I was surprised by the relative heavy duty quality of this, although, yes it does have some plastic parts. It has a nice cast metal base plate too. Motor is powerful and the blade clamp is nicely designed and machined, and the overall design and function are good. Compared to my very old simple B&D, the long throw results in an aggressive cut, but makes the blade more prone to wander, even with the blade guide bearing, so it was a bit harder to achieve really precision cuts, compared to my old slow short stroke unit. Having trouble finding the right diameter plastic fitting to attach it to my shop vac., but this isn’t a deal breaker. I wonder if maybe you had to do really a lot of sawing, that the fairly heavy weight might be slightly tiring, but this probably isn’t an issue for a lot of small jobs. Overall I am satisfied with my purchase. Good price to quality ratio.