Broken tools, time to upgrade?

[noddaz]

My "Drill Master" table top chop saw has broken. The stationary part of the clamping table has separated itself from the rest of the clamping table.

Time to upgrade to a Proxxon saw at $244.35?

Or do I just go back to Hammer Freight and buy another saw at $39.99...

At roughly $65 per slot car (inexpensive car) I can buy 3.14 slot cars with the difference between the Proxxon and the HF saw.

If I had any skillz I could make a replacement plate for the HF saw.

HF wins.

BTW, are there any other brands of little chop saws like this? There are several companies offering the same cheap HF saw, and Proxxon. The only two I could find after a short search.

Scott

[4424ever]

I have the HF boy I hope that don’t happen to me I would really miss it
If replacing it I would get another love that little bugger

[Fathead59]

Safe to say you have to do a little soul searching , as in how much money are you willing to let go of , HF has a lot of no name products that are just as good as some of the other stores

[Kevan]

I spy Pi.

[RichD]

Micro Mark has a small chop saw for $50. The Proxxon saw might be worth the money if you expect to use it a lot

[noddaz]

I think the Micro Mark saw is the same as the HF saw. Just more money.

[waaytoomuchintothis]

noddaz is correct. The way it works is that the factory makes piles of parts, all the same, but with varying degrees of accuracy. The parts are separated according to tolerance, so parts that are .007 out of whack are a pile, .005 out area pile, etc. The expensive vendors here get parts from the .002 pile and assemble them, the cheaper vendors build from the intermediate piles, and HF gets the crap pile all to themselves. The difference between HF and crazy expensive is a little disassembling and refitting on the part of the customer as soon as you get it home.

[HomeRacingWorld]

HF all the way. Mine from Mark and the gang still going strong 12 years.

[noddaz]

I am going to buy a new HF saw. If I buy the good one I can no longer blame the tool! 🤣

Scott

[vtecfour]

Got my HF after seeing a mention on this forum many years ago, probably by Harry.

Mine conked out a couple of times but turned out to be the screw-in, spring-loaded armature brushes unscrewing themselves from all the vibration. Cut an access door in the housing at that location to facilitate ease of screwing back in rather than disassembling the whole thing.

I use a 2" composite blade with the arbor hole expanded to 3/8" instead of the provided metal blade.



Has made all the difference to my scratch building efforts. A bit slow cutting through .064 brass strip but at least it's square.

Dan

[noddaz]

The steel blades are a bit slow through brass stock, but that is ok. It is what it is.

[noddaz]

You guys should look at the effort that Adam Savage (Mythbusters) put into one of these saws.

Adam does a one day upgrade to the vise and platform that takes 3 weeks.

Linky

https://youtu.be/ritwf-_iOlg