Charnwood W615 table saw

[Lawrence Zarb]

I am thinking of buying the Charnwood W615 table saw. Does anyone have ay experience of this saw?

[Andy Hall]

I saw one at a woodworking show a few months ago and fiddled with it briefly. It's very similar to most other portable saws of its type in that price bracket.

The main issues are that the fence is not very substantial the table area is small and the adjustment mechanism may have a fair bit of backlash..

If you are mainly looking for a DIY grade machine for general work for things around the house then this type of machine can be OK.

The small table area generally limits the size of materials that you can work with, so if you want to handle a lot of 2440x1220 sheet materials it would be difficult. You can always build various extension tables and arrangements, however. Alternatively, large sheets can be cut roughly with a circular saw first.

Fences are a bit more difficult. IIRC, this one has the usual arrangement of a handle clamp at the front and a separate small fixing at the back. This does make accurate and repeatable setting a bit tricky - it can be difficult to get the fence perfectly parallel to the blade front and back and it really needs to be checked with every cut.

Repeatability of blade heights and angles can also be a challenge because there is inevitably a fair slop in the adjustment mechanisms. This is not insurmountable, but to get it accurate requires more time.

This type of machine can be useful in DIY work for a lot of purposes, but ot would be a tough job to use it for fine cabinet work for example.

It does look from the ads that the stand and side table are extras. One option is not to bother with them and make something that would be more useful. There are various plans around on line such as at

for making addons to benchtop saws.

.andy

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[Bridger]

looks pretty light duty.....

[mike]

It's the same as the Record Power and the Ferm/Screwfix one. I've used the Ferm one. Took a day and a copy of the Record Power instructions to fine tune it -- the Ferm instructions are hopelessly inadequate. The fence and adjustments are just about adequate as is the general finish quality. The best thing about it is the induction motor. But you might like to consider a brush motor saw with a better fence and finish. Also the Charnwood/Record/Ferm has a smaller depth of cut than similar brush motor saws. The Ferm version crops up new on eBay for £120. There's a discussion list on Record Power's website where you'll find others people's views of the saw.

HTH,

Mike