Tools Are Cheaper Than Craft Supplies

I have often made the claim that a person could buy a sheet of cabinet-grade plywood and a jigsaw for less than what the craft suppliers charge for shaped mosaic backers such as hearts and stars and things like that. While this might be an exaggeration for an individual backer, it is perfectly true if you need to get backers for a class of 20 people. In my post about making custom-shaped  mosaic backers , I also explained why it is better to cut your own shapes if you are trying to make original art because you can make each shape slightly different and unique.

Jigsaws are fairly common, so you might be able to borrow one, but here are some guidelines if you decide to buy your own. Note that jigsaws are best at cutting curves. If you need to cut straight precise lines, then you need to use a circular saw or a table saw, but keep in mind that those two types of saws are more dangerous than a jigsaw.

This post is not a review of models currently on the market. Instead, it is discussion of general principles that should help the reader make a more informed purchase for any type of power tool or electronic device.

Never Buy The Cheapest Model

Never buy the cheapest model. In the past, there was a problem with things not lasting very long, but the trend of making things cheaper and cheaper has progressed to the point that it is now possible to buy tools and electronics that don’t work or barely work even from the beginning. Most people can walk into a dollar store and recognize the type of products I am talking about. What you might not be fully aware of is that this problem with non-functioning and barely-functioning products has spread to more mainstream retailers such electronics chains and home improvement chains

Manufacturers know that many buyers are completely uninformed and buy a new product solely on the basis of lowest price. Consequently, they all are “forced” by economic pressures to produce at least one model geared toward the bottom of the market.

Never Buy The Lowest Amperage

The power rating of jigsaw is expressed in terms of the amps of electrical current that it consumes at full speed. Due to the economic pressures expressed above, manufacturers now produce power tools that no informed buyer would ever purchase simply because they aren’t powerful enough for most jobs. These low-amperage tools just don’t have the power to be useful or last very long.

Don’t Buy A Rechargeable Tool

Rechargeable batteries only last if they are depleted fully and recharged fully. Occasional light use and continual charging is bad for the battery and destroys the battery’s ability to hold a charge.

Unless you work as a carpenter and use your tools daily, get a jigsaw with a power cord. The environmental cost of all these rechargeable batteries is simply too high, especially when they are used in ways that more or less guarantee that their life is short.

Don’t Buy Features Over Quality

Everyone is familiar with a certain computer operating system that owes its success to having a lion’s share of the market and to the monopolistic practices of the company that sells it.  Each new version of this operating system offers ever more bells and whistles, while the software itself still suffers from the same basic problems with stability and useability that have plagued it for years. The economic reasons for this situation are simple: New features make the product outsell the competition, even when the “competition” is merely the older version of the product that the consumer might reluctantly continue to use.

To a certain extent, features can become a trap where it is possible to buy the most cheaply made product even when you thought you knew better than that. For example: You may have been smart enough to avoid buying the absolutely cheapest model, but did you buy the cheapest model with the laser guide or some other feature? The question becomes this: How cheaply did they have to make the jigsaw itself in order to include a laser guide and still be the cheapest model with that feature?

Read NEGATIVE Reviews

Always read online reviews, even if you plan to buy locally. Amazon.com is frequently a good source of information for common products, but keep in mind that even a poorly designed product will get some positive reviews. I think this is because some people are just glad to open the box and tell people about the new toy they just got. Often these mindlessly positive reviews will more or less admit as much: “I just received my new JuiceTronic 9000 Smoothy Machine, and I am so excited…”

The key to making use of reviews is to read the negative reviews and find out how long the product tends to last, what design defects it might have, etc. You want to know what the man thinks after he has divorced the princess, not what he thinks on the day he married her.

All that being said, you have to take negative reviews in context. Even the best product in the world is likely to have some negative reviews. Remember that some problems are due to abuse or user error or the odd lemon, and some people are just mean-spirited trolls that are angry at the world.

At one point on Amazon, there was this guy who gave negative reviews for the Sharpie markers because these markers (which are clearly labelled as permanent markers and famous for being so permanent) wouldn’t erase off his dry erase boards. Some people are just ignorant and proud of it.