After the downright onslaught of oscillating tools and accessories that have flooded the tool market in recent years, it’s time to get back to our roots with the company that started it all. That’s right, “Das Original”, the Fein MultiMaster. Back in my formative years of home improvement, my mentor and tool guru Richard described an almost mystical tool. It was from Germany, orange, really expensive, and could do things no other tool could. I was intrigued. That intrigue naturally led to a purchase of my first Fein MultiMaster many, many years ago. Despite it’s age, it continued to serve me well. But that age also started to reveal a few wrinkles; in particular the lack of a tool-free accessory change, and the very frustrating loosening of accessories under load with the original hex-key accessory design. It was time to see what Fein is shipping out their doors these days, which led us to this review of both the Fein MultiMaster Start Q, and their optional Dust Collection Kit. Read More
multimaster
Bosch MX25 Oscillating Multi-X Review vs Vintage Fein MultiMaster
The last couple years have seen so many new oscillating tool releases that I wouldn’t be surprised to find a press release saying that Starbucks was bringing one to market. They’d probably call it the Venti-Double-Decaf-Oscillatiatoccino. Catchy, huh? Rest assured if Starbucks starts selling it, we’ll review it. Imaginary Starbucks multi-tools aside, we’re actually here today to review Bosch’s new corded Multi-X oscillating tool, in particular, the MX25EC-21 kit. As an added bonus, we’re giving away our review tool and kit in this month’s free stuff giveaway! Since the new Multi-X is one of the more serious corded multi-tool contenders, we also thought it would be useful to make some comparisons with the original and still highly-regarded Fein MultiMaster. One disclaimer here, the Fein MultiMaster we used in our comparison testing is a bit old, and it’s pre “QuickIn” (Fein’s quick, tool-less accessory change mechanism). Since the MX25 lacks a quick-change feature (more on that later), it’s not a huge disadvantage however. Read More