Played with the Kapex Today - thoughts/questions...

[Michael Kellough]

I removed .0045" from the surface and it works perfectly.

Does it lock securely?

 

[greg mann]

I removed .0045" from the surface and it works perfectly.

Does it lock securely?

Very!

 

[Steve Jones]

The whole reason the grinding problem arose in the first place is that some of the Kapex's (sold in Europe) were not clamping well enough, someone at Festool decided at the last minute to try to resolve that problem and created the one your all suffering from.

That begs the question did they now get back to some adequate clamping or is the original problem (not sufficient clamping force) going to rear it's ugly head again. I still believe the design is faulty, the tolerance between adequate clamping and grinding is obviously too close, caused by trying to do the clamping and releasing by bending a piece of stamped steel.

(The above description is NOT based on conjecture)

I still will not consider buying one until the issue has been resolved correctly.

 

[josephgewing]

I received a replacement saw from Festool yesterday.  Thank you Tim C and Festool.

My first saw had 2 problems:  The miter pivot was too tight and the miter clamp was too tight to.

The first saw was mfg'd in Dec 2007.  The replacement saw was mfg'd in May 2008.

New saw works well.  The miter pivot is still a little tight but works fine.  The clamping/grinding problem is gone.

The miter angle detents are off less than a degree and that should be easy to adjust.

The laser adjustment was right on and I could split a #2 pencil line length wise.

Hope everything lasts.  Greg's comments seem right on

Joe

 

[Tom the Remodeler]

The miter adjustment on my Kapex moves less smoothly than the adjustment on my Makita LS1214, but I can still dial it in VERY accurately. I perceive that it clamps to a particular miter pretty well, though if I clamp it and then hork on it, then yes, it will move. I'm not sure when it was manufactured, I'll try to check that out this weekend some time.

 

[Steveo48]

......I still will not consider buying one until the issue has been resolved correctly.

I haven't seen a Kapex, and don't need to because of the very high volume of posts of this subject.  It appears that they have laid a big g00se egg with this one. 

A $1,300.00 scms shouldn't have this many problems out of the box, period.  Don't tell me its a "new tool issue".  That's  a '70s US automotive philisophy, sell it and recall it.  I read these posts and wonder how they could have botched so many tables, it's not like this path hasn't been beaten down before, successfully, by many other manufacturers.

And please, don't attribute the quality of cut to the machine.  It's all about the blade. :  Any good blade will give you glassy smooth cuts.  I don't own a jointer because my Alamna blade on my TS is more than adequate.

This is supposed to be the hot new product from the premier portable power tool manufacturer, superior German engineering and all that rot.  Looks like the Kapex v.1 missed the mark. 

I'm sure they'll get it right, eventually.  I wouldn't own one now even if I was making my living behind a scms.  Lost time on the job is too valuable to discover in 6 days, weeks or months that your expensive tool is "kaput". (thats a real German word too!  )  Casual users may find out in a few years that their saw and the quick fix just isn't up to it.

Steve