When I first opened the box, the bit had escaped from its thin plastic packaging and I'm guessing it had been tossed around inside the box during shipping. Other manufacturers actually ship their its in plastic or wooden boxes. Amazingly, the bit seemed fine.
You can't use it to make plunge cuts because the cutters don't extend all the way to the center. I'm sure that's obvious to someone with experience than I had before I bought this bit, but it wasn't clear to me until I tried to make my first plunge cut and couldn't get it to cut any deeper than about 1/16". But I suppose most people would use a drill press and Forstner bit to make this size plunge cut anyway.
I mostly use this bit to cut clean circles after using my jigsaw to cut within about 1/8" of the line. The bit should also work well with a jig to flatten boards, as long as you don't need to plunge-cut. I haven't used it yet for that.
What I like:
* very sharp
* heavy-duty
* seems very high-quality
What I don't like:
* This's packaging sucks
* can't do plunge cuts
* a smaller diameter bit would have served me just as well (but that was my mistake)
Given what I know now, I absolutely did not need this router bit. I might even go so far as to say it proves the "buy the biggest bit you can afford" rule-of-thumb wrong.
Although I didn't really need it, it's still a good bit. But in general I would recommend against buying this bit unless you already own several dozen 1/2" shank router bits (including straight and spiral/compression bits) and not one of them is suitable for the job.
