I've decided to get a miter saw. I'm not interested in a slider. I have looked at the Dewalt, Hitachi, Delta, and Makita. The only one that I saw that had an adjustment for the angle stops was the Dewalt. That is the one that I was leaning toward anyway but I'm wondering about the others. For those of you who own other brands (or just have knowledge of them), is there any way to fine tune the angle settings?
I have had the Delta 12 incher for about 6 years now. IIRC the left and right 45 angle settings had screws hidden up under the table some where. I do not recommend a Delta. I have broken the guard bracket 3 times and the ball bearing detent that locates the various frequently used angles fills with saw dust and becomes ineffective. Later models may have solved this problem.
Go to the manufacturers web site as most offer PDF owners manuals that you can down load and see what kind of adjustments are offered.
I have the Hitachi 12" and I like it very much. I almost went for the 12" with the LED readout, but thought it overkill. I've been doing a lot of crown molding lately and find if the LED was accurate it might be a great way to go, since I now cut crown with the molding laying flat on the miter table. None of this thinking upside down and backwards. I just use the cut codes in the crown cut tables. Setting the miter and the compound angle only. With the Hitachi I have you can get real close to what you need but with the LED model you can come within 10th degree cuts, which would be right on.
It does have good positive angle stops where needed and a laser which I really don't use except to get close to the cut. Its easy to setup but right out of the box it was right on. It's easy to carry to the jobsite with two handles, and it does have an extended fence on the left side. And of course the price was right. Half the cost of a Dewalt.
I'm sure the Dewalt has some benefits, I just can't think of any. I usually try to buy American, but hell nothing anymore is built in the USA. So what the hell.
Rich
CW Nov 26, 12:52 am show options Newsgroups: rec.woodworking From: "CW" - Find messages by this author Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 06:52:10 GMT Local: Sat, Nov 26 2005 12:52 am Subject: Miter saws Reply | Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse
I've decided to get a miter saw. I'm not interested in a slider. I have looked at the Dewalt, Hitachi, Delta, and Makita. The only one that I saw that had an adjustment for the angle stops was the Dewalt. That is the one that I was leaning toward anyway but I'm wondering about the others. For those of you who own other brands (or just have knowledge of them), is there any way to fine tune the angle settings?
Is money an object? If not do a google search for "Omga". It's an Italian brand. They've been using an Omga 10" miter box at my favorite mill shop for about
8 years now. They only use it for their finest work. It looks and feels like it was machined out of a solid block of metal and is rock steady. It's not very big, but not very portable as it has a belt drive motor. Their Omga radial saw is dead accurate and very solid as well.
We use the Dewalt 10" and have been very happy with it. It's used and sometimes abused on a daily basis. We also have the 12" that we use if we have molding too large for the
10".Mike O.
I've had a Dewalt 12" for quite some time now. It's held up very well even after I smoked the motor.
Was cutting a bunch of scrap from some rough sawn walnut that I bought and was pounding away on the saw to cut it small enough for kindling wood. Probably about 45 - 60 minutes into it, I stopped for about 1 minute and noticed smoke pouring from the housing. Enough smoke that I was concerned that it was going to go into flames so I pulled the plug and grabbed the extinguisher I have in the shop. It didn't flame up but there was enough smoke to set off the detectors.
Thought for sure that the thing was dead but it works just fine even after that. Been using for about 18 months since it smoked and the only thing that I noticed immediately after it happened the motor wouldn't shut off when I let go of the switch. That only happened about 6 times and hasn't happened since. If it did, I'd have a new 12" slider by now.
I guess that's a pretty good testament to the Dewalt.
Thanks to everyone who replied. Very helpful. I'm still leaning toward the Dewalt but that Omga looks quite good. Can't hardly justify the cost though as it wouldn't get that much use.
Holy Crap, the cheap on in single phase is over $1000.
Nice looking saw though, Eh?
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