I should like to post some views slightly at variance with Michael's review.
First of all, I should like to inform all my fellow Festoolites that I am quite possibly the world's worst woodworker. At gatherings of totally useless woodworkers, people point at me and say, "Who's that totally useless woodworker over there?" This is why I love Festool; they make me look good (well, OK, less bad). The discovery of the TS55 saw transformed my life, and every bit of Festool subsequently acquired has been marvellous - until now.
I never did get on with jigsaws - I hated the way their little blades were so wayward, often deciding to cut an entirely different line from the one I actually wanted. In addition, I had in mind a job that involved cutting a 60 cm diameter curve. Normally I'd draw a curve and then endeavour to cut along it, cutting outside the line and then sanding or planning back. Then I saw the adverts for the Carvex and its curve-cutting device. Just the shot, I thought. So, taking advantage of the shrunken Euro, I nipped across the border into Germany and to my favourite toyshop. There, after some thought, I parted with a rather large wad of Euros and came back with a PSB 400 EBQ set.
First of all, the Carvex saw itself looks very neat. It is surprisingly light, especially compared with its predecessor the Trion (which weighs a ton in comparison). I got the barrel-bodied mains-powered one. This has a neat plug-in point that tilts upwards, to make the device shorter. Oddly, it does not have an inclinable base plate, the first jigsaw I've ever seen that didn't - you have to fit an adjustable plate to cut angles, and when you use this plate, you can't collect dust, 'cos there's nowhere for the vacuum tube to go.
I tried the wiggly-waggly line cutting, as seen in the advertising video. And, as its name suggests, it carves rather well, cutting cleanly and with minimal burning. In the curves, the sides of the cut aren't perpendicular to the surface, but that would be asking for a lot.
I needed to cut a straight line, so I fitted the baseplate that slots on to the guide rail. Normally I'd use the TS55 for this, but I wanted to see how it managed on the rail. 10 cm into the cut, The Curse of the Wayward Jigsaw Blade was already making itself felt - the blade was already drifting from the marked line it was supposed to cut. It clearly wasn't going to get any better, so I stopped and used the TS55.
Then came the big moment - the cutting of the curve. The instruction book didn't say what exactly you were supposed to do with the "centring mandrel" (a little spike with a plastic handle) that accompanies the circle cutter, so I used it to mark the centre and banged in a small nail. And off we went. Or actually not. I found that, if you took it too quickly, the flexible metal ruler portion of the cutter did what flexible metal strips usually do, twist out of shape, with concomitant disastrous results at the saw end of things. Even taking it slowly, I found the blade twisting and burning and cutting everywhere but where I wanted the wretched thing to cut. So, back to the old way - use the circle cutter to draw the curve and then do it by hand and eye. This makes the curve cutter a rather expensive pair of compasses.
Perhaps I need to work on my curve cutter technique, but on my first attempt, I did not find it easy. So, most positive, but also slightly disappointing. Perhaps I was simply expecting too much from what is, after all, a jigsaw, with all the problems and disadvantages of the breed, and perhaps not even Festool can tame it.