My neighbor down the street has a Ryobi. I just smile at him when I am resawing hickory with full 3.5" blade height without even slowing down the motor on my 3 hp Grizzly cabinet saw. He likes his Ryobi, but he does understand the limitations. The Grizzly has been an outstanding saw, great fit and finish. No complaints.
I can't afford that one! I meant the 10' one.
JM
You can always go with a decent used saw. I liked the BT, I just sold mine off in pieces. The sliding miter table was nice but VERY fragile and is a bear to set up.
I just happened across a nice older Craftsman table saw with no rail system which is PERFECT for what I want to do. Will likely go with the Incr TS-3a fence and not have to worry about accuracy anymore. I bought it VERY reasonably.
I considered the BT3100 but didn't want to deal with that miter again.
Well, I know I said I was going to get the BT3100, but I saw the Rigid ones at Home Depot are just a little more and they are belt driven. Isn't that better?
Belt drive IS better, but the 3100 IS belt driven.
Personally, I was a little dissappointed in the torque I get from my 3100 but perhaps I just need to buy a good blade for it. A lot of people swear by the 3100! I'm still holding off judgement.
Peter
Why is it so hard to find vendors for the Ryobi BT3100? They aren't sold at any of the normal online tool vendors that I can find. Anyone got any links of where to get them at a good price? I'm interested in purchasing one. By the way, my local Borgs don't have them.
I had this problem, too, and was unable to find one anywhere. The closest I could find was the Home Depot web site, so I just drove to the store and, lo and behold, they had them! They didn't have one on display, I had to ask the monkey at the counter and he didn't know and he asked the tool manager and he didn't know and they looked in the computer and they had an SKU for them, so they checked their stock and found one for me. That's the only place I've been able to find them. Mine was $299 at Home Despot.
If any of you have a Sears by you (and I'll bet you do) you can buy it under the Craftsman label. Stationary table saw. Its made by Ryobi but isn't that irritating blue and yellow color.
I think they recently ran it on sale for the same $299 price that Home Despot had it for. Prior to that, Sears was charging $450 for it !!!
: I plan to build a bigger shop eventually, but I'm also a gardener, and I : have dozens of trees, shrubs, bushes and various other things I'm not keen : on upsetting, so the maximum dimensions of my future shop aren't going to : be much more than 15x20, if I can manage that much. The BT3100 will : probably still be about the best fit for a shop that size.
Hmm. My shop is 16x16 (plus another 16x5 room for lumber storage), and I have a cabinet saw in there, with room to spare (a mobile base makes all the difference). Plus bandsaw, two lathes, planer, jointer, and DC.
-- Andy Barss
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