Radial Arm Saws or Cross cut

[Anonymous]

:twisted:
Has anyone purchased a radial arm saw. Is there a reasonable model for under £600, the dewalt seems to start around this price. Screwfix are selling a Charnwood for £600, and the Hegner UNICUT 2 is £200 and the Eumenia is around £500 (but i think they don't exist anymore)
Can anyone feed back some information on the above, quality or accuracy.

 

[Noel]

Alot of it depends what you intend to build. For most cutting operations a decent quality sliding mitre saw will address most tasks. I bought a DW 720 in 02, kept it for 3 or 4 months, found I didn't really use it enough to justify the expense and sold it on. Lost about £50 so not too painful. The extra cross cut capacity was handy on very rare occasions, I didn't need to rip with it and had no use for an overhead router.
DeWalt seem to have the best design although I haven't used the other models mentioned. If I was in your position again I'd do my level best to find an old Power Shop version (mostly green as opposed to yellow) for about £200 and ensure the arm bearings and bearing surfaces are in good order. Would imagine Scrit would have more information on the old Power Shop models.

Rgds

Noel

 

[Ham]

I've a Powershop Radial arm saw purchased some 20 years ago. It is now very worn and consequentially inaccurate. Spare parts have been non-existent for many years. Although the saw provided me with years of very good service it had one very big fault - one needed to wear two pairs of eardefenders due to the noise!

Cheers

David

 

[Chris Knight]

I used to get into all sorts of heated debates about the merits of a RAS but basically gave up when it became clear that (a) no-one really believed me and (b) that you cannot buy a new RAS, in the UK at least, which is half as good as a very old DeWalt.

Much of their attraction (eg versatility) has been eroded by EC rules (try buying a moulding head for one) the ever decreasing quality of new saws - seemingly determined to prove those people right who say they are not accurate and the rise of SCMS etc.

My advice, despite being an ardent admirer of a good RAS, is don't get one unless you are sure it's the tool you want and you fully understand all the implications