 150mm/6" long beasts which allow me to make virtually flawless crosscuts in 5" thick stock for fancy gable posts, support corbels and similar. Most commonly used blade on laminate and similar delicate materials is the fine-toothed downcut which gives a finish approaching the quality of cuts made by a TS55. Just remember to turn the pendulum setting to zero. You can change from super-thin to super-thick blades in the blink of an eye with no adjustment or goofing around because the machine has no roller - just a supremely well-designed blade clamping mechanism. The engineering of that mechanism is literally the entire key to how good the machine is.

@SouthRider A double-width Mafell Cunex W1 blade was originally supplied with the saw when I bought it a coupla years back, but I hated it. It's too savage for most everything I do, and even with the splinterguard in place, it still rips material to pieces. I imagine it would be fabulous in a carpentry/framing application where quality of finish is a secondary consideration, but it wasn't for me. I'm guessing that most other contributors to the forum would find the same, given the nature of what most guys on here seem to do.

@Lincoln you're maybe right. The only time I've ever used any of the supplied pins is the 8mm one which is housed in the flip-out base of the machine's parallel guide - I occasionally use it as a trammel for cutting circles. Regarding cutouts for downlighter spotlights, I also don't know about 68mm being a standardised size in Germany, but here in the UK, there are around 8 different diameters which vary by spotlight manufacturer, and also vary because of the various UK fire regulations (same deal as code in NA) relating to the proximity of combustible material (=insulation and wood) to a heat source (=the bulb if it's not LED). Over here, our electricians all carry a case of holesaws to suit all of the diameters. Each hole takes 10 seconds to drill through ceiling drywall. I can't ever imagine anyone taking the time and trouble to use a jigsaw for such a simple, quick job.

The W1 double blade is tapered and multipurpose - so it's two blades thick at the front, then tapers in a V-shape to almost nothing at the back. It's designed that way so it can cut super-tight curves - but as I said in my previous post, it's way too rough a cut for the work I do. I'm guessing that over here, 99% of W1's will be used for cutting wood, but our German friends may do things differently.

Just as an aside - I bought my P1CC at a tool show, after watching the rep cut a perfect circle with perfect 90-degree sides around a UK £2 coin (1" diameter - about the size of a quarter-dollar) through 50mm/2" thick oak. He used the W1 for that demo. But as referenced above - all the blades I buy are made by Bosch. The quality's great, the range is huge, and they're half the price of OEM Mafell blades = which are probably made by Bosch anyway.

AFAIK, only the W1 is unique to Mafell and the rest are just rebadged Bosch e.g. the W2 = t144dp, W3 = t344d  and W6 = t101br. That's at least according to my notes which, I think, came from a Mafell Owners Group thread.

Quote from: Cheese on May 14, 2022, 10:58 PM

So, I own a Trion and I like it...I own a Carvex and I hate it...I also own a P1 cc and I love it. For those who've done this modification, what are the advantages? What does this modification provide that a standard Carvex doesn't? What exactly is the itch that this modification scratches?

Don’t expect an answer to your question @Cheese - just as I never expected a response to mine.  It’s been my overwhelming experience on here that anything direct, anti-grey-and-green, real-world or logical will be ignored by the hobby-shop faithful who don’t have client projects to bring in on time and on budget, but who do have time to dismantle and modify tools which don’t do what they’re supposed to. I also have a P1CC which I use to earn a living, and it’s blade doesn’t wander, it cuts at 90 degrees to the surface all of the time, and it doesn’t need stamps or Chinese Amazon grubscrews so the owners can get it to work properly.

Interestingly enough - my P1CC actually broke down recently. It was eventually repaired FOC out of warranty by the UK importer, but before they played ball, I posted on here seeking advice on possibly replacing it with a Carvex. The answer from the sadly restricted number of unblinkered contributors on here was an almost unanimous ‘don’t’.

I’d rather have a mind opened by wonder, than closed by faith. If you dare to challenge the order, you’re labelled as a ‘pouter’.

The mod takes as much time as it took to write all your posts about it. Doing the mod on mine today.

 

I am very satisfied with the fix, I am now able to use the Collins Tool Company Coping Foot on my Carvex. Prior to the fix I preferred to use a coping foot my Bosch to do any coping on crown or base.

I did this to mine today during my lunch break. It is truly an easy mod. @4nthony sent me one of his extras (thanks again) and it arrived late last week.
I watched the Bradshaw Joinery video again before doing it and I will have to say that mine wasn't as loose and wiggly as the one he showed in the first place. It is tighter, but not a significantly different as his was. I haven't really tested it, other than by hand a little, but it seems good.

This is a really interesting mod. What I couldn't gather from the video is how the original pin is supposed to be held into place... is it just a press fit? Does the new ball pin just create its own threads in the plastic housing?

Yes and yes. It sat quite tight inside the housing and plyers were needed to get it out, but with very little force required. If you shove it back into position a little forward-pressure against the sawblade was enough to move it out again. Wonder it Loctite would've done the job.

Waaaay back in 2017 I was in search of a new jigsaw for a log home renovation. I had been using a Bosch jig for many years, it finally gave up during the log kitchen scribe-a-thon. I had an acquaintance that was pedaling Festool at the time, and he hosted a Tupperware (Festool) party in my driveway. Long story short, I ended up with a D handled Carvex 420 for the rest of the log home renovation. I had become accustom to using a modified Collins coping foot on the Bosch. If you've ever finished out a log home, you know the value of a good coping foot. I remember being psyched that Collins made a coping foot designed specifically for the Carvex, and Festool made numerous gizmos for the Carvex that seemingly had jigsaw users in mind, how could things possibly get any better. I tried absolutely every foot, every cutting guide insert, every blade width adjustment to no avail. Every ninety degree cut was eighty degrees, every forty five degree cut was sixty. It was absolutely infuriating, but it had a powerful vacuum attached, and I could actually see what I was cutting without hyper-ventilating, and the strobe light is brilliant. I put the Carvex away in the shed thinking I'd send it back to Festool because something had to be wrong with the saw. Honestly, I had forgotten about the saw until a buddy forwarded this link. When you order the grub screws, order both 10mm and 12mm, one of the two will work, no matter the vintage of the saw. I have experimented with all the various attachments, and now it's the saw I had hoped it was.