Buzz Buzz

Dewalt Multi-Tool with assortment of spare blades.The dusty looking blade in the center is a Bosch blade that is supposed to fit any tool, but it didn't fit this one until we hacked it up with an angle grinder, and then we had to loosen the Allen screw in the clamp and clamp it down.

Some people call it an Oscillating Tool, some people call it a Multi-Purpose Oscillating Tool, some call it an oscillating multi-tool, some call it an Orbiting Multi Tool. Multi-tool is a bad name. Ask amazon for a multi-tool and you get Leatherman-like combination pliers / knife / screwdriver things. Someone needs to come up with a better name.

I call it the buzz-buzz tool because of the very loud, high pitched buzzing noise it makes. I don't know when they first appeared on the market but it's probably been at least ten years. I wasn't aware of them before then. The noise is totally obnoxious, but they can get into places any normal kind of saw can't, which makes them kind of useful. Going by the variety of blades Amazon stocks, I would say their usefulness has made them very popular

We've been tearing out the subfloor in the new house. You can use a circular saw canted over at an angle to cut the old subflooring free along the walls, but there are a few inches in the corner that the circular saw (or skil-saw as we used to call them) can't reach. You could use a reciprocating saw in the corners, but the kids these days don't like that old time harsh vibration. They like this new, obnoxious buzz box. Go figure.

BSN Cast Saw

They use something very like this for cutting casts off of people's arms and legs. It looks like a circular saw, but it doesn't spin, it just vibrates and that's enough to cut through plaster and plastic. I seem to remember someone demonstrating that the saw wouldn't hurt you by applying it to their own bare arm.

And because I can't say Multi Tool without thinking Multi Pass, we have Corbin Dallas & Lelu:


The 5th Element - Multi Pass