… and I don’t buy a single Dremel accessory 😦 . That was not by choice, mind you – Dremel tools are not widespread here, so I’ll have to purchase all my accessories and attachments online. And then pay for the shipping.. Sigh…

On a more positive note, I did come back home with some very useful things. One of them I alluded to in my previous post – a new fret saw, together with a bunch of saw blades. When I originally mentioned my father-in-law’s fret saw, I made it sound like an antique tool, way past its time, and that was indeed the impression I had – “No one uses these things anymore! I’ll be lucky to find one anywhere.” Well, not only are fret saws still being sold, they’ve been significantly improved since my teenage days. The improvements mainly concern the blades – instead of being very thin but still flat pieces of metal, they are now twisted into spirals. What this means is that you are now essentially cutting with a thick wire that is bristling with teeth in all directions, which is a very cool thing. Let’s say you are cutting in a straight line and now need to make a sharp turn. No need for tedious up-down-up-down in one spot while you slowly rotate the saw. Now, you simply stop cutting forward and start cutting sideways! Brilliant!! That said, pushing the saw forward rather than sideways or backwards still tends to give the best results, but with the wire you can simply rotate the saw in place and keep going, it won’t twist and break. Another point to make is that the new “twisted wire” blades are just a hair thicker than the old-fashioned flat ones, so the traditional blades still win when the cut must be as thin as possible. If you are aware of this, though, it should never be an issue. ~€11 for the saw and 24 blades. Continue reading →