Reciprocating Carvers

[squid]

It's getting more difficult to hold the tools and project during long carving sessions, age and arthritis setting in I guess. I'm thinking about getting a reciprocating carver. Anyone with any experience with either the recip or rotary carvers?

[hi ho sliver]

I have a ryobi reciprocating carver and a foredom. The Foredom is a great tool, I had to put a couple drops of "slick 50" on the cable, but since then it is great! The ryobi is light duty but works fine, don't know if you can still get one? Most are going with Proxxon I think, not sure about that, Flexcut also makes one...lots of choices out there!

[squid]

Thanks. It seems the most important parts are the converter that changes rotary to reciprocating motion and the housing material since it will be under quite a bit of stress. I'm going to look for a model that has a metal housing and transmission parts and ball bearings throughout.

[squid]

Settled on the Proxxon reciprocating carver. Works great on the cherry wood for the Moose body, in any grain direction, and it has more power than I will ever need. Woodcraft had the Proxxon and WeCheer in stock so I could compare.