Thread: Metabo KSE-55 plunge and circular saw

Well I went ahead and bought the Metabo and I've now had a bit of time to play with it so I thought I'd do a bit of a mini review in case there is anyone else out there looking at buying one of these saws.

Firstly, my rationale for going with the Metabo ahead of the Makita or Festool. Let me say from the start that if I ever win Powerball then one of my first purchases will be a shop load of Festool gear as everything I've read and heard points to them being streets ahead of the competition. Having said that, they are wickedly expensive - I have no interest in getting involved in the "why is Festool so expensive in Australia?" argument that comes up every now and again, and I've always lived by the "buy the best you can afford" motto, but that doesn't necessarily mean "buy the most expensive there is".

I must also point out that in my research for this purchase, one big advantage of Festool that a lot of people repeated was the compatabiltiy/interchangeability of the bits and pieces of the various tools, which saves time and makes life a lot easier. In other words, as I understand it, if you have the Festool dust collector and you take a Festool power cord you can plug it into the DC and have it taped or tied to the vacuum hose so when changing between router and sander (for example) you can just use the same power cable for both. Makes sense to me, but since I had no intention of buying any other Festool stuff, this compatability/interchangeability issue was of no great use to me.

In the end it was simply a financial choice. I could get either the Metabo or Makita for around $400 less than the Festool and the accessories (blades etc) are much cheaper for the first two, so I figured that if either the Metabo or Makita are robust and reliable and can actually make a straight, clean cut, then I'd be happy with that.

So it was down to the Metabo Vs. Makita. One thing that concerned me a bit was that when I visited a few tool stores to check them out in person, most stores carried the Makita but none had the Metabo in stock. One guy actually said words to the effect "never stocked them, never heard of them and they can't be very good since you are the first bloke who's ever asked me about them". Having said that, I wasn't very impressed with the Makita, which I personally found to be a but "clunky" - I know that's really not a very useful adjective for a tool review, but anyway, it didn't feel comfortable in my hands (I must say that I've always liked Makita tools, and I own a few, but this one didn't do it for me). I've also got a few Metabo tools and always been very happy with them, and coupled with the feedback I got on this forum, I decided to go with the Metabo. And I'm glad I did!

So I got the Metabo with three year warranty and it comes with the very robust kit box (Metabox), parallel guide and 1.5m guide rail, which also has two end stops on it (these are for use when plunge cutting). My first impression was that the saw was a little "plasticky", but that's probably because I have been using an old Makita 185mm circular saw up until now, and that seemed much more solid, but it was also much heavier. The Metabo is light and seems to be well made. The depth and angle adjustments are simple and accurate and the blade is very good quality and makes a very neat cut on melamine.

Strangely enough, one of my favorite items is the parallel guide, which is very well thought out and allows good positive registration against the workpiece both well before the blade starts cutting and continues this registration well after the blade has passed through the workpiece. The 1.5m rail is also well made and I believe it is compatible with Festool and other brand rail saws. As with most other rails of these type, the first cut trims the rubber edge and after that this edge accurately indicates the line of cut. The saw has two thumbscrews for removing any slop or sideways movement when on the rail, and these work well while still allowing the saw to run smoothly on the rail.

One thing that has come up in various places is the issue of a riving knife. The Metabo doesn't have one, but as Ratbag has pointed out above, it's probably not necessary when you are only cutting thin sheet materials.

Well, down to the point of the whole exercise. Using the guide rail and Metabo saw is very quick, easy and accurate. I used to use a Makita mounted on a plate which was used with the Pro-Grip system, and that was fine but it took a lot of mucking around to get things accurately set up prior to making a cut because I had to not just mark where I wanted to cut, but then subtract the distance from Pro-Grip track to saw blade and set the track/clamp in just the right spot. I'd estimate that it would take around three-five minutes of setting up between each cut. With the track saw it's more like 30 seconds. The bottom of the Metabo rail has foam so it holds pretty well in place during the cut, but I've been clamping it just in case with a couple of spring clamps, which allow the saw to pass over, and again, save me the expense of forking out $65 for the actual made-for-purpose clamps.

I've only got a cheapy dust collector/shop vacuum but the dust extraction when using it with this saw is really good. I choppped up a fair bit of melamine today and there was almost no saw dust lying around afterwards.

Anyway, I'm very happy with this purchase and would recommend the Metabo KSE55 to anyone looking for a cheaper alternative to the Festool. Since I've never actually made a cut with the Festool rail saw, I can't say how the two compare and I'm happy to concede that the Festool is most likely a superior saw, but without doing a direct, hands-on comparison, it's hard to imagine how much better it can be than the KSE55. I haven't put a whole bunch of photos on here as you can get better photos from the Metabo website than I can produce with my camera, but the photos I have put on show before and after cuts on melamine and the saw with the parallel guide fitted.

Cheers,

Steve

Congratulations on your purchase, u won't be disappointed, we have sold over 20 units & every customer has been happy with no complaints. Make sure you register the saw at Home - Metabo Australia - Power tools built by professionals for professionals & print your warranty certificate to validate the 3 year warranty

Hare & Forbes are now selling the Scheppach cs-55, at about half the price of the Makita and Metabo. Will be interesting to see how it pans out, as specs are similar - it looks very much like a Makita knockoff. Hopefully the track is compatible with the other brands, but at least there's a more affordable option for the weekend warriors available.

A really interesting read Steve. Does the saw have soft-start?

I wonder what other brands of rails it's compatible with? A criticism that I've heard of the Festool rail is that it has nothing to register perpendicularity to the board (so you still have to measure both sides of the cut), but I'll stand corrected if this is not the case. It sounds like an essential feature to me (but then so are LEDs in a drill or driver, and FT don't have much there either).

Thanks Brett,

I don't think it has a soft start as such, but it is very smooth on start up and doesn't feel like it's going to be wrenched out of my hands. I'll pay more attention next time I use it and give you a better idea but it does have variable speed so I guess you could just start it up at the slowest speed and wind it up if you needed to.

In terms of the guide rail, no there is no built in feature for getting it onto the workpiece square, however I don't see it as a huge issue. I either measure both sides or just use a large square against the edge of the rail. Hasn't been an issue so far.

Cheers,

Steve

The little Metabo has VTC Electronics, which means that yes, it has a "soft start" facility.

To quote Metabo: "our saws and guide rails are completely compatible with those of other manufacturers". Whom this actually means is not stated, but I'm guessing certainly the big boys like Makita and DeWalt, and probably the little guys like Festool & Mafell also.

Thanks Ratty. To answer your question about the 10.8v De Walt and a 25mm spade drill:
I just went down to the firewood stack and had a go with said combination in a piece of Mountain Ash that was logged 15 months ago. I'd have to say that the spade drill is more than likely quite blunt (I gave up spade bits when I got forstners). I was able to drill in 2" without any difficulty (cross grain), but end grain was not so easy - a bit of smoke as testimony to the bluntness.

So, I'd say with your no doubt sharp spade bits it should be ok, but prolly not as quick as a big boys drill. The trade off being that the much lighter weight will enable you to drill in difficult situations, and I think you'll find that a 10.8v drill is a really useful bit of kit anyway (for all those things that you won't think of until you have one).

Max torque on the DW is undisclosed. 3 year wty, free servicing in first 12 months, and 30 day money back, so that's pretty good. And just to point it out again, it will stand up on the battery foot no worries.

Also, I know that you're a big fan of Mafell saws - would you be able to say why please? Pretty sure they aren't available here, but that's no real big deal.

Just watched a vid of one - pretty impressive. It has a forward plunge action, which looks to me to be an excellent idea. Another neat little feature was that you can set your depth, and then retract the blade to scoring depth, take a run, flick a switch to go through again full depth - noice! About $700 from the UK with a 1.6 metre track. Also suits Festool tracks.

In a word, Mafell saws are clever!

How about an (albeit small) plunge saw with it's own 1400mm flexible guiderail all rolled up together in a systainer 3! Or a self-feeding guiderail saw that cuts its way along a predetermined length hands-free and dust-free! There's also an amazing range of carpenter's chainsaws and even monster 2-man 3 phase circular saws for log and beam construction.

Mafell are to circular saws as Festool are to sanders, or Bosch to jigsaws and SDS hammers, Metabo to drills & grinders: best in category.

I note that one of their sanders is switchable between 3 and 6mm stroke - bleeding obvious really.

Originally Posted by Ratbag

In a word, Mafell saws are clever!

How about an (albeit small) plunge saw with it's own 1400mm flexible guiderail all rolled up together in a systainer 3! Or a self-feeding guiderail saw that cuts its way along a predetermined length hands-free and dust-free! There's also an amazing range of carpenter's chainsaws and even monster 2-man 3 phase circular saws for log and beam construction.

Mafell are to circular saws as Festool are to sanders, or Bosch to jigsaws and SDS hammers, Metabo to drills & grinders: best in category.

there are some really nice features on the Mafell saw. The layout of the base has alot of things that the Makita may have taken and used on their saw. The Makita doesnt have the same offset feature when you use the scribe setting, which would have
been really neat. The Track looks really narrow, which is a plus in my book. The Makita track can be painfull when trying to cut down narrow panels.