Saw: counter rotating blade technology

You saw that, too?

Un huh. A gear, and a shaft within a shaft.

too fancy for me...

trouble when it gets hot.

Intrepid

Funny you should ask. I bought one and it didn't deliver the goods so to speak. This was when I was doing high-end trim. The bits were expensive and dulled instantly. When cutting sheetrock if I pushed too hard they would snap off.
The tool disappeared one day when I needed it and I went out and bought a Ryobi cordless model at half the price. I use it now and then , mostly to cut surplus cabinet wood where I can't reach it with a sawzall.
I agree on all the points you made Intrepid. In the meantime, I'll keep cuttin with my trusted Porter Cable circular

I owned a rotozip and Im fairly particular about what a tool is supposed to do. One thing the rotozip did verry poorly was to make scroll cuts. The whirling bit was not nearly as controllable as a jig or scroll SAW. As far as cutting out in drywall, I only have one room in the house with drywall and Ive found that a jig saw works much better in measured cuts.

POS, in my mind. I did get all my money back because the hardware store just quit carrying em > They had a very large number of them returned. Black and Decker tried making one which was even more of a POS, so they just quit making em and they were giving them away at their maul centers.

I own a Foredom rotary carving machine. It has a long shank cutter that does what the roto zip was advertising and it does it with lot more control. Course the Foredom is like 250 bucks just for the motor, drive, and foot rheostat. Then the cutter heads are all different prices.

I never considered the rotozip as a replacement for any kind of scroll cutting tool. I agree that it would be very poor in that particular roll.

There are places were it works very well in drywall cuts where nothing else will fit the space. I mainly bought mine when I was cutting out some tile spaces in the bathroom to replace some pipes and faucets etc. in the bath/shower. It did a good job there but it certainly takes a steady hand.

I cannot imagine that a rotozip had enough oomph and cutting power to cut out ceramic tile. The blades are so flimsy that Ill bet you went through a few.. Id use a ceramic cutter bit on a variable speed drill. (You can rent angle drives if space was a problem).


Im still trying to visualize what application would Edgars saw be selected for. I can see it with some metal cutters being used for cutting well casing, but Id select a cutting torch first. SO,where would this tool be a fisrt choice?
Im sure the inventor had something in mind when he/she put it together. Maybe Ill have to see the infomercial

Looked at the ad with Billy May and he mentioned that the dual saw was proven in fire rescue , SOI looked up "Fire Rescue Saws" .
The rescue saws I found were by PARTNER, WARTHOG, and NUPIA. All of those were single bladed gas engine driven circular saws with a spring loaded blade protection on both the top and bottom of the blade. (ONE BLADE ONLY) . The blade is one of the "Chop blades" the kind with carbide along the entire tooth surface and the teeth are parallel to the rotation of the blade. Theyve got square cut vents in between the teeth. These saws plunge cut through anything as well and, with a 3 HP gaoline engine they seem really well designed for the job. SO once again, the question why?

Perhaps you are unaware that there are specific bits for tile, drywall and general purpose. I don't know what you mean by flimsy. They are equal to the task if used with the correct bit and skill.

As for the saw discussed in this thread. It seems to be a bit of a novelty and not of much use to the serious tool person.

I, as I am sure you, find it laughable that this tool would be used for fire rescue or any other heavy duty operation.

Intrepid

You are right...I did try to use the "zip" for stuff it wasn't capable of....I'm impatient. In the end, for me, it was only useful for drywall cutting. I wasn't eager to go out and buy all the various bits when I had a router, sawzall and mini circular saw(all battery powered) to do the same tasks

DUHH, they used to sell all the colateral **** for a Rotozip in the same display, so whats not to know. Do you see the Rotozip being advertised anymore? DO you see the big Rotozip displays at the Hardwares anymore, Ill answer that--NO!
It was a piece of overpriced **** that, if you didnt get your money back, I suppose that you are gonna defend the damn thing with your "It only takes skill to handle the tool". There are several other tools that do its job better and with easier handling. I shouldnt have to spend my life learning to work a POS like a Rotozip when you yourself admitted that its uses were limited. The ads that they were plastering on TV on weekend nights made it appear that this thing could do everything including brain surgery. It couldnt. .
My needs are mostly for woodworking, a task that the "Zip never could match up to. I have many compound moldings made of ASH and WALNUT, not pawlonia or balsa (optimal woods for a Zip tool)

Sounds kind of like an underpowered laminate trimmer.

I have a laminate trimmer, by the way. It's the only tool I ever bought under the Bosch brand that I couldn't totally endorse, and that was due to the noise level. Darned thing sounded like an F-15 on takeoff roll - with afterburner. The noise may be common to all trimmers, though. That's the only one I tried.

a Laminate trimmer is actually more stable than the rotozip. Im familiar with the Porter Cable one and it has a nice flat work surface and isnt as flimy made as the rotozip. (Now that I think of it, a laminate trimmer costs about the same as a Zip)

The Bosch Tool Corporation acquired RotoZip in 2003 and you can still purchase it at Home Depot, Loews and many other retailers.

I have no reason to "defend" the tool. I just think that you are wrong and unfair in your assessment. You probably purchased it for a purpose other than what it was designed to do. You have already mentioned that it was not a good scroll saw. I don't think anybody would disagree with you there.

I thought you may not have been aware of the special bits because you said it was flimsy etc. on tile. The tile bit works perfectly well on tile and does not dull quickly.

The rotozip has it's place....a lot of the guys I know {mostly commercial work} that hang sheetrock all day use them...and then there are some {mostly residential work} that are content with the ol jab saw. If you were to hang the wet wall...the plumbing/fixture wall in a public bathroom such as in a school....the rotozip is hard to beat. But as far as it's other uses....I wouldn't take it with me to cut tile all day either.

I watched {listened to} that infomercial a few nights ago....I turned to look when they mentioned the rescue work....since 9/11, they have been releasing a lot of FEMA money to FD's across the country....we get a lot of hucksters trying to pry the money from our local depts.....that's what came to mind instantly.

I wouldn't bother with the tool.

Are you talking about Hardiplank as in the siding...well, either way, it's all the same stuff....I use a small angle grinder....4" I think...the little ones you can hold with one hand, with a drycut tile blade on it. The blades are not very expensive, and they last a very long time. I've never messed with the siding, but I've hung/laid many of the sheets. ...usually the 1/2 thick stuff....and it cuts through that stuff pretty good.

I don't know how accurate your cuts need to be, but those blades can be put on one of those little cordless circular saws too. Very dusty, but if you are using a power saw now, I'm sure you know how nasty that crap can be to cut....deadly actually.

I have been trying to solve the problem 0f dust from the beginning. So far, masks are our only protection.

A fan helps too, but sometimes that just swirls it worse.

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Here is a prime example of using a rotozip....you can always tell by the dust around the holes that one has been used, they are real handy on those small copper pipes, it's near impossible to leave a cut that good with anything else...which helps me...so in truth I'd rather follow a rocker that has used a rotozip...at least in this type of situation.

You can see all my footprints going towards the back of the room then back towards the camera.....as if I were pacing....that's because I was...pacing and cursing each and every one of those stupid knockouts I was gonna have to tile around. I took this picture in the hopes that my wife would feel sorry for me....she didin't.

Before this thread, I never even heard of a Rotozip.

I saw on one site that a guy cuts Hardiplank with a handsaw. He says it solves the problem of dust, Problem there is, people are so spoiled to speed, nobody is going to handsaw it.