Festool Carvex PSC420 Review - Video

[Stone Message]

Thanks for the review. I particularly liked your rant about the instructions. An excuse I have heard in the past was that professionals in Germany had long apprenticeships and therefore knew how to use their tools. To know about the pendulum setting seems unlikely though. The "instructions" say to set the pendulum between 0 and 1 when using the circle cutter - which setting did you use to get the circle shown in the test?
( I have some Felder machines which are excellent, but their instructions also seem on a par with the Festool ones. Luckily they have a FOG as well.)

I was hoping to cut some 2 metre diameter circles in 22 mm ply but am wondering if I need to do it freehand and then clean up with a router as the instructions seem to limit the circle jig to 20mm Any thoughts?
Richard.

Hi Richard

I had the pendulum setting in position 1 and the results were excellent. I did not try any other settings.

I would have thought that 22mm is close enough to 20mm to allow everything to work okay. You should do a test on a piece that will be on the scrap side of the cut. I am sorry if I am inviting you to suck eggs (there should be a smiley thing for that) but do let the saw do the work.

Good luck.

Peter

 

[waynelang2001]

Im not one to nitpick Peter but it was imposible for us to see the square on those cuts, A close up would have been nice. For me when i say square it means 90 degrees so it would be nice to see those cuts up close with the square  run along the full lenght of the cut. Cheers.

 

[Timtool]

Nice review Peter, in the auto mode did you not have problems with the saw speeding up suddenly and making you jump forward and missing the line you were trying to follow?
And what did you think of the on/off switch position? For me i cannot reach it comfortably with any fingers when i am holding the saw on the barrel, so i need to hold it upside down while it's running so i can slip my finger just far enough to reach the switch. I find that quite fiddely and flat out dangerous.

It would be nice to see you use a 400 model so you can give your opinion on both, the first and only time i tried to use my 400 on the rail was when i needed to  shorten garden fences that had 90mm thick posts on each end, i quickly gave up because the blade was following the wood grain instead of the rail and would go out of the guide untill it would bend. I wasn't asking for a perfect cut, but it couldn't do the job at all. And in that particular case the jigsaw plus rail was the only tool capable of doing such cuts in one pass.
Instead i had to go out and buy a plunge saw, and still use the jigsaw for the posts.

 

[stvrowe]

Nice review Peter.  From the video, it appears as if the battery powered Carvex has sufficient power.  Would you care to comment about the battery life?  I think another downside to me would be the fact that only one battery is included in the kit.  I have yet to purchase any battery powered tool that did not include two batteries.

 

[Stone Message]

Nice review Peter, in the auto mode did you not have problems with the saw speeding up suddenly and making you jump forward and missing the line you were trying to follow?
And what did you think of the on/off switch position? For me i cannot reach it comfortably with any fingers when i am holding the saw on the barrel, so i need to hold it upside down while it's running so i can slip my finger just far enough to reach the switch. I find that quite fiddely and flat out dangerous.

It would be nice to see you use a 400 model so you can give your opinion on both, the first and only time i tried to use my 400 on the rail was when i needed to  shorten garden fences that had 90mm thick posts on each end, i quickly gave up because the blade was following the wood grain instead of the rail and would go out of the guide untill it would bend. I wasn't asking for a perfect cut, but it couldn't do the job at all. And in that particular case the jigsaw plus rail was the only tool capable of doing such cuts in one pass.
Instead i had to go out and buy a plunge saw, and still use the jigsaw for the posts.

Hi Tim

The very first time I did an 'auto' cut I was taken aback by the sudden application of power but once you know that it is coming you get used to it. the on-off switches are fine, again one gets used to them quite quickly.

Using any jigsaw on a rail or next to a solid guide clamped to the wood is prone to all sorts of problems. When you guide a piece of wood through a bandsaw you are constantly doing little adjustments to keep the cut straight or on the line. The same is true with a jigsaw and when you do a freehand cut you do loads of little adjustments to keep it on the line. If you use a rail you can have problems due to grain direction and other factors out of the control of the user.

Peter

 

[Stone Message]

Nice review Peter.  From the video, it appears as if the battery powered Carvex has sufficient power.  Would you care to comment about the battery life?  I think another downside to me would be the fact that only one battery is included in the kit.  I have yet to purchase any battery powered tool that did not include two batteries.

If you saw my 'interim video' cutting the thick lumps of wood you will have seen that I had to recharge halfway through the maple cut. By that stage I had already done 4 or 5 cuts through the 100mm square softwood plus a handful of other practice cuts. Battery life is okay but I would rather have a mains powered machine. If your work style requires you to have battery power then you really do need a second battery so that you can keep going. I was suprised that the kit came with just the one battery. If I remember correctly, you can plug many of the Festool batteries in other Festool machines which would help if you already had other battery powered tools.

Peter

 

[waynelang2001]

Any thoughts on my comment above Peter? I am looking to get the battery powered 420 so some closeups on the squareness of the cuts would be great.

 

[Stone Message]

Any thoughts on my comment above Peter? I am looking to get the battery powered 420 so some closeups on the squareness of the cuts would be great.

The only cut that is visibly off is the 110mm deep cut in the hard maple. Try the machine yourself if you are not sure.

Peter

 

[waynelang2001]

Any thoughts on my comment above Peter? I am looking to get the battery powered 420 so some closeups on the squareness of the cuts would be great.

The only cut that is visibly off is the 110mm deep cut in the hard maple. Try the machine yourself if you are not sure.

Peter

Thanks Peter, I can also see the counter top is off abit. I would love to go test it out myself but noone has it in stock here. They are only willing to order it if I want to buy it. Seems like the Festool support here in South Africa has gone to the dogs in the last year or two.

 

[southern_guy]

My TS55 cuts perfectly square. It can do this because it has an adjustment mechanism as part of the design. The squareness of the cut can be adjusted and set. Anyone who expects a 100% square cut from a tool out of the box that doesn't have any adjustment mechanism is nuts.

If you want a 100% square cut, use a tool designed to give you one!

 

[neth27]

Neth 27 I would like you to please take the time and review the carved 420 and show us your views if you would not mind , I am all for honest reviews be it good or bad , I have found Peter parfitt to be honest in the reviews , perhaps you may like to highlight some where he should have been more objective unless Peter has not reviewed the tools you do not favour , I myself have certain views on a few festool tools and have read on this forum about them but I can't recall Peter posting about them but how many people have reviewed the festool FAKIR ? I doubt Peter cherry picks the tools he reviews and I have to trust him on what I have seen thus far , Peter well done in getting this video on the forum , green

I tried the 400, i would never again want  to waste over £300 for something that was useless ..Why has no one mentioned about the review you need to adjust the blade with a allen key? that to me is a step backwards of about 10 years..

 

[neth27]

I would compare the 400 to something like this http://www.diy.com/nav/fix/power-tools/sawing/jigsaws/350W-Jigsaw-10957575  [blink]

 

[waynelang2001]

My TS55 cuts perfectly square. It can do this because it has an adjustment mechanism as part of the design. The squareness of the cut can be adjusted and set. Anyone who expects a 100% square cut from a tool out of the box that doesn't have any adjustment mechanism is nuts.

If you want a 100% square cut, use a tool designed to give you one!

No one is expecting a jigsaw to cut 100% square, but when someones says it cuts square i need to see what there idea of square is. I only ever use my jigsaw to cut filler pieces for built-ins and cut down rough saw timber, so seeing how a battery operated jigsaw cuts is what i wanted to see, and it looks like it works as well as its corded counterpart.

 

[Stone Message]

My TS55 cuts perfectly square. It can do this because it has an adjustment mechanism as part of the design. The squareness of the cut can be adjusted and set. Anyone who expects a 100% square cut from a tool out of the box that doesn't have any adjustment mechanism is nuts.

If you want a 100% square cut, use a tool designed to give you one!

As I said in the video - people expect too much from jigsaws. If one wants a 100% square cut in kitchen work top then use the TS or take a worktop jig and use a router.

Peter

 

[waynelang2001]

Why are we talking about the 400 here ??? This thread is for the 420, everyone already knows the 400 had problems so lets leave that tool where it belongs........in the past. [dead horse]

 

[neth27]

My TS55 cuts perfectly square. It can do this because it has an adjustment mechanism as part of the design. The squareness of the cut can be adjusted and set. Anyone who expects a 100% square cut from a tool out of the box that doesn't have any adjustment mechanism is nuts.

If you want a 100% square cut, use a tool designed to give you one!

As I said in the video - people expect too much from jigsaws. If one wants a 100% square cut in kitchen work top then use the TS or take a worktop jig and use a router.

Peter

Totally agree with that.....

 

[jmbfestool]

Never thought I would say it but these carvex 420 topics are boring me MASSIVELY.  YET! I keep clicking on them every time they have a new post but I keep regretting it.   

Im going to have to do what I have done with a few topics in the pas and delete my posts so they stop popping up in my new replies.

JMB

 

[Scott B.]

Never thought I would say it but these carvex 420 topics are boring me MASSIVELY.   YET! I keep clicking on them every time they have a new post but I keep regretting it.   

Im going to have to do what I have done with a few topics in the pas and delete my posts so they stop popping up in my new replies.

JMB

Thats why I started talking about the Fakir a couple pages ago. The Carvex threads can be like roadkill, you can't not look.

 

[richard.selwyn]

Using any jigsaw on a rail or next to a solid guide clamped to the wood is prone to all sorts of problems. When you guide a piece of wood through a bandsaw you are constantly doing little adjustments to keep the cut straight or on the line. The same is true with a jigsaw and when you do a freehand cut you do loads of little adjustments to keep it on the line. If you use a rail you can have problems due to grain direction and other factors out of the control of the user.

Peter

I beg to differ. If you have a good bandsaw properly set up with the right blade you can get very straight cuts with the stock pushed firmly against the guide. It isn't necessarily easy, but when it is set up right it is vey sweet.
Expecting a jigsaw to do the same (or cut very large stuff) is clearly optimistic, but if a straight guided cut  is not possible with a jigsaw, why offer a special foot to use with a guide rail??!

 

[Stone Message]

Hi Richard

My bandsaw performs well most of the time but every now and again it seems to have a mind of its own. I am not going to try and justify Fsetool's decision to offer the guide rail attachment. Festool state that it works on thinner stock (up to 18mm). I still do not see the point of using a jigsaw with a guide rail.

Peter