( 15 reviews )
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Posted: Jul 2 2009
I've tried using this saw on multiple occasions with multiple materials, and it's just useless. Originally, I thought it was my own fault, attempting to cut some pretty thick plywood. But I recently attempted to cut plywood that was maybe an 1/8" thick and it took forever. I finally gave up and went to Lowes to buy a HAND coping saw, and it was much faster. I know it's less than $20 here, but I think you're better off getting a dedicated jigsaw.
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Posted: May 9 2009
I bought this from a local Lowe's when I bought my XPR400 Dremel tool. I was building a guitar amp cabinet actually and just wanted something to make a few straight cuts in some smaller sections of plywood. This seemed adequate based off it's list of features and claimed abilities. I didn't expect it to do as well as a powered jigsaw for example but figured that it would do well enough for my limited needs. I also needed to make 4 rounded corner cuts and since it claimed to be able to do this that convinced me to try it. The piece assembled easily and with no fuss. It started up and functions like it should mechanically. The problem is that it just lacks the needed amount of power to perform to the standard it claims. I turned it up to it's maximum and it wouldn't even get a quarter of an inch into the plywood before the dremel would start to overheat and slow down. I let it do this twice, the second time it slowed down almost to a stop and the whole unit felt VERY hot to the touch. I decided not to risk it after that as I didn't want to damage the dremel. I was very careful to not cover up the air vents on either piece. I held it with both hands as directed and the wood was very securely clamped down. I also proceeded slowly and tried to let the tool do the work, it would never grab and cut on it's own though. Plywood is not a hard wood and should not be difficult to cut with a jigsaw attachment. I ended up just going back to Lowe's and buying a powered jigsaw. It cut the plywood like butter, was able to do the rounded corners like I needed and was not that much more expensive than this unit in the store. The dremel tool works great for it's intended uses, I even used the dremel to smooth out the rounded corners I cut with the jigsaw. This attachment however is very lacking. It may perform well with very thin sheets of wood or metal or perhaps with something like particle board or drywall. I decided to keep it despite the lack of performance because I do have to cut drywall occasionally and so this may come in handy. I will try it out next time to see if it has any uses at all. I decided to give it two stars because the tool may work well for lighter duty uses that I haven't tried it with yet, but it's definitely not able to do what the packaging information claims. Unless you need something for small projects with light materials save your money and just buy a powered jigsaw, you probably won't have to pay that much more than you would for this!
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Posted: Mar 25 2009
I have only used this attachment once. It worked fine but when you attach it to the Dremel tool you end up with a tool that is quite high and a little awkward. If you plan to use this attachment a lot, you should first consider a full size saber saw. Also, this attachment only works with the Dremel 400 XPR. I think you could buy a full size saber saw for less than buying the 400 XPR with the MultiSaw attachment. However, Dremel makes a small planer for use with the 400 XPR that is quite handy. So, if you were going to buy a 400 XPR, the MultiSaw attachment and the planer would be reasonable additions. Also, I think Dremel made a mistake by making attachments that only work with one model of tools. By doing so, they are missing a big piece of their own market by not designing an attachment that will work with all of their tools. If this attachment worked on all of the Dremel tools I would have rated it with 4 stars.
