Table or Mitre Saw?

[SB]

Hi,

I want to get a new power saw and I thought either a mitre or table saw.

Below is

a) a mitre saw - £30

a table saw - £40

[bridger]

of the two the miter saw looks more like a real machine, to me.

they're both sort of toys, though. expect inadequate power and short service life.

take some time, save your money and look for good older equipment. the older and heavier the better.

[toller]

Obviously it depends on what you want to use them for! For woodworking a table saw is much much much more important than a table saw; while for carpentry a miter saw might be better. However, a crappy table saw (and your link looks like a crappy table saw) is a curse forever. A crappy miter saw (and I own a crappy miter saw, so I know) is simply unpleasant.

[SB]

This one any better?

SB

> b) a table saw - £40

>> Cheers,

[Dan]

On Sat 20 Nov 2004 05:01:39p, "SB" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

I'm in the colonies and I don't know what you're going to be using them for, so use a fairly large grain of salt.

Of the bunch, the miter saw looks to be the better tool. Of course, being

8-inch, it would cut a max of 8 inches wide at 90 degrees, and less than that as you started to cut angles. So for me it would be too limiting.

I sincerely think you'd be better off with a good circular saw than you would be with that benchtop table saw.

But if your purpose is creating small stuff, like boxes or models, then perhaps both of them would serv you just fine. The circular saw wouldn't be very good for cutting smaller, thinner stock, but that little tablesaw would do it just fine. The tablesaw looks like it's intended for modelers, the miter saw looks like it's intended for stock of almost any length but only about an inch thick and six or seven inches wide.

But then, it looks like you've only got 40 or 50 pounds to spend. If you want the most bang for the... if you want the most you can get for what you spend, I lean towards the miter saw.

My two pence. :-)

Dan

[Andy Dingley]

The chop saw is fitted with a 24 tooth blade that's only fit for crude ripping (and you can't rip with a chop). It also has a bizarre 20mm bore, so you'll not find a better blade to fit it.

The table saw is just pitiful. I don't even want to talk about it.

If you don't know which one you need, then you're either hopelessly confused about their function, or you've just got money burning a hole in your pocket. What do you want them _for_ ? What do you want to cut, and will this saw do that type of cut ?

The chop saw is only fit for crude crosscuts, probably just in softwood. This is the very easiest (simplest and less tiring) cut to make by hand. It has no slide or stop, so it can't even cut a halved joint. It can "mitre", which is a feature of near-total uselessness. It's too crude to make picture frame, and what else uses a crude butt joint ? If you're going to make a very poor dog kennel, or maybe some shopfitting, then it might have a function (which it will probably fail to fulfill, but it might try).

A "table saw" isn't such a bad idea. If you get one that works, then it will do useful things for you. But this piece of junk is just taking 40 quid and burning it on rubbish.

200 quid (IMHO) gets you a decent table saw. 100 quid gets you one that has some pretence to usefulness, for the cruder sort of work. 500 quid gets you old industrial iron that will last forever. 40 quid just gets you grief.

You already have a jigsaw and a router. Presumably you also have 40 quid. That's some useful hand tools and some timber. Come back when you've done something more with what you _have_now_. You've got enough to make something with already, you certainly don't _need_ a table saw right this minute.

One of the best things to use a table saw for is ripping stock down to size. This takes a big cheap chunk of wood and turns it into usable sizes. But you can nearly always avoid this by having the timberyard do it for you. It's cheaper to have your own saw, and more convenient

- but you can work around not having it. Where you are at the moment, you're not even needing to do much ripping. Buy your timber as ready sawn and surfaced, it's easier and quicker - you can manage with that for the moment.

That's the problem. 40 quid does not buy you a new saw that you would want to use.

Most tools are rubbish. Nearly all modern tools are. Argos sell junk, to stupid people. Look at their jewellery - for this is where their inherent and inescapable chaviness is most obvious. Now ask yourself why the store that could offer us this:

somehow any further up-market when it comes to woodworking ?

As an alternative, do you know anyone who already has a suitable saw and will either let you use it, or will cut stock down for you ?

[Greg Millen]

(Pssst) Andy,

SB is 13 years old, just starting out. He is also a Brit.

cheers,

Greg

[Dave Balderstone]

Then he's getting good advice at the start, isn't he?

[Robert Galloway]

One man's opinion only. If I could only have one, for the kinds of things I do it would have to be the table saw. Save up for both. :-)

bob g.

SB wrote:

[Prometheus]

saw, IMO. A bad mitre saw is just going to bog down and annoy you, but a bad table saw can be really dangerous. Aut inveniam viam aut faciam

[Prometheus]

Why don't you try out a nice japanese-style handsaw? You can get a nice tool that will last you a long time for the same price you'd pay for a junk power tool that is more likely to be dangerous than useful or fun to use. Power tools can be really nice, and great to use, but if you're just learning woodworking, it's a good idea to start off with the basics. A table saw can be a dangerous tool, especially if it is underpowered, the fence is not square, or the top is not sturdy enough- and I'd bet that the saw you're looking at is guilty of all three of these things.

A mitre saw is not nearly as dangerous when it is low-quality, but a good handsaw and a mitre box is just as easy to use. I made a living as a carpenter for several years without many power tools at all, and my work was just as nice as any of the guys with every power tool under the sun. If you want a powered saw, try looking at a handheld circular saw first, but save up your money a little bit, and get a nice one that will do what you want it to. Later on, when you've got a little more money and some more practice, you'll be able to get tools that are nicer and are *able* to make projects that you'll be proud of for years to come.

If you've got a friend around that knows about tools, maybe a neighbor or an instructor at your school, you might want to sit down with them and go over some of your options before you buy anything. I think it's great that you're so interested in woodworking, and I'm not trying to discourage you at all- I'd just hate to hear that you gave it up because you were frustrated by trying to use the wrong tools for the job.

Good Luck!

Aut inveniam viam aut faciam

[GregP]

You seem to have your heart set on buying a power saw for straight cuts (that is, something other than your jig saw). For the general amount of money that you appear to have available, I think that your best bet, if you just *have* to buy something, is a handheld circular saw. You have to be *very* careful with these. I personally think that you would find something like the following pretty useful:

It's reasonably light and it's easier to handle than the typical circular saw. And I suspect that for the type of cutting you are likely to do in the next year or two, it will be fine: I've cut 1" oak with one of these and ripped an 8' soft wood 2X4. You will have to concentrate, or use a guide, to obtain decent straight cuts. You may also want to replace the blade when you scrounge up some more money. I have no idea how long it is likely to last: I haven't had mine very long and I use other saws most of the time. I also don't know if you can get one or how much it would cost in England, but there should be something like it from another company. I would want to actually pick one up and get a feel for it before committing myself to buying it.

[Sam Berlyn]

Thanks Andy,

I will save for a better one, but for little things like my glasses box, getting those diagonals right really is a pain..

Thanks for the Argos picture lol

Sam

Is somehow any further up-market when it comes to woodworking ?

[Charlie Self]

Sam Berlyn states:

For miters in small work, there must be a company in Blighty that makes and sells something like these Jorgenson maple miter boxes. Use these with a good handsaw and you'll be doing miters the way carpenters and woodworkers have done them for a couple centuries or more. And it works. And is low in cost.

Self "Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing." Redd Foxx

[Sam Berlyn]

Is this mitre saw any better?

Can a table saw actually be DANGEROUS I mean wouldn't that be illegal? If they are both not much good on quality, I'm happy, because I won't use it like a professional, will I.

> b) a table saw - £40

>> Cheers,

[Malcolm Webb]

Ah -- the joys of being 13 -- and what's wrong with being a Brit :-)

A proud Brit, Malcolm Webb

[Malcolm Webb]

B & Q do a nice range of circular saws at a decent price in their Performance Power range for less than the cost of a poor table saw.

Malcolm Webb

[Greg Millen]

What's *wrong* with being a Brit? Well, being an Aussie, where do start? :-)

I mean't that by being a Brit, he will be stubborn enough to whittle a chair with a blunt penknife!

[Andy Dingley]

Emir, in beech. Well worth having. There are cheap plastic ones too, which aren't so good (the slots wear)

Having looked at Sam's plan though, it would still be hard to cut with a mitre box. It's a mitred rip, so that's too long a mitre to cut in a typical mitre box. When I've needed similar things (or board mitres on the ends of skirting boards) I've made my own "tall and narrow" miitre boxes to suit the job. If you have some good timber (beech is good, elm or oak are good too) and you take your time on the cut, then you can make an accurate box. A deep box probably needs to be used with a bow saw, unless you have a very deep tenon saw to hand.

[Andy Dingley]

Ideally you'd cut those mitres with a table saw, either by tilting the blade or by using a sled (it carries the timber at an angle, past a vertical blade).

It would be dangerous to cut them on that "mitre" saw. It's designed to cut mitres the other way.

On the whole though, I wouldn't make your glasses box with mitres. Mitres are a pain - I hate the things. My last mitres were a compound-mitred casket which I cut on the table saw and I splined those (inserted a "feather" of thin timber into a groove) to hold them in place while I assembled them. An unsplined mitre is always a nuisance to assemble because there's nothing positive to hold it accurately in place.

You have a router, so why not try a rebated lap ? Routers are good at rebates. This is just like a butt joint, but you cut a rebate (removing one corner by a square groove) so that the rebate is the width of the board and half the depth. It's easy to glue up because just wrapping the box with elastic bands pulls it tight against the rebate as a "stop".

Rebated laps are a bit ugly, because they expose some end grain (if you make a box that's bigger and shallower). But for your box, you're working with two long grain edges, so that's OK. You can also make the joint, then cut a little chamfer on the outside edge to hide this.

Some very good books (you'll find at least one in the library) are the introductory joinery books by Tage Frid, Ernest Joyce, Robert Wearing and maybe Charles Hayward.