The jigsaw is a tool that serves a multitude of purposes. It is ideal for making curved cuts as well as quickly roughing out work before it is trimmed by a router, or by hand. With the proper blade and powerful enough motor, you can saw through almost any material.

Another benefit to the jigsaw, it produces less dust and less noise than cutting with a circular saw. When you are installing at a clients home and a cut needs to be made, sometimes the jigsaw is a better choice.

As always, purchase a quality tool. It will be more accurate, have more helpful features, and be more economical in the long run. Also inform yourself about the warranties of any new tool.

As a woodworker, you will need to purchase a quality jigsaw. Do not buy a generic jigsaw with no features as it will be practically worthless to you. I will try to give you some advice so that you can buy the best jigsaw for you.

Motor

Todays jigsaws can come with many features. But the life of the jigsaw, as with all power tools, is the motor. The strength of the motor is measured in Watts (battery powered models are measured in Volts). Sometimes you will see the number of Amps listed.

Watts can range from 300 to 600. A woodworker will ususally need a 400 to 500 Watt model. The speed of the motor action will also vary, and can go from 500 to maximums of about 3000 strokes per minute (SPM). Amps will range from 3 to 6. The higher the number, the morepowerful the tool.

Larger motors are designed to cut through thicker materials, not necessarily to go faster. They will also have more stroke length and depth of cut. Most tasks a woodworker will come across will require cutting a 3/4" board, or a double thickness of 1 1/2", so the extra cutting depth is not a feature that would be needed in most cases. (A drawback to deep cutting is that the blade can become deflected as it cuts, resulting in an angled cut.)

Base Plate

The base, or foot, on good jigsaw models are tiltable to the left and right, usually to 45 degrees for cutting bevels, some to 90 degrees. Alignment stops along the way make it easy to find common angles and lock them in.

Attachments can be added to some bases: guides to help with alignment, plastic inserts to close the kerf area around the blade. (Sometimes the base will have its own adjustments to close the kerf.)