Sliding mitre saws (B&Q Macallister !)

[Fred]

Hello,

For too long I have managed with one of those "handsaws in a frame" mitre saws and I was thinking of buying a sliding mitre saw. I've tried to use google to look back at posts in this group and they don't seem very complimentary about cheap brands. I realise you get what you pay for to some extent but is all this criticism justified or is there some brand snobbery?

B&Q's own-brand Macallister saws are only about one hundred pounds with further discounts in the sales at the moment and seem much cheaper than anywhere else. But I read on old post saying that GMC make Macallister for B&Q and that GMC went bust last year. If that's so, how come there's so much of their stuff still about?

Does this mean there is no after sales service and no spare parts to be had?

I will pop into a shop to see one in real life but some old posts suggested they were neither rigid nor accurate. Have things improved since these old posts were made?

Is it that these GMC/Macallister ones are particularly badly made or are these criticisms common to all cheap mitre saws?

OTOH surely anything is better than what I'm using at the moment!

TIA

[Harry Bloomfield]

Fred formulated the question :

I paid around £70 to Argos for one, for occasional use and mine (not McA) has been absolutely great. Absolutely rigid and accurate.

[Roger Mills]

Yes, I too have got one of these

and it's handled everything I've thrown at it.

I've screwed it to a piece of worktop, with a batten underneath, so that I can clamp it in my Workmate.

The dust bag is a bit of a joke, but the saw is very rigid and robust, and produces accurate cuts. [I can take or leave the laser guide].

[The Medway Handyman]

Does it have a depth stop Roger? e.g. can it do half lap joints?

[Roger Mills]

Yes, it's got a screw you can turn to limit the depth of cut - so that you can cut part-way through a piece of wood, or cut slots, etc.

Considering that some very similar machines cost several times as much as this saw, I was very impressed with the build quality for the price. Obviously I don't know how well it would perform if I were using it all day every day - but for my DIY usage, it's more than adequate.

[David WE Roberts]

I bought a MacAllister saw about a year or so ago in the sales - just been out to look at it and without major excavation I couldn't locate anything which gave a model number. As far as I can recall it was 1800W and had a 300mm+ width of cut. I bought a fine toothed blade from Screwfix because the standard blade is a bit agricultural for anything but rough cutting timber.

I also bought the cheaper of two folding saw tables/benches which was also on offer. This I find very useful as it has extending arms which can support long pieces of wood. It also holds the saw at a good height. It is like a four leg saw horse which folds up. The downside is it takes a little while to set it up, but until I get my workshop together I have this problem anyway and it seems a lot better than a workmate. I can't locate this on the B&Q website but then the website is absolute crap at searching.

Accuracy? Accurate enough for me, and there is fine calibration available if you feel the need. Red eye laser? Waste of time - if you can't line up the blade with a pencil line on the wood then a laser isn't going to help you. Rigid? As far as I can tell it is built like a brick walled outhouse. No complaints. The bag even collects some of the sawdust - but I doubt if many budget saws (even with a vac attached) would gather up all the sawdust from a compound mitre saw in full flow.

I would expect that the robustness depends on the model - the 1300W one may be more flimsy than the 1800W ones.

I can't work out the difference between the two current 1800W ones apart from the width of cut; but why have two very similar models with slightly different widths of cut?

Be warned that they seem to change the models quite frequently so past performance is no guarantee of future performance.

The saws have a three year guarantee so parts should be available for at least that length of time.

HTH Dave R