Aldi Multi-Tool

[Yorkie]

It seems to me that unlike say routers, biscuit jointers, circular saws etc, these multi-tools are quite lightly loaded and whist the cheaper ones may not (clearly won't) be up to the standard of tools costing five times the price, nevertheless they're most likely well up to the task. Looking at the demo, there are obviously some tasks for which no other tool can quite achieve the same result - plunging cuts, clearing grouting from between tiles, flush cutting into corners etc, I can't think of many occasions when I've thought 'Oh, I'm really stuffed now - if only I had a multi-tool'. That said, I guess it's one of those things that once you have it, you find all sorts of things to do with it. For seventy years I got by without a metalworking lathe, but this last few years I've found my little Lorch jobbie useful for many small tasks.

I could certainly be tempted by the Aldi multi-tool, but no way would I consider the Bosch, let alone the Fein.

It isn't so much the cost of expensive tools that's the deciding factor for me - it's the cost-benefit equation. I just don't do enough of anything to warrant buying expensive tools that will spend most of their lives in idleness. I'm a fidget and a dabbler at heart - I dabble in many things but don't really get deeply involved in anything - my life is a series of unstructured random movements, flitting about from one thing to another, often not at home. I've tried really hard this year to see half started/half finished projects through to conclusion, and in that regard, I'm on a roll and really quite smug with myself!

As to the relationship of price v quality, I once bought a cheap router from B&Q which looked up to the task for little jobs. After a few hours use it stopped. I opened it up and the brushes had been mounted in a thermo-plastic moulding which had melted due to heat from the motor and brushes. Basically, just cheap tat so it went back for a refund. Similarly, I had a 'Ferm' biscuit jointer from Screwfix which was fine for a couple of years, especially on softwood, but then it hit a knot in a piece of oak and stripped the bevel drive. When I opened it up, I noted that the bevel drive was made from die-cast aluminium - not machined from tool steel. Dire.

I've got a heavy duty De Walt router which I don't often use, and a Ferm one that I was given which is fine for little jobs in jigs such as cutting comb joint slots of radio backs, which only takes a few seconds for each slot in thin material, but I don't think it would stand up to cutting a slot in a length of hardwood or running an ogee bead along an edge, or whatever. True, you can make two or three passed when cutting housings rather than cut the whole depth at once.