The internet, for as wonderful a machine as it is, is not the end all resource. Neither are magazines. Hands on is great for initial impression, but tells nothing of longevity of tools or customer service one is likely to receive. Best bets are always to buy tools that hundred of other people have proven and have positive comment on. Amazon is great, but as others have mentioned the forums will get more real world response.

Keep it real.

Some reviews are suspect. You know some can be immediately disregarded because they sound like they were written by an idiot. Others sound like they were submitted by somebody from the manufacturer. What you can do is look at the “see all of my reviews” link under the reviewer, to see what else they are reviewing. If they are reviewing all one brand, or bashing everything or praising everything, that has to factor into what you want to gain from the review. I believe some of the Grizzly items sound like they have some “professional reviews”. I could be wrong. Some people write really extensive reviews citing pros and cons. It is just like the comment card at the restaurant, except everybody gets to see it.

Anyhow, for my two cents, you have to read those reviews for any tool you will be depending upon.

Carry on…

I think that FWW does a good job because they try to level the playing field before testing. That’s an important point because tools can vary from one to the other within the same model. For expample, I bought a low angle block plane made by Groz at WoodCraft. I found it horribly out of square and almost impossible to tune. I brought it back and exchanged it for another of the same exact model. The new one was almost perfect out of the box. Go figure.

Bottom line is you have to take everything into consideration. Some reviews are outright biased. Others are not apparently so but there could be advertiser influences in play. There may be other intangibles that affect the reviewers’ opinions too (such as the tool rep taking them out to lunch or an expensive dinner or having a good relationship with them in general). Who knows?

Such information should just be used to help make an informed, educated decision. Ultimately it should come down to what suits you best and makes you the most satisfied.

Ciao,
Joe

Betsy at my local wood pusher has gone on for years about the Tenryu Gold Medal blades and the cost put me off. I had heard a lot of good things about the Forrest WW11 blade also and picked one up at the last woodshow. Nice blade but not a revelation. Then I received a Tenryu Gold Medal as a gift and did some quick comparisons on mahogany cut offs. The Tenryu kicked bumm. Especially over a tired Amana blade that was my workhorse for so long (and I was never all that happy with it).

Which leads up to my main complaint with tests. Rarely are the tools I’m interested in in the same test or included in any test. How often do you see Tenryu blades tested?

Fine Woodworking did a mitre box test a while back but the DeWalts were not listed. The winner – the Bosch unit – while a fine saw, was not compared to any of the DeWalt models I’m also looking at. Now with the Festool unit coming over I’m keen on seeing how it fairs. Not that I’d spend that much money on a mitre box saw unless I won the lottery. But hey, a horse race is a horse race so you still like to see how badly your choice gets beat (or not).

In the end I try to balance what I hear from folks that do similar work to what I’m doing, what the reviews have to say and what the wallet says I can afford. Some days I end up with the editors pick, sometimes I get the Value Tool Winner and other times I shake my head on why on earth they liked a certain tool – but hey, we all have our own way of doing things and some tools just fit us better than someone else.

Only we don’t write the articles.

Kudo’s to Wood Magazine for redoing the test. That was not cheap, but cheaper than dealing with the fall out if they hadn’t.

While I don’t think woodworking magazines are as slimey as car magazines, they obviously have to consider they’re reviewing products which are often advertised only a few pages away. Perhaps a periodical like Woodworking would be more credible since it has no advertising. This concept seems to work well for Consumer Reports. The testers at CU have some bias, but nothing like a magazine running on advertising dollars.

I agree online forums are a good source of tool information, which includes the ever-important customer service factor. Like Amazon reviews, you see general trends mixed with a few extremes on either side.

Keep up the great work!

I pay more attention to customer service comments in online reviews than the equipment. If the trend seems to be bad service, I will seriously consider scratching it off my list of candidates. Laguna comes to mind.

In the end, after extensive research, I tend to buy what I think will fit me best. Some don’t even make the mag reviews (Hitachi, Triton, el-cheapo).

That’s my 2 cents.