Best Mitre Saw

[Joe Wojtuniak]

Hey all, looking to buy an all purpose 10" compound mitre saw. Can anyone recommend a good quality saw with good features. There are so many to choose from. Joe

[Bruce]

Dewalt makes a very nice one. The higher end Craftsmen are fine too. I'd stay away from Delta myself. Craftsmen has a 10" with laser for less than $200

['nuther Bob]

Do you want a mitre, compound mitre, or sliding mitre ?

The sliding is the most versatile. The compound is nice if you plan to do a lot of molding/trim work. The plain mitre is handy for basic construction.

I think Craftsman still leads the pricing war for a 10" compound mitre. Buy a slider if you can afford it.

Bob

[Bruce]

While sliders are verstatile, they are less accurate

[ConRes]

As you say there are so many to choose from that it's hard to make a decision. I personally like the Milwaukee but somebody else doesn't because of something or other. I don't like the Dewalts because I'm not used to using them. I would suggest setting a limit on how much you will allow yourself to spend and then research the saws in that price range. And as for the comment of sliders being less accurate I disagree. I opened the box of my Milwaukee checked for square up and across - perfect. Dropped it once and it still hasn't moved out of zero.

[*Casey*]

The Bosch SCMS (10") miters 62 deg right, 57 deg. left, and bevels 3 degrees left and 48 degrees right. I don't know of its equal in that department. I bought one to be able to dado louvers on a job site without lugging around a RAS. I also have occasion to use a small hitachi SCMS, and find it to be very fast and precise. Since it has a smaller blade (8.5") it gets up to speed much faster than a 10" (or larger, god forbid!) blade. Thing I hated about the yellow brand was waiting for the motor to spool up spinning that 12" blade.

Casey

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[mark Ransley]

kill file this arra jerk

[Joe Bobst]

Consumer Reports did an article on them a while back. Check it out at the library (sorry I don't have my copy at hand). There are enough differences to make some brands poor choices depending on what kind of work you plan to do. As always, the more information you can come up with the better your chance of a good tool buy. There are also buyer comments on Amazon.com that are helpful. HTH

Joe

[peter]

There are several good brands: DeWalt has a good one. Bosch is highly respected. I like Hitachi, but I'm becoming wary of that brand. I see they are making them in China now. If you find one made in Japan, it will probably be a good one. Some people like Porter Cable, but I find their products not well designed.

Stay away from B&D, Delta, Roybi, Rigid, and the other cheap brands. Craftsman (or Crapsman, as it is referred to on this group) has ones that look good in the store, but in my experience they fall apart quickly.

Get a good blade. The red Freud blades are very nice and worth the price. If you're cutting molding, you'll need a blade with a lot of teeth: 80 perhaps.

Good luck,

Peter

[D.Martin]

I can recommend a 10" sliding from Bosch, very satisfied. I owned a Delta before that. No need for a 12" with 10" slide plus blades are cheaper.

Now looking for an orbital sander and it will be difficult to look at anything else but Bosch.

Daniel Martin

[Edwin Pawlowski]

According to the Delta spec, it should make the cut.

Perhaps you need an adjustment or something. Lifting up the material is not safe. If an adjustment does not work, take it back as it does not perform as advertised. Ed [e-mail]

['nuther Bob]

I've seen a few saw that allegedly could make the cut but didn't. A better solution might be to install a piece of 1/2" plywood on top of the bed in order to raise the board up into the cutting range. Make sure it is securely fastened with screws from the bottom or similar and that it's wide enough that you don't just cut it in two on the first pass.

Bob

[HerHusband]

Ed,

That's possible, I'll have to check into it when I get the chance. But, we framed our garage last year and just finished the framing of our house, so I don't know that I'll be cutting through many more 2x6's anyway.

Probably not, though I do recall reading something similar in a magazine review once. Seems they had to do the same thing. I don't remember which magazine it was in though.

The blade cuts all the way through the 2x6, except for a very small piece (1/8" maybe) at the lower front edge where the curve of the blade just misses. It only takes a very slight tilt to make it through that as well, or you can just snap it off if it's not a critical cut.

Anthony

[Geoff Merryweather.]

It depends on how much use you are going to give it, and what you are cutting. . I nearly bought a sliding Ryobi saw a few months ago, but decided they weren't stiff enough. The Haitachi CF10 SCMS saws are nice, and still small enough to carry around if you have to. I recently bought a second hand Makita 350mm dropsaw - consider a good second hand saw rather than a new one. Geoff