Good table saw worth it?

Since I'm not a carpenter, but will need to make things out of wood from time to time (workbench, small repairs to the house, small stuff) is it worth my money and while to buy a GOOD tablesaw or make due with the cheapies?

I was looking at the Sears selection, I still find Craftsman to be good tools, and I noticed they had a nice tablesaw for $500 - cast iron construction and solid as a rock. But they also had the inexpensive $116 dollar one that is portable and much less sturdy. There are of course models in between as well.

For someone who isn't going to be using it every day and whose career won't depend on it, is it still worth my while to spend the dough on a GOOD one? Obviously I'm not only looking at Craftsman, but I'm just using them as an example.

Reply to
Eigenvector
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Yes.

I started out buying the cheap benchtop saw from sears and it was OK but I had to return it when the gears gave out. Get the biggest, heaviest saw you can afford/store. When I got rid of the little one I got a decent deal on a new contractors saw. If I had it to do over again I would have shopped around for a good used one. As you said they are cast iron and built to last.

Be careful with Craftsman tools some of their stuff is still proprietary and may not accept a miter guage that is not sears. Stay away from the saws that have the webbed extension wings, designed to pinch fingers and cause other problems.

Try: craigslist for used tools and rec.woodworking for advice on what to look for in a used or new saw.

Reply to
RayV

Well, it depends. Where is the saw gonna live? 'Real' table saws are pretty big, and heavy, especially if they have the wings to do accurate panel rips. Iron tables also don't like damp garages- you have to be very careful about keeping them cleaned and waxed, or they rust. Are you doing cabinetry, where the joints have to be perfect? Or are these things where a 'toy' table saw (or chop saw or compound miter saw) will do the small boards okay, and the occasional panel cuts can be done 'good enough' with a clamped straightedge and a good skilsaw? I have seen amazingly good work done with the cheap portable stuff, and crap done with fancy tools. I once, many years ago, got to use a industrial table saw where the cast table was 48" square, and the blade was 12 or 14 inches. That was sweet.

Having said all that- if anvil-solid durability like a working carpenter needs isn't an issue (as you noted), and you don't have a garage bay or walkout basement to leave it all set up all the time, I'd go with one of the small portable saws, but stick with a brand name. Make or buy a good base to set it on. It should do anything typically needed around the house, maybe not as easy as a 'real' one, but since you aren't getting paid by the hour, you can take your time. As you shop, grab an aluminum level and a square off the rack, carry it over to the power tools, and check the tables for flatness, and that the plane of the blade is parallel to the slide grooves. On a real saw, all that is adjustable, on a entry-level portable, maybe not so much.

aem sends...

Reply to
<aemeijers

The Ryobi has received very good reviews, including Best Value, and I know at least one carpenter who swears by his. It&#39;s cheap, but you&#39;ll probably be very happy with it.

Reply to
TakenEvent

Ryobi BT3100

I have one. It&#39;s pretty stable and accurate if you set it up and do the alignments properly. I recommend the "accessory kit" as being very useful. It even includes the pieces to create a router table on one of the wings.

It is clearly no match for a big multi-thousand dollar saw, but who would expect that for $400? (add $100 for accessory kit)

CWM

Reply to
Charlie Morgan

Hmmm, I&#39;ve always felt that the best tools you can buy are always worth it. But in this case I wonder if I might be going overboard. As aem down a bit in the thread states the top end stuff require maintenance to keep in top condition. I actually do have the room for a shop, but at the same time I&#39;m sitting here thinking that I&#39;m gonna spend 400 bucks on a saw and only use it once a couple months or so. Or who knows, I might find that now that I can do quality work I really enjoy doing carpentry and will use it all the time.

Time to shop around.

>
Reply to
Eigenvector

all the answers you&#39;ve gotten have been good ones

I&#39;ve had a Makita bench top / portable table saw for about 20 years.....

Do I make furnitture with it, no....... but it comes in very handly quite often

I even used it to make a window sash tenon member to replace a badly warped one

I&#39;d really lke an old Uni-Saw with a Biesemeyer fence & infeed / out feed tables (like I had at work in a model shop) but got no room for such a beast

here&#39;s an table saw comparsion article

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I go with a used unit....may be you can find someone whose upgrading to a big one & take smaller one off his hands

Reply to
BobK207

I suggest buying a older Craftsman (can be found for under $100) and soup it up with some goodies like a Mule fence ($200) and steel pulleys and link belt ($50) and a good blade ($40) . THEN... you will have a Real "Mans" Table saw, for less than $400 that will kick ass and be VERY accurate. This is just the beggining since there are tons of after market add ons for this type of saw.

Charlie Morgan wrote:

Reply to
chuckster

About five years ago I decided to try may hand at woodworking. Not knowing how my talent would be, I bought a cheap saw as you describe. I managed to build some small projects, mostly doll furniture and the like for my wife and granddaughters. It was OK, but I soon knew I needed/wanted more.

I bought a Delta contractor saw with the Beisemeyer fence. It was orgasmic by comparison. Accurate, easy to set up for various cuts, safer for larger pieces with the 27" table depth. For me, it was money well spent and I gave the little saw away. One big factor was the inability of the small saw to safely cross cut a board wider than a 1 x 6.

If you have dreams of doing bigger projects, more frequently, look for a better saw. Look at the local papers as there are saws listed every week. Some good, some crappy, some over priced, some a great deal. It may be possible to find that $900 saw for about $300 in the used section.

Reply to
Edwin Pawlowski

At the end of the day, only you can answer the question "what type of saw to buy". I started out with a JET contractor&#39;s saw and haven&#39;t regretted it for a minute. I&#39;ve upgraded to an all out cabinet saw now and don&#39;t regret that either. Would I have upgraded if all I was doing was cutting a few boards every now and again? Probably not. I&#39;m building furniture and such so the extra weight, size etc... really makes a difference. If I&#39;m trimming out a window, it&#39;s probably a waste. Most say to buy the best you can the first time and avoid having to "upgrade" later. If you have any inkling of doing fine woodworking, you may very well want to stick with a contractor&#39;s saw up front but it&#39;s certainly not a requirement. Craftsman has lost a lot of it&#39;s reputation over the past few years although some of their newer saws are getting decent reviews. Another place I&#39;d look is

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Pretty inexpensive yet they seem to get very good reviews. You might also check out the Ridgid saws at Home Depot. They get pretty good reviews as well. Cheers, cc

Reply to
James "Cubby" Culbertson

Consider a radial arm saw instead. You can&#39;t cut a 4x8 sheet of plywood in half with a radial, but most other table-saw stuff can be done on a radial with far more accuracy and ease of use (such as changing blades).

You&#39;d be hard-pressed to get the precision necessary on a table saw, for things like shutters or molding, that is trivial on a radial.

Of course, maybe I&#39;m just partial.

Oh, radials take up, operationally, less room, too.

Reply to
HeyBub

Ha Ha! That&#39;s a good one!

Reply to
lwasserm

No maybe about it!

Reply to
lwasserm

Yes.

When a guy who is handy with tools buys a BIG tool, he will usually learn a lot of things quickly with it. I say BIG tool to differentiate them from the likes of screwdrivers and such. By big tools, I refer to table saws, lathes, welders, routers, jointers, planers, hydraulic bending equipment, etc, etc. Tools that once you buy them, you learn, and therefore want to expand the amount and type of work you do, even if you are only doing jobs for yourself.

You can make all sorts of things that you only thought about making previously. AND, you can make them easily by yourself, and have them come out pretty close to right, or dead on perfect. Once you get to making things, the small differences between a GOOD tool and an average one become obvious. Then there&#39;s the wearout factor. Cheap stuff usually doesn&#39;t last, and if you get to using it a lot, you will end up buying a good one anyway eventually when you wear out the cheap one. Your skills and experience grow, so you can do more with the tool. And all you have left for the worn out tool to do is be a boat anchor.

I bought a cheap Ryobi table saw to do some very simple work I was doing at my cabin. It was $99. For the work I&#39;ve done already with it making shelves and book cases and the things I bought it to do, I figure it has paid for itself. BUT, I think I wasted $100, because now I want a bigger better one that will handle bigger pieces of wood easier than the small one, and now I have to go spend $500, and I have this one that I probably can&#39;t sell for more than $40. I don&#39;t know what I was thinking.

I usually seriously overbuy on tools, and I have seldom been wrong. I buy things I think I will grow into, not what is just marginal to do the job at the time. That&#39;s what I did with the Ryobi. Then I saw, HEY, I can make all kinds of stuff, but this little saw has serious limitations. Small top, light motor, inaccurate cut gauge..................

If you think you will do much woodwork at all, you can&#39;t go wrong with a good used saw. I passed on an old Craftsman once for $100 that was about ten years old, weighed a ton, had a huge top, had a mongo base. If I had gotten that one, I would have started woodworking earlier, and had a much better saw. I&#39;d probably still have it today.

If you don&#39;t need it right away, I&#39;d shop around for a good used one. That way, if you don&#39;t continue in woodworking, you can break even on it or not take as serious a beating as you would on a new saw.

Steve

Reply to
Steve B

I have a cheap Ryobi, and my biggest issue is the small top. That limits cutting sheets of plywood and big pieces of wood by yourself. Oh, I could make some wings, but more cost to make it into a saw that comes with a bigger table or wings. It cuts light years ahead of a circular saw, but I imagine a quality table saw with a big top would be about two light years ahead of this one. It&#39;s done what I asked, but it has limits that I am already finding. And I&#39;m a newbie.

Steve

Reply to
Steve B

Remember--You get what you pay for. If all you have is $500 I suggest looking for a quality used saw. Look for a large flat cast iron surface, precision fence, dust control, easy adjustments. If portability is what you need I suggest a good circular saw.

Reply to
Phisherman

Bwahahahahahaha!

Let me know when you locate the legendary "Craftsman Tool Factory"

CWM

Reply to
Charlie Morgan

well said.

Reply to
RayV

That is what happened to me but of course YMMV.

Reply to
RayV

If you have a project which required a tablesaw then that is a reason to buy one. Tablesaws are the most versatile tool in the shop but there is only one task they excel at, ripping long boards. Is this a task your project requires? I have a lightwieght contractor style saw that i use for rips and dados. I often find myself, however, doing long rips with my circular saw and a chalk line. This is often more convenient than lugging the board to the saw or the saw to the board. A circular saw and router will to all the same work as a table saw and are a lot more convenient. If you don&#39;t already have these then i would say buy them first. If you do have them then just try a few rips and dados with them before buyin a table say. A high quality skilsaw is without question, indespensible and worthe the money. I make rips with a worm drive saw and I highly reccomend you buy one before you get a table saw. Amazon has them marked way down. Skil HD77M MAG 77 7-1/4" Wormdrive Circular Saw

Link:

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Reply to
Lawrence

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