radial arm saw vs. compound miter saw

[OFWW]

Well the hint there is "Don't cut meat" on a bandsaw. I wonder how much of that was due to cutting frozen meat.

[J. Clarke]

If you read the first one, he wasn't even cutting anything--some kind of powered vise on the saw crushed his finger. That's something you have to be careful about with such reports--they don't quite report what you think they report.

[Puckdropper]

[e-mail] wrote in news: [e-mail]:

I've sawn several logs that have been comprised of hard and soft spots. You push at a pressure level appropriate to keep the feed going through the hard stuff, and when you get to the soft stuff it just flies. By the time you react, the wood is 2-3" further than when you said "ooh!" and went to adjust.

While the saw isn't pulling your hands in, they are heading towards the danger zone and suddenly accelerating can be just like being pulled in.

Puckdropper

[krw]

Good point but I'd think an alarm should go off in your head when it doesn't feed evenly.

I've had that happen on a RAS, ripping bowed wood (rubbing against the guard "nose"). The abnormal resistance is a warning.

[Scott Lurndal]

So what? The OP compared a RAS to a CMS, not a tablesaw.

In any case, I'd much rather dado a wide panel on the RAS than the TS.

[Leon]

Actually I have done both, wide dado's on a RAS and a TS. I do many on the TS and IMHO a wide panel along with the rip fence and proper precautions is easier to accomplish than with a RAS. A RAS does have its limits, putting a dado on a 24" wide panel on a TS is a piece of cake. Dado's on narrow panels with a miter gauge is also pretty easy using the rip fence as a repeatable stop.

[Scott Lurndal]

Not when it's 84" long (e.g. a bookshelf side).

[Leon]

Actually I have done this on almost 96" long panels. I have a 50+" rip capacity so getting to the middle of an 8' long panel is no issue.

Take a look here. This was approximately 94" long with 3 dado's on each long panel.

This was approximately 8' wide with a dado dead center and near the ends on the bottom and top panel, 24" deep.

And this was right at 8' wide with dado's for the dividers between the side cabinets and the center. Never mind the French model in the picture. :!)

Actually I build a lot of cabinets with front and back face frames. All plywood panels lock together with dado's and groves and dado's in the mating sides of the front and back face frames have to also align with all of those panels. So accuracy is very important for the x,y,z components and dado's/groves to all come together at the same time.

[Scott Lurndal]

We'll have to agree to disagree. Cross-cutting six or seven dados on a 84" (or 96")x16 shelf support is a pain on a tablesaw, particularly if one is space-constrained. Much easier to simply slide it along on the RAS extensions (which double as workbench surface).

[Markem]

My choice would be a router

[Just Wondering]

If you have room for RAS extensions that size, you also have room to support the work coming off a table saw. I fail to see how, if you're sliding a long board across a sawblade, it's easier to slide it on a RAS table than on a table saw table.

[krw]

I'd rather use a router but that's just me.

[DerbyDad03]

Hard to cut steel plates on a CMS. Not so hard on a RAS.

Multiple shallow cuts, lowering the blade each time.

BTDT...many times.

[-MIKE-]

I'm sorry, but your failure to see how it would easier to move a saw across an 8'x16" piece of plywood than it would be to move that piece of plywood, sideways, across a tablesaw shows that you never done either.

[-MIKE-]

For that particular operation, I would probably go to my router and my dado jig. I would have it done in the time it took me to put the dado stack on my RAS and set the height properly. However, if I had a bunch to do, I might go with the RAS for the horsepower and better dust collection, plus i could set up some stops for repeated cuts.

[Just Wondering]

I have actually done both. That kind of "cross" moving on a table saw is easy with a simple sled. I had a RAS and got rid of it, and have never regretted doing it.

[Leon]

Well actually regardless if you are using a TS or a RAS you are moving the work either on top of or under a blade. Having used both for years, starting with a RAS, I naturally migrated to do all cutting on a TS. I kept the RAS until I upgraded to a saw with 48"+ rip capacity, I even quit using my CMS after that.

[Leon]

Not a problem at all, I was not wanting to get in to which is better debate and I am glad that it did not go there. But as some of my pictures showed, 24" long dado's would be pretty tough on most RAS's.

FWIW that 50+" to the right of the blade doubles as a workbench surface for me. ;~)

[-MIKE-]

I have a sled, too, and it doesn't support the other 6 feet of plywood hanging off the side of the saw, when cutting near the end of an 8ft board. My RAS is built into the workbench that run lengthwise in the shop and easily supports 10 or 12 feet in both directions of whatever I'm crosscutting.

[-MIKE-]

The whole point is that you're *not* moving the work during the cut with a RAS, you're moving the saw. All things equal, it's much easier to move the saw on a RAS than to move an 8'x16" piece of plywood, sideways, on s TS.

This concept is proven by the growing popularity of track saws, no?