Freud Reviews

I bought this set because of the Freud name, thinking that it was going to produce a good dado. Wrong!! The bottoms of the cuts aren't flat and the sides produce a good deal of tear out when cutting cross grain no matter how slow I feed the stock. I ended up buying a different set for finish work. Could have saved $90 if I would have bought the other to begin with. I've only made about a dozen cuts with the other set, so I will not leave a review on them yet, but they seem to be working great so far.

This dado kit is flawless if you have a nice size table saw and know what you are doing. If you work with crappy wood, or try to cut too much at one time, you will encounter problems. But if you have researched how to make nice dados, this tool is well worth the price.

This bit has a lot of potential, but lacks instructions which makes it very difficult to set up. For as much money as one has to shell out for bits like this, you would think the manufacturer would include something - anything - even a hint, as to how to set it up (without burning through test piece after test piece - everytime you need to work with a different thickness of wood. Come on Freud, you can do better.

I have about 3 dozen router bits, and I do a lot of routing and shaping. Set up for this bit is a mystery, though. The equivalent Aman bit has very clear setup instructions that make the process much more intuitive. The Freud bit comes without even a simple diagram.

If someone has a web link to a page featuring setup instructions, i'd gladly update my review. However, Freud really ought to print something more useful on the back of the package than "Danger: Bit is sharp!"

You will need some amount of patience, precutting miters and a few test passes, kind of tricky, but once you get it, it is GOOOOOD. Does a very nice job and cuts very easy.

I ordered it June 7, it's now August 31. It's hard to rate from a photo and several emails that have changed my shipping date. Last update delivery estimate: July 24 - August 6
Must be 2003?

I'm disapponited in my set of Freud Chisel set. They arrived with the blades nicked. Several had large nicks which would take a bit to remove. I'm sending back. They look like they would be a fine set other than the obvious defects.

After reading the other reviews posted here, and seeing some conflicting views, I decided to give the Freud set a look. They arrived in a nice box and seem to be as advertised, fairly decent tools in a mid price range. I felt that the finish appeared a little cheap, lipstick on the pig, if you know what I mean. They seem overdressed. There are too many tool marks to start using them right away, but with some work to finish them up I was able to remove softwood from a test piece that would rival a plane. This is a good value for reasonabley good tools that will require some final dressing before they become really great tools.

This router has incredible power and smooth operation. All the features work as they should, and it looks, sounds, and feels right to me. The VS and softstart are terrific features. My only complaint is that the throat is too small for 3" bits to pass through. You need to use a router table fence to accommodate this flaw, but otherwise, this thing's a trooper and a bargain.

I have an almost exactly opposite experience with Freud as that mentioned in the above review. I am on my second FT2000 and have always received great customer service the few times I needed service. I just sent it to Freud USA and they fixed it within a week, only charging me once for a repair. It's a great router: quiet and powerful with easy to reach controls. As a professional woodworker, I recommend it without reservation.

Very strong runner, excellent features. Can't imagine getting more for the price than this.

It is the height of arrogance (and stupidity) to make router bits without showing their size on them! All you get is a 5-digit part number and a big Freud logo! How do I tell if this is 9- or 7-degree dovtail bit! If this wasn't a Christmas gift, it would be going right back. And then I tried one of their bits and it was undersized. Don't go for the name try somebody else.

I have many Freud bits and saw blades. I have always been very happy with their products. Recently I added an Incra LS17 super system to my shop. Because of my past experience with Freud products, I purchased the Freud 8 piece set for Incra Jig. Much to my surprise both straight cut bits in the set were undersized, and produced unacceptable box joints using Incra scales. I returned the set and replaced them with CMT which work well.

Freud = Quality. I always buy Freud products. Top quality.

I bought my set a few years ago contempalting doing Dovetail joints. I just pulled it out to use with my PorterCable 1501 router. It would not fit my base plate. Fortunately I found my old porter-cable router that has a base fixed in one place excepted the guides. I tried the 3/8" guide and found it to be off-center or out of round. It would not fit in the router base. Probably had it to long to get it exchanged. I've bought a lot of other Freud products and have been pleased, but this one surprized me.

Recieved my guide kit in good order. All the pieces and parts were included in the case. I have only used it once on a hope chest I constructed. Everything seems to fit and work ok. Havent had a lot of experience with this type of routing so I don't have a lot to compare to. The machining of the parts seems fine and what little I have done went very well. So far I am very satisfied with Freud products.
UPDATE..Jan. 05...Ruined the 1/4 inch guide, when the stop collar vibrated loose, allowing the guide to move. Also messed up the bit. I have used this guide set a couple of times and haven't had this problem before. I found a new guide and stop collar at my local woodworker store, not very expensive. I have always hand tightend my stop collar but will use a pair of pliers from now on. Shouldn't have to but can't risk this happening again. Very scary and could have been very hazardous.

This set is great. Costs the same as Porter Cable, is as good as Porter Cable, if not better and you get the GOLD for free!

How can you go wrong?

It looks nice cuts ugly. The 1st thing I noticed with the blade installed on my DeWalt DW708 was, the saw seemed to push hard. 2nd it left burn marks and 3rd. the cut wasn't smooth (little ridges). Tried every thing I could think to do, nothing seemed to change the final result, a lousey cut from a lousey blade. Put the blade that came with the saw back in, just to see if it was the saw's fault, everything was fine. The Freud goes back.

I purchased this blade in June of 2001. I gave it two stars simply because it is chromed. I installed this blade in my DeWalt sliding chop saw and was not impressed from the begining. I have since kept it in a saw box with other old blades and don't like using it. It burns,tears out wood labors through compound cuts and generally is not a good performer. I have had it sharpened a couple of times by a great sharpening shop and they can't get it to perform any better. Its back into it's storage box it goes.
Do not buy one of these.
Peter L

This blade makes cuts as smooth as glass, in casings and moldings. Blades like this are what allow the pros to make perfect cuts.

The product needs help. Now, I need help. I am on my third freud table in a month. Today makes three separate occasions at the job site with the system down..... There is a problem with quality control. Broken parts, misalignment, and plate deflection, as if these factors were imprortant. What more could a professional wood worker want? One bright star for the fence. Buy the fence and put it on a competitor's table

When I recieved the router table it was already damaged. It didn't appear to be from shipping. The box was intact. Part of the metal frame was pulled out of the bottom of the table with the screw holes stripped. I assembled it anyway, and found that the metal part of the fences that the wood fence faces attatch to were seriously out of parallel. Amazon's exchage procedure worked great and a had a replacement table in no time. However, this one had the same problem with the damaged frame, and the fences were slightly out of parallel. The customer rep suggested that they must have got a bad batch of them, and suggested that I just get a refund, which I did. I then bought the same table at Lowes, got it home and found it was missing the insert that the router mounts to. I got a second one from Lowes. It had the parallel problem and the table was not completely flat, so I could not level the router plate to the table. All four had broken cable ties in the box. I never knew what they were supposed to be holding together. I give up. Frued has some serious quality control issues.

The fence is the best part of this table, although the face of the fence wasn't perfecly square to the table and needs adjustment. However the worst part about this table is the router plate, which was not flat in the first place and sags to become even worse when a router is attached. It was virtually impossible to get the plate to lie flat even without the weight of a router causing the cheap plastic to sag. The ability to fold the table for storage is useful in a small shop like mine, and despite folding legs the table has been stable and secure. All in all if the router plate wasn't junk and the overall quality control a lot better, this could have been a contender.

If you are looking for a really handy substitute for a biscuit (aka plate) joiner, use a 5/32" slot cutter, with an arbor and a depth adjustment bearing (7/8" for #20 biscuit, 1 1/4" for #0 biscuit, etc). (You need to slide the wood back and forth around 1/2" to get the right width.) HOWEVER, DON'T EXPECT THIS ARBOR TO DO THE TRICK BECAUSE THE THREADED PORTION OF THE ARBOR IS NOT LONG ENOUGH TO HOLD A SLOT CUTTER AND A BEARING (unless you do not feel the need to put the nut on to hold them on). I have had good experience with other Freud products, so this was a bit of a surprise.

FYI: Just to clear up any confusion. Bits that are designed to take 1/4" of material out and at up to 9/16" deep, on a single pass are not meant to be used, as a hand held bit. Just a slight off angle and this bit would go chewing into a more severe angle, possibly causing a kickback.
In plain words, like a raised panel bit, it is only meant to be used in a table. I believe that is the reason why Freud may not have left any room for a bearing.
The problem with this longer shank arbor, I couldn't get it to fit in any of my router tables. It was way too long. Freud makes another one available here at Amazon, that is a lot shorter and does the job beautifully.
I have some inexpensively made bits that are designed to create rabbets. They have a bearing. Since you are creating a rabbet instead of a groove, the bit has room to "escape" in the event of a slight off angle.
I wanted to comment because I can see why many would not buy this bit after reading some other comments. The truth is that this is probably one of Freuds best buys due to the cost and quality of construction.
If you read "Classic Joints with Power Tools" by Yeung Chan, you will see that a slotting cutter router bit is one of the essential cutters. He pictures ten router bits that he considers essential, and three of them are slotting cutters.
Since the arbors are 5/16" in both the 1/4" shaft and the 1/2" shaft, I bought the 1/2" shaft for less vibration. Highly recommended.

I dont understand amazon people dont have, the right pacage for this bit, because the bid are bery destroyed.

This bit cuts smoothly and the joints fit perfectly. This is the quality that you expect from Freud.
Amazon needs to package small, dense items like this much more securely. Although my bit was not damaged, it was placed loose in the box with no padding and easily could have been.