My comparison of the Carvex 420 with the Bosch 1591 jigsaw

J

Julian Tracy

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Oct 25, 2007
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Ive had my Bosch barrel-grip 1591 Swiss-made jigsaw for years, and had recently got a good deal on a barely used mint barrel-grip Carvex (only 8 months old) and figured I'd keep it and sell the Bosch.  Months later, I'd not used either or yet sold the Bosch.  Most recently there have been a lot of critical carvex reviews and problems, so before my Bosch sells on CL, figured I'd take both through the paces and see which one seemed like a better saw.

I like the Carvex's weight, the Bosch is much heavier.  I like the Bosch's auto-adjust blade guides - adjusting the Carvex's guides is a bit convoluted as the blade isn't in them until the pressure pushes the blade backwards during the cut.  After some fiddling, I realized it's a lot easier to adjust the Carvex guides with the blade not yet installed in the saw.  Simply holding the blade in the guides until you've got a hair's worth of clearance and then install the blade is much easier than trying to adjust the guides with the blade on the saw.

Used a brand new Festool heavy cutting thick 4" blade in each saw for my testing.

- Basic straight free-hand cutting (Not following a line): both saws cut at a similar pace and a nearly exact cut quality and squareness of cut.  (1" Oak)

- Cutting curves - traced a 5" radius on 1" Oak, 1.25" Walnut and some doubled up and glued 3/4" plywood (1 1/2" thick).  The Carvex handled all the curves well yielding a pretty darn near 90 degree cut in each test board.  The Bosch saw handled the curves seemingly equally well, but none of the cuts were a true 90 degree.  Surprising to me, figured it would be the match...  Did at least 2-3 cuts in each material with each saw - similar results in all cuts.  All the Bosch cuts yielded bevels of a slight amount.

Straight edge guided cuts - using a very thick handheld square against the edge of the board with a solid grip, I cut 90 degree crosscuts with each saw in the Oak and Walnut boards.  The Bosch saw cruised right through each cut at a consistant pace and yielded a clean 90 degree cut.  But each and every cut with the Carvex, while starting out seemingly well, did start to get a bit harder towards the end of the cut (6" crosscut) and the end results showed a cut that was slightily out of 90 degree to the board's edge and the cut edge was not square.  It started square and very much started to become a bevel cut towards the end of the board.

After that result, figured I'd simply trace a straight line on the board and just free hand a straight cut.  The Bosch saw yielded a relatively good cut with no issues.  The Carvex consistently yielded a cut that was not straight.  I tried each saw with each material a few times and I could not get a straight free hand cut out of the Carvex.

So now I'm fairly perplexed.  I can really appreciate a saw that can cut 90 degree curved cuts, but to think I can't cut a straight line with this saw is pretty troubling.  Not sure what to do at the moment...

Julian
 
Julian,

It has been written here in the past - so I am not the one stating or making this up - that using the guiderails (or I presume running it along a square like you are) is not recommended for the stock thickness you are cutting.  I believe that the maximum recommended thickness was about 1/2" or the metric equivalent.  I have no idea why and am not defending the tool in this situation - just passing on the info.

Peter
 
Happened to need to bust out a quick cross-cut in a 2x8 tonight and my Kapex wasn't hooked up to my CT. So being lazy, I snagged the Carvex and made quick work of it. Scribed a line across it with a speed square. No issues with a straight cut.

I wonder if you may have bent or damaged the blade making some of the other cuts. Worth trying a fresh blade, or swapping blades between the two saws.
 
Julian Tracy said:
Did you miss the fact that it doesn't seem to be able to freehand cut along a penciled line?

JT
Click to expand...

Julian,

Always great to read your posts.  I only passed on info on one aspect due to the fact that is what I have read here.  Regarding being able to cut a straight line along a pencilled line - there could be many things coming into play including those not Festool related.

Peter

Peter
 
I recently compare the Bosch GST 160 BCE (Bosch JS572EL) in the US against the Carvex 420. I found them mostly comparable, however the Carvex produced a not quite 90 degree cut when cutting curves similar to that you'd find on a pergola, where as the Bosch cut everything absolutely straight.

What was also evident was the using the same blade and comparable setting for pendulum action the Carvex produced a slightly rougher cut, even with no pendulum action at all.
 
Shane, not sure if you read my whole post, but both saws had a brand new thick Festool blade on them at the start.  Pretty sure I didn't bend or damage the blade in the course of doing 15-20 cuts within 10 mins in a somewhat controlled test.

Considering the saw was fighting the cut towards the end of a 6" guided cut and that the cut gradually ended up a bevel cut, seems to me that there is an issue with the blade possibly not being parallel to the side of the base.

How that translates to a saw that won't cut in a straight line, I'm not sure.  Perhaps because I was trying to hold the saw body inline with the base during the cut?  If all I used was the 90 degree base, it would be fairly simple to tweak the front and rear bearing edges of the saw base with a bit of a skew to correct the alignment with the saw blade's position.

That would be easy, but would not address the cutting of the other bases in the kit...

May still keep it, as curves and rough cutting are all I need a jigsaw for, but the idea it can't seem to cut straight is disconcerting, all apologies for the saw aside.

JT

 
Please don't assume I started my testing looking for a reason to keep the Bosch.  I love the feel of the Carvex and was planning on getting the base kit asap.  For myself only, I did a relatively controlled test and used as close to the same techniques as humanly possible with both saws back to back.  And then repeated a 2nd or third time...

I only thought to test both saws side by side because of the spat of recent issue threads with the Carvex.  I only bothered to write up a "review" because there's been a few other posts of folks looking for feedback.

Very impressed with the Carvex's 90 degree curves cutting ability though, but I suppose maybe I was holding the Bosch saw incorrectly or using a damaged blade ;). 

JT
 
Julian,

Yes, I read your full post and the fact that you started with a new blade.

Being a techy type of guy, I've done a lot of troubleshooting over the years. You always try to remove variables. The blade is a variable that's super easy to remove/replace. I still think I would swap the blade just to make sure the results are the same.

Also, you may want to make sure the base is not skewed in some way on the saw, especially if it was removed and replaced.

Just trying to think of things to help you figure out the cause. Hope you get it sorted out.

Shane
 
The jigsaw is the most difficult tool to operate consistently for a number of reasons so it's pretty hard to conduct a comparison of two different versions.

Using the same blade is a good start but you didn't say if you used the plastic dust shield on the front of the Carvex that makes following a line more difficult. You also don't say weather you had the vac hose attached to the rear of the Carvex where it has so much leverage that it makes following a line more difficult.

I have the Festool Trion jigsaw (the tool prior to the Carvex) and it too is a very good jigsaw but I usually leave it in the box and get out my 30 year old Bosch because I'm so used to working with it and the operator is a major factor in the result when using a jigsaw.
 
Were you swapping the same blade between both saws or using 2 different blades?

I have not had a problem making straight cuts with any of my Carvex saws, although I did have an issue on one of the saws with the blade lock not rotating to full lock. It rotated enough to keep the blade from falling out, but the blade was not completely locked in place, allowing it to slightly move side to side. I sprayed some Fluid Film in the blade opening. It solved the problem.

By the way, I do not miss the Bosch jig saw, but I love the joist hanger nailer.  [big grin]
 
Festool says to first insert blade than position 3 on pendulum than adjust guide blocks. Maybe try this than redo test as you adjusted the blade prior to inserting blade ?
 
I went from the same bosch jigsaw to the festool.

I don't have issues cutting straight freehand. I have trimmed a door bottom once using a guide rail/base. Using an FSG blade I would think that since the teeth have a "set" to them, it would clear a path without having any resistance on the sides of the blades. The cut came out suprisingly well.

The carvex does have a few flaws in my opinion. But I can't see myself going back to the old bosch, as good of a tool as it is.

 
It would be interesting to test how various speed/pendelum combinations affect your cutting results with the Carvex. 

I always leave my speed setting on automatic and pendelum on 2 and I have had no problems with any of my cuts.  What settings did you use?
 
Julian Tracy said:
Shane, not sure if you read my whole post, but both saws had a brand new thick Festool blade on them at the start.  Pretty sure I didn't bend or damage the blade in the course of doing 15-20 cuts within 10 mins in a somewhat controlled test.

Considering the saw was fighting the cut towards the end of a 6" guided cut and that the cut gradually ended up a bevel cut, seems to me that there is an issue with the blade possibly not being parallel to the side of the base.

How that translates to a saw that won't cut in a straight line, I'm not sure.  Perhaps because I was trying to hold the saw body inline with the base during the cut?  If all I used was the 90 degree base, it would be fairly simple to tweak the front and rear bearing edges of the saw base with a bit of a skew to correct the alignment with the saw blade's position.

That would be easy, but would not address the cutting of the other bases in the kit...

May still keep it, as curves and rough cutting are all I need a jigsaw for, but the idea it can't seem to cut straight is disconcerting, all apologies for the saw aside.

JT
Click to expand...

There is another fellow who had an issue with the base not being in-line (parallel) with the blade.
It seems like this may be present here too?
 
Used the same setting on each saw - highest speed, no orbital action.  I had also heard here about a fellow that had a Carvex that wouldn't cut straight and that's why I did some testing.

There's got to be something wrong with my saw - I couldn't seem to cut a stright line with the darn thing.  and my technique is probably not the issue as I had no issues with the Bosch and was going back and forth between the two.  The blade was installed on the festool as per their instructions.

That, and the fact that it was not some sort of quicky while I was at a job type of testing.  It was quite a bit more relaxed and controlled in my home shop.

Not sure what I think as yet, hadn't thought much more about since I did the testing a week or so ago.

JT
 
Julian Tracy said:
....
Not sure what I think as yet, hadn't thought much more about since I did the testing a week or so ago.

JT
Click to expand...

I think you have
 
I've noticed that there is sometimes a bit of play on the swappable 90 degree bases. That means if you lock in the splinterguard with a slight skew, that will be translated to the cut. The idea of multiple bases is great in theory, but it potentially creates a whole other set of problems.
 
Has anybody tried oiling or lubricating the blade holder on the their carvex jigsaw? 

The older Milwaukee/AEG jigsaws had a quick blade changing system that used an outer collar that twisted 90 degrees to lock and unlock the blades.  When changing blades, the blades wouldn't always lock in parallel with the sides of the jigsaw base.  I noticed after I put some Boeshield T9 on the locking mechanism, that the blades started to lock in parallel or at least much closer.  Some blades, like the thicker Festool blades, were still more likely to lock in skewed, but the boeshield still even helped with these. I also have to wiggle the blade shanks sometimes to make sure the blade clamped properly.

The festool carvex jigsaws don't appear to use the same lockong mechanism as the Milwaukee jigsaws, but the twisting mechanisms seem to be more likely to lock a blade skewed.
 
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