What is your most disliked or disappointing tool?

Phil S

Phil Soper
Staff member
Corporate Member
I bought a Jet, Tormek look alike many moons ago. What a pos - what could possibly go wrong by using a steel drive shaft running in cheap bronze bearings in a water bath. It was probably starting to rust the day I bought it. The accessories were also Tormek clones but only in looks not performance - what could possibly go wrong when you are trying to sharpen with a guide that is loose. Now add the fact that there are no parts available even if you wanted to keep your "machine" running.
I installed a new home made shaft and bearings, converted over to CBN, got rid of the water and bought a few of the Tormek accessories. Works now, should have bought the Tormek to begin with. Sold off all my other Jet tools
 

Brian Patterson

New User
Bstrom
I second that with my 14" Grizzly band saw. My success rate on resawing is very low.
My Central Macinery brand bandsaw may be similar to these units, and it isn’t tall enough (need the extension pillar kit) but does fairly well with a guide for re-saving. Makes plenty of noise (bearings?) and is crudely built to say the least, but am glad I have it. Truthfully, I’m the worse tool in the shop!
 

Willemjm

Willem
Corporate Member
Dewalt 5” random orbit sander.

Unless one has hours of time to sand, it is pretty useless.
 

bowman

Board of Directors, Webmaster
Neal
Staff member
Corporate Member
Dewalt 5” random orbit sander.

Unless one has hours of time to sand, it is pretty useless.
It's right there with the Ridgid ROS, blows more dust out the side vents rather than going into the dustbag, even with a shopvac connected
 

Henry W

Henry
Corporate Member
It's right there with the Ridgid ROS, blows more dust out the side vents rather than going into the dustbag, even with a shopvac connected
Hmmm I have a 6" Ridgid ROS without any dust or performance issues. Presumably mine was an early model that was made for them in germany. I love mine.
 

Willemjm

Willem
Corporate Member
Wow Willem... grudge much? LOL
Nope, just curious what problems do you have with yours? I have the 16/32 and happy with mine. I have a friend who hates his, until I go help him out, then it is OK for a while until he gets stuck again.
 

chris_goris

Chris
Senior User
Nope, just curious what problems do you have with yours? I have the 16/32 and happy with mine. I have a friend who hates his, until I go help him out, then it is OK for a while until he gets stuck again.
Maybe youre right, maybe it is application. I got the machine for near finish sanding purposes. With that I mean, run whatever hopefully at 150 grit and then final ROS to 180, 220 eliminating the need for the interim ROS tasks from the planer surfaces. But no matter what I do, feeds, speeds, depth of cut, it invariably will load up and burn. I have plenty of dust control, could be the paper, I use Klingspor roll stock, not sure of the actual product at this writing. What grit do you run? Im certainly not about changing grits all the time.
 

Willemjm

Willem
Corporate Member
Maybe youre right, maybe it is application. I got the machine for near finish sanding purposes. With that I mean, run whatever hopefully at 150 grit and then final ROS to 180, 220 eliminating the need for the interim ROS tasks from the planer surfaces. But no matter what I do, feeds, speeds, depth of cut, it invariably will load up and burn. I have plenty of dust control, could be the paper, I use Klingspor roll stock, not sure of the actual product at this writing. What grit do you run? Im certainly not about changing grits all the time.
I use the Kingspor roll stock as well.
Going above 150 grit for me is pushing the envelope.

I find finish sanding after the planer is almost a wash between going directly to the RO after planer, or 150 on the drum sander followed by a light RO finish.

On painted cabinets 120 grit on the drum sander is good enough, as a high solids primer covers all the sanding marks.

For glued up panels, I start with 80, then jump to 120 then RO.

Where these come in handy is making your own veneer, sanding rings for segmented turning and sometimes dimensioning accurately to below 1/64”. The latter normally happens when I milled a bunch of rails and stiles and then run short of one piece. Then I have to mill one piece to exact dimension to match the rest.

The drum horizontal alignment is a pain, the last bit needs trial and error. Through the years though, I have only done that twice.
 

chris_goris

Chris
Senior User
I use the Kingspor roll stock as well.
Going above 150 grit for me is pushing the envelope.

I find finish sanding after the planer is almost a wash between going directly to the RO after planer, or 150 on the drum sander followed by a light RO finish.

On painted cabinets 120 grit on the drum sander is good enough, as a high solids primer covers all the sanding marks.

For glued up panels, I start with 80, then jump to 120 then RO.

Where these come in handy is making your own veneer, sanding rings for segmented turning and sometimes dimensioning accurately to below 1/64”. The latter normally happens when I milled a bunch of rails and stiles and then run short of one piece. Then I have to mill one piece to exact dimension to match the rest.

The drum horizontal alignment is a pain, the last bit needs trial and error. Through the years though, I have only done that twice.
Not to hijack the thread, But I guess for me, what I really need is a dual drum sander... as you mention, 80-120 or something like that. I have used it successfully for just as you mention, fine thickness control, but I certainly dont need 22" for that!!. I gave up trying to adjust the roller parallelism to the bed, @22" Im not sure how far its out, but I do get more depth of cut from one end than the other, Id guess its in the thousandths of an inch range, but you can cancel that by running the part through one way and rotating 180 degrees and refeeding it, not a perfect solution, but were talking about wood here. Ill give you a good deal on a 22 if you want one!
 

Gofor

Mark
Corporate Member
12V DeWalt cut-off saw. Just not enough power or battery life to do much with. Have been happy with the other DeWalt tools I have bought.
 

Willemjm

Willem
Corporate Member
My Leigh dovetail jig....takes more time to setup than it does to just cut them by hand.
LOL, I purchased the 12” one and used it a bit and then 8 years ago purchased the 24” pro one. It is still in it’s box, never been opened.

I find if I am using it a few times a year, bank on reading the manual from scratch. But if you use it often, setup is fast.

I do all my cabinet drawers with the 12” jig, cutting both pins and tails with one pass. I normally get the router dialed in with one small tweak.
 

Willemjm

Willem
Corporate Member
Not to hijack the thread, But I guess for me, what I really need is a dual drum sander... as you mention, 80-120 or something like that. I have used it successfully for just as you mention, fine thickness control, but I certainly dont need 22" for that!!. I gave up trying to adjust the roller parallelism to the bed, @22" Im not sure how far its out, but I do get more depth of cut from one end than the other, Id guess its in the thousandths of an inch range, but you can cancel that by running the part through one way and rotating 180 degrees and refeeding it, not a perfect solution, but were talking about wood here. Ill give you a good deal on a 22 if you want one!
I would love a wide belt sander, but have neither the electrical juice, nor the dust collection to handle one.
 

bob vaughan

Bob Vaughan
Senior User
For me, it was a set of Global (Asian-made) jointer knives that I was told were as good as any USA-made knives. By the time I'd gotten 200 linear feet of cut, the edges were so worn out that they were hammering the wood off. Out they came and straight into the trash can they went.

1  global - 1.jpg
This pile of shavings is all I got out of a set of new Global knives.
1  global - 2.jpg
This is a photo of the edges before the knives came out and went to the trash.

Oddly, I can't say that I've had bad experiences with Harbor Freight stuff because I had very low expectations in the first place. A few buys met my expectations but most exceeded them.

The Delta 14" band saw isn't a "resaw" and never has been. Its way too light. Shame on people that said it was a capable "resaw".
 

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