SCMS question.

[Leon]

Hummm. ;~)

[Leon]

LOL..... Yeah, I have done it many times, But no longer.

[David Starr]

An SCMS won't rip, it just does crosscuts. For crosscuts, you can do 'em with a hand saw, a power saw is just a luxury. But a long rip cut, especially in 2" stock, is ultra tedious with a hand saw. I'd be reluctant to trade a radial arm saw for a SCMS, the RAS will do all the crosscuts a SCMS will do, and a lot more that the SCMS cannot do. All my projects require ripping stock to width, wood never comes from the lumber yard in the width I need.

David Starr

[David Starr]

And what is it that makes a RAS more dangerous than a table saw? I can remember my old man getting some really scary kickbacks on his table saw. My RAS hasn't kicked back on me since a bought it a carbide blade a dozen years ago. Both RAS and table saw are very dangerous and I treat both of them with a whole lot of respect.

David Starr

[J. Clarke]

Try crosscutting a dozen pieces with a compound miter using a handsaw and getting them all the same.

While the radial saw will do any cut that a SCMS will do, the SCMS, if it's a good one, is a lot less finicky about tuning.

[dpb]

J. Clarke wrote: ...

And the same could be said simply reversing the two...

[J. Clarke]

Not really. A radial arm saw has more degrees of freedom and a larger range of motion, hence more attention to alignment is required. That's the price you pay to have a tool with greater capability.

[dpb]

"If it's a good one" is the operative phrase here...

[mac davis]

Good point... AFAIK, the SCMS replaces the CMS, right? Why have 2 CMS's?

I got a table saw a few months ago, and with it and my (non-sliding) CMS I didn't see a need for my RAS taking up space..

A friend talked me into keeping it.. as he pointed out, even having it under a tarp in the yard was better than getting the few bucks from selling it and NOT having it when it was the best tool for the job..

Up to the neighbors, now.. lol

mac

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[mac davis]

I find that I split my dado work about 50/50 between saw and router... Depends a lot on width/depth/length of the dado or rabbit..

Also, when using a saw for dado work, I prefer the RAS to the table saw..

mac

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[mac davis]

I don't have a SCMS so I don't know if they have alignment problems that a CMS doesn't have, but as far as my old Crapsman laser (which I won't waste the money for a new battery on) CMS, if I set it for 90 degree cuts and get it aligned in all the needed directions, it will give me consistent square cuts for a LONG time, if no one messes with it.. If I could say the same thing for my RAS I wouldn't have bothered building a rolling stand for the CMS..

mac

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[mac davis]

Hell yes... that's why I paid the whopping $50 for it and immediately ordered an anti-kickback setup for it for another $65...

The table and fence are 6' long and when ripping long boards it's much more stable that my TS.. Also, I'm much more out of the way of possible kickback on the RAS than the TS.. Not sure about a ball bearing sled.. I guess I'm too cheap for one of those.. lol

I've seen some really scary pictures here of folks stopping boards with their bodies when using a TS... when I'm ripping with the RAS, it's "target area" is to my left, about 2 feet from me... Much safer that on the TS, IMO...

mac

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[mac davis]

Not standing directly in front of the saw/motor might have helped a bit...

I've seen so many stupid things done with saws at lumber yards that I'm amazed that any of those folks still own their own hands..

Best one I've seen so far was the guy that brought our plywood to the panel saw on a fork lift and was lining up the 1st cut when the fork lift decided that since he didn't bother to set the brake, it would come visit him.. he got out of the way, but they were instantly in the market for a new panel saw..

mac

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[mac davis]

Again, I can't speak for a SCMS, but having both a RAS and a CMS, if I'm looking for repeated cuts to length, I'll use the CMS every time, unless the stock is too wide for it..

mac

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[J. Clarke]

Well, then you get into a multi thousand dollar industrial tool that needs a crew and a hoist to deliver vs something that one person can toss into the back seat of a car.

[David Starr]

No contest. I use my RAS for all my crosscuts too. The power tool does better cuts than I can do by hand. The point is, a power saw that won't rip leaves you ripping by hand. Given the choice of doing all my rips by hand or all my crosscuts by hand, I'll take the crosscuts, and do the rips with a power saw. Not having the bucks or the floor space for a whole lot of tools, I think a RAS or a table saw is a better deal than a chop saw/SCMS 'cause the one tool can both crosscut and rip. The chop saw/SCMS is cross cut only. Notice that house framers will bring both a SCMS and a table saw to the job so as to be able both rip and crosscut.

Finicky? A good RAS (in my case a second hand 1960's Craftsman) stays in alignment for a long long time. I slap a square on the occasional fresh cut just to be sure the tool is still cutting square, but I only pull out the Allen wrenches and adjust my RAS maybe once a year, when the square tells me I have a problem.

David Starr

[Max]

"David Starr" wrote

My Craftsman RAS is about the same age. I check it any time I'm starting on an important project but my experience is that it only needs tweaking about every 2 years. I should add, though, that I only use it for 90 degree cuts.

Max

[J. Clarke]

Cutting square isn't so much an issue. It's cutting angles and then returning to square that gets to be problematical.

[dpb]

That again is a function of quality -- no problem w/ mine.

[J. Clarke]

So how much would one of these wonders that you have cost today?