DeWalt Reviews

I'm so disappointed with Dewalt at this moment. When I bought my first Dewalt miter saw and bought the work station it comes with the four bolts to mount saw to mounting brackets. I just spent 600 for the sliding compound saw and ordered the DW7231 mounting brackets another 50 bucks to be able to switch out saws as needed and WHAT Dewalt doesn't put the four bolts needed to mount saw in the box. Now if you order the work station they put in the bolts, so if your ordering the mounting brackets why would they not put them in, this is a load of CROCK and a poor job by Dewalt. While I love my Dewalt work station and saws this really brings my blood pressure up. I'll have to stop what I am doing and put about 35 miles on my truck to go to town and buy four bolts and nuts that should have been in the box. POOR JOB ON DEWALTS PART.

I bought the whole thing a few months ago. It is very sturdy and especially useful to a woodworker like me with limited space. I have a large Bosch sliding miter saw fitted with the brackets. I am very pleased with the stand. Recently I've seen other stands, ripoffs of the DeWalt idea (who did they steal it from?). All of them have advantages, but of course the parts are not interchangable. I think the Dewalt brackets are obscenely priced, but what else is new? Don't worry about it. Just make sawdust!

Look, if you don't like the price, you don't have to buy. For me, I have a DeWalt 12" chop set-up for framing and PT. I have a Bosch 10" sliding miter for the trim. I even have a DeWalt metal cut-off for rebar and rod. All of them sit on these brackets for use on my DeWalt stand. They sit flat on the rubber feet when not used on the stand or quickly lock in on the stand. I can swap in very short order. It's a great set-up and I think well worth the 35 smacks they cost. And maybe the reason they don't come with bolts is that all saws are different and may need different bolts. Ever think of that? I don't want to pay for bolts that may well be the wrong ones for my saw.

I love my Dewalt 746 table saw, but am not happy with either insert that Dewalt makes. They are terrible to try and level and even when you do get em level, they rattle. I've gone thru the whole gambit, made my own out of plywood, tried the Leecraft, they are ok. Finally found the Betterly Tru-Cut insert system and that is the way to go. Its a solid machined piece of high quality aluminum, made for this saw. That means you can still use your factory blade guard and splitter. It has a removable phenolic center, so you can make zero clearance inserts for about any size blade or dado. It's easy to level and stays level. You don't have to relevel when you change inserts, and the inserts are pretty inexpensive. Can't recommend the Dewalt inserts at all....toss em, get a Tru Cut.

The Dewalt Dado Plate does its job and thats all. I rated this product as 4 stars. I will most probably be using a zero-clearence insert instead.

The plate is made of cast aluminum and painted on the face side. The finish is somewhat coarser than that of the regular plate comes with the saw. Don't know why. The set screws are useful to set the plate level with the tabletop and a lock down piece secure the plate in place. But they are torx screws, so you better keep the torx wrench handy or have a torx bit around like I do. I think you can do better with those after market blank insert and cut youself one zero clearance plate that gives you a more smoother ride.

This was supposed to be a Christmas gift. We ordered on 12-9-05 and it still is not shipped. I will not buy things from this seller again! Loser

I got this because it has a diamond-shaped foot that extends ~2" in front of the body, for access to some narrow spaces. It works well for this purpose, though it's not the best choice for a general purpose sander. The foot uses hook and loop sandpaper, I just cut out the diamond shapes rather than buying the pre-cut ones.

Dewalts 24V. Batteries only last about 35 -40 charge cycles before they die. That's from my experience of owning 6 of them all bought over a time span to have purchased all of there improved models and they all preformed the same.

I have to agree about the life span being short however this tool proved to be very powerful compaired to most corded tools as this one did out drill the milwaukee in driving long lag screws in dense materials. The batteries are a bit expensive for life of the battery.

Who would pay $ for one battery; when you could purchase 2 batteries, a charger and the drill itself for $$???.
Why on earth do manufacturers price disposable items such as this so high?
I for one will purchase a new drill----------but it will not be a DeWalt!
Perhaps the same problem will occur with another brand, but I will feel better at the start giving Bosch or Porter Cable my commerce.

Please note that this is the XR battery pack. Most 9.6 volt tools from DeWalt come with the standard battery pack. The XR pack features 25% more runtime. So if you're thinking about buying a new tool instead of replacement batteries, be aware of the difference in the batteries. By the way, higher voltage DeWalt replacement batteries are labeled XRP. These proide 40% more runtime than the standard batteries. Also note that the extended runtime batteries are slightly larger and heavier than the standard versions.

This is the second Dewalt model I tried. I cannot recommend it. The most important feature of a jigsaw in my opinion is to be able to make a square cut while following a line, curved or straight. This saw cannot do either. The plunger that moves the blade up and down has a very large "play" sideways. You can move it with your finger side to side by more than 1/16th of an inch. That kind of movement translates into a larger movement at the cutting area of the blade. So no matter what kind of cut you are making, curved or straight, the blade wants to wander. Once it moves 1/16th away from your line, you apply force on the saw to move it back. That makes it worse. As you make a curve, the blade deflects more and more as you get into the curve, making the cut not square. You end up with a very rough cut even with finest blades. You have to cut proud of your line and waste time sanding. You can do this test at Home Depot or somewhere you can see different models. Take this saw and push the plunger sideways, then take a Bosch and do the same. You will see that Bosch is rock solid, does not move visibly, whereas Dewalt is lose as if they forgot a bolt or two. I bought a barrel grip Bosch and I am happy..

This saw feels and cuts like the powerful saw that it is. I cut out new bases for my boat seats out of 3/4" plywood with it. I was amazed with the ease it went threw the plywood. Now I know how a pro tool performs.

I nicked this saw barely used on Ebay for $40. Thanks to all of you who gave it bad reviews here, must be the reason it went so cheap - and I got me a great tool. It seems this saw has suffered from the 'real men don't read manuals' syndrome. Sure enough, the saw I got arrived sans manual, which probably got discarded by the previous owner the first thing after opening the saw. So, I printed and thoroughly studied the PDF version off Dewalt website.

I will just go over the problems that seem to be mentioned the most here.
1. Dust removal: works a lot better if you turn it on. My saw arrived with the switch on 'off'.
2. Inability to make a straight cut: Orbital action is for aggressive cutting, and manual specifically cautions to set it to 0 for precise cuts - or for cutting metal. My saw arrived with orbital jacked to 3. Previous owner must have had trouble cutting straight. And this saw is powerful. I shudder at the thought of trying cutting metal on orbital with it.
3. Base plate retention lever working loose. It did come loose during test cuts. Manual says if that happens, tighten the screw holding the lever. Which I did - and the lever never came loose again - ever.
4. Blade retention mechanism. Manual states that in order to secure the blade, one must turn the tab clockwise a couple turns before pushing it down. Having done this, I never had a blade go loose. This is one knock for Dewalt - the claim to support both T and U blades is not entirely correct. You CAN chuck a T blade, but a quick survey of the mechanism assured me that is is really made for U blades and is not likely to hold T's properly. This problem is made worse by the fact that later Dewalt jigsaws are all T-blade users, and the only Dewalt blades I saw in stores were T. So I got me a set of quality Bosch U-blades. Never tried this saw with a T.

So far, I've been using this saw for several months - cutting all sorts of things with it. Not a single problem. No bent/ejected blades. No crooked cuts. No desire to ever get another jigsaw.

Started out with the DC911, speakers blew inside of nine monthes, (illusion of poor reception perhaps?). Bought the DC011 and it drained batteries (14 & 18 volt) OVER NIGHT, consistantly. Took it back for another try. Second DC011, six weeks in, not one push button would work. Battery charger worked OK though. Guess where that one is! Back where I bought it! I won't try again until they can guarantee it.

Durable and hi-tech design functions well overall, but battery life issues others report are all too real. And, where is the CD player? What were they thinking? Needs a little more work to be a tool I'd want to keep, so mine went back. Hit Wally World on the way back to the jobsite for a <$50 replacement with better sound quality but sans charger. I didn't really need another charger anyway.

Best worksite radio / chargeing system purchased to date, works great. Would like to see that the display had an option to stay lit all the time for evening or night time work, hard to see display ounce light goes out.

I don't know why anyone still uses these things. Everyone owns a vacuum, and if the nozzle doesn't match up perfectly we all know how to use duct tape.

Some people get the bag to work; others have problems. But in the end it's the guys with the vacuum hooked up to it that end up walking away with little or no cleanup!

If you lost it and are looking to replace it, forget it and go buy a new blade with the money you save.

I use the saw with out a bag. I use a piece of 90 abs to direct the sawdust into a rubbish bin or just pile it up where it lands and clean up at the end of the day.

I have a DW708, and it picks up dust so effectively that it gets annoying having to empty the bag so often.

I got mine as a Christmas present a few years ago. It has only a few hours of use. I still have the original blade on it! My armature blew while cutting a pine 2X6.

I was considering getting it fixed, but I think I will go buy a new one. I'll probably just buy a cheap, disposable one since the high end saws appear to be crap too.

I read a couple other reviews, and was really surprised.I have had this saw for over 3 years, and it has been great. We are a small contracting company. There are usually 3-4 people using this saw, and everybody really likes it. I personally like it better than any other circular say I have owned, with the possible exception of a Makita 8-1/4". I have recommended this saw to others, and probably still will. It gets bounced around in our trucks and trailers, usually in it's carrying case, but runs great. It could be that some weekenders don't know how to take care of tools. No personal slams meant, just an observtion.

I have had the saw for at least 4 years and it has been a good saw. I have probably used it for thousands of cuts. I have even used it to saw a 500' line in the dirt to install an invisible fence, which I would not recommend. This dirt line caused the switch to burn up from too much continuous use (probably 4 hours), and I had to replace it. Recently the automatic guard handle plastic piece broke, but I have dropped the saw numerous times and I am sure that helped to its demise.

Up 'till now, I've always been impressed with DeWalt (price and quality), but this drill . . . is a different story. The chuck on this needs a major redesign; it's almost impossible to get it tight enough. If you're drilling metal, or using round shaft bits, DO NOT BUY THIS DRILL. It works fine as a screw driver (and with other hex shaped bits), however drilling 1/8" pilot holes in 14ga sheet metal: bad idea. The chuck just slips on the drill bit. I'd recommend any other DeWalt drill, as long as it's got a standard keyed chuck.

I thought it was time to upgrade from the 25 year old 3/8" key chuck Skil brand drill, so I wanted a good, basic, no frills keyless chuck drill when I chose the DeWalt 21009. I made a poor choice in two regards: the keyless chuck loosens while drilling, too often, and will also tighten up on it's own other times to the point I had to use an adjustable wrench to unlock it. Frustrating.

But worse than that, this drill didn't make it through even 6 months of very intermittent use before the motor overheated and is now incapable of drilling a hole of any substance before it grinds to a halt.

I had another DeWalt unit- a DW272 drywall screw driver quit holding bits the very same day. I am now a very disappointed DeWalt customer who will not be buying or recommending DeWalt to anyone. Very frustrating and extremely disappointing.

Luckily I kept the Skil drill and put it back in service.

I purchased about a year ago and saved $20. It doesnt work,couldnt get it repaired for less than $40, so I gave it to a friend as a paperweight and am in the process of buying another Brand with a decent warrantee like I should have done to begin with. Any Questions?