OK I bought the Ryobi BTS20 Movable Table Saw and Here's the Scoop

This is for anyone contemplating buying this saw. Paid $197 for it from Home Depot. The saw was packaged well with the only hard part was removing some styrofoam packaging wedged inside protecting the motor. Directions were great and really not much to put together..... wheels and hubcaps. Really nice mechanism that takes the saw from a folded position to an upright position. Seems real stable when upright and has a weight of approx

95 pounds. As far as setup goes... Luckily the blade was spot on and needed no adjustment. The fence was out of alignment and adjustment was was done by two screws located on top of fence so no problem. There was a small scratch across the table top that you could see in reflected light but of no real concern. Paint seemed good and all handles, latches, etc seemed pretty strong. I did not put on the splitter/bladeguard (not my normal practice) but will do so when I start working with it and/or replace it with some after market one. Now for some downsides..... The face plate consists of a couple of ears that slide down and under in the back and then the front snaps down in the front and is held by a screw. The face plate was already attached and you could see that it was sunken down under the table by more than 1/16" so that your wood would catch up as you pushed it over the back end of the face plate. I had heard that the face plates were not so hot and now I know why. I removed it and placed some duct tape build up under the back end and all is well. Might replace it with some shim stock later if necessary. The second thing that is not so great is the miter gauge which is pretty sloppy, not as bad as a lot of saws, but not great either. It does have a 3/4" slot which is nice. I crosscut some 1X6 and it worked well. Ripped some 2" maple and it handled that with no problem. No drag noticed. During sawing the table seemed pretty sturdy. It has an outfeed support table that will come in handy. Lots of other stuff that you can read about. My Overall Opinion is: For real serious woodworkers who will be doing a lot of projects and are really into making "nice stuff" you would be better served with a better, heavier, and more expensive saw. For average weekend woodworkers like myself who like to build some non-complex bookcases, headboards, tables, chests, etc this saw would work fine. It will just require a little more time setting up to make sure everything is square. If you don't have room for a big contractor saw in your garage, this saw folds up in about 10 seconds and takes up no space at all. So............. for $197 (including carbide so/so blade) I think this saw might be what some of you are looking for. Oh and one last thing. I have heard how loud these saws are. I was really suprised how quiet it was, but then again I have been doing a lot of router work... LOL!

-JMHO

Reply to
buck
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Nice review Buck and really a fair appraisal. I have had mine for nearly a year now and find it to be quite adequate for my needs. A darn good saw for the money and as you say, a real space saver for limited space.

Cheers.....

Bob

Reply to
Bob At Home

I think saw has it's own forum somewhere and maybe a fan club. Not sure why people like it some much but it seems like a pretty good value for less than the price of a good dado set. IMHO, I think you can do just as good of work with this tool as any TS it just might take a little longer to get there.

Reply to
SonomaProducts.com

The fan club you're talking about is for the Ryobi 3100, which is a table saw that has a sliding table. This saw, the BTS20 is just your ordinary blue coller hard working saw.... At least I hope it will be.... LOL

Reply to
buck

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