Table Saw Advice.

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Paul alan

Established Member
Joined
11 Sep 2020
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Location
Wales
Hi, I'm new to the forum and joined here to speak to like-minded people.

I started woodworking 11 months ago and have been totally hooked ever since, I wake in the middle of the night most nights thinking about whatever project I might be working on. I can't wait to get in from work each day so I can go outside in the shed and cut up some wood!

I have 2 kids and a mortgage so everything has to be done on a budget, of course, I have suffered huge frustrations trying to do accurate work with cheap tools. The amount of stuff I have bought and sent back as it's not straight or properly aligned is crazy.

I made myself a table saw form an inverted track saw which honestly was fairly good, but I was in a 6x8 shed which housed 2 kids bikes and at 6 3" was a squeeze to say the least.

I have now been able to make a dream come true and have built a 12 x 10 workshop in the garden, the amount of space I have now in comparison is awesome. I sometimes sit in there on my handmade mortise and tenon stool and marvel.

I bought myself an Einhell tables saw, the one with the sliding miter. It only cost £240.00 which for me is affordable. Now I know for sure that you only ever get what you pay for in this life so I wasn't expecting too much. One thing I have learned though is that sometimes you can tune a cheap thing up until it becomes acceptable, I have done this myself, and its how I'm affording woodworking.

The fence is rubbish, the miter is rubbish, both as expected. But all I really want is the motor and blade as I'm building a workbench for the saw and will be making a fence and sled etc. The blade was out of alignment from the table and miter slots, with no information on this model of saw I managed to re-align the blade and changed it for a Freud. The cuts were not very good, there were loads semi-circles all down the length of the rip cuts.

I found that the blade seems to be off when I slowly rotate it and put my combination square in the miter slot the teeth touch for half a revolution but then don't touch for the other half. I doubt I can fix this issue so therefore the saw is going back as faulty.

Which after all that babbling leads to me my question, which saw to go for?

I'm really leaning towards the bosch gts, its around £450 which is the top end of my budget, but it looks solid and reliable which is important to me.

I want something I can achieve a level of accuracy with, I would like to pop a sled on it and do things like tenons and dados etc.
I can easily build it into a bench and may even be able to use the fence on this one?

I also really like the Dewalt in the same kind of spec, the rack and pinion fence is very appealing to me but the cut depth is less on this and I wonder if I might regret that one day? The Dewalt also seem hard to find in 240 volt for a decent price, maybe out of my budget.

Any advice welcome.

Many thanks

Paul
 
Its a real challenge getting started. Its always struck me that its at the beginning you need good kit, as you get more experienced you can often work around the not so good kit.

A table saw is certainly one of the first “big” tools you need, and either the bosch or dewalt will be an improvement. If you stick with it I think you may be looking to upgrade again in a few years. They are both still fairly small saws and there is a lot you cant really do with them.

you mention dados and tenons. How about a home made router table for the former? It will serve you in good stead for years And the router will be very useful anyway. (I - more or less - fitted out my first house with a Bosch pof500!) For the latter a good tenon saw and chisel. It takes longer but its really good practice for dovetails :)

Im certainly not putting you off, just thinking about options.

good luck, and yes it is a hobby for life! Definately!
 
I have the dewalt 745. Its a very good contractor saw that can be moved about quite easily and yes, the fence is amazingly good. But it is noisy, no question.
Recently that saw has been discontinued in the UK for one with a smaller blade, due to some H%S rule I'm a bit vague about.
If you can find a 745 with the 255 mm blade, even used, it will be as good as you can get for 500 quid new.
I have fitted a 265 mm blade to mine, but that is apparently not recommended, although it works very well for me.
 
I have been hand tools mostly up to now and would say I’m “competent “ I can make most joints seamlessly on a good day as I have practiced over and over.
I do have a router, and a mounted one too but don’t find I can make really nice clean tenons etc with it, not the same as with saw.

I can definitely do dados with it, but I want to have the capacity to do a variety of things with tools and then work out which way is best for me I suppose.

I’m just learning as many different ways as I can to increase my own capabilities, and really enjoying the process.

I love hand tool work, it’s been very satisfying struggling with a technique or joint the finally getting it right. But I work 6 days most weeks and having 2 kids etc I find my time limited.

I spent months practicing sawing trying to get it perfect, then I made a shooting board so I could make the cut into a lovely clean joinery ready joint, I did some mice clean work. Then when building my workshop the wife bought me chopsaw for my birthday and the results were instant perfection!

I think if I learn power tools I can make way more stuff over my life time.
 
Yeah, routers are not great for cutting tenons!

i must admit I find small table saws frustrating. Not the blade diameter so much as not having a bullet proof fence with plenty of room on the saw bed and a decent sliding table. But thats ‘cos i tend to build furniture and need to cut reasonably sized panels accurately. (I Size with a track saw & trim on the table saw).

the problem is that there is a heck of a price gap between the ones you are looking at and the baby panel’ish saws. Difficult to justify.
 
Paul,

One thing to consider is an alternative tool for the fast dimensioning of your planks into furniture parts. Many would recommend a bandsaw as more versatile than a table saw. Some claim to be able to get joint-quality cuts with a bandsaw although I admit that I've never managed that myself. A table saw of good quality with a fine blade can make precise joints with far less effort. Band-sawn joints (of mine, at least) always need some perfecting with a shoulder plane, chisel or router plane. But David Charlesworth, for example, uses a fish blade (one for cutting frozen fish, I think) to make accurate joints on a bandsaw. That blade is more like a knife than a saw, I believe.

But .... if you're already adept at hand tooling joints, you could use a bandsaw to make them accurately + 0.5mm or so then finish them with the hand tools. I have done this and can tell you it greatly speeds up the processes of joint making compared with doing it entirely by hand - especially for us amateurs lacking the 300 hour practice to perfect the tenons and such so they are right first time from our resharpened 150 year old tenon saw from the car boot. :) Bandsaw the tenon (or even dovetails) then finish their surface with an appropriate sharp hand tool.

A bandsaw of decent quality is probably half the cost of a tablesaw of similar quality. It's not so good at the cross cutting but you have a chop saw, so that might not matter. It can resaw wider planks than can a tablesaw. And it can do curves. The curve cuts are indispensable for many styles of furniture. A tablesaw can't do them in any practical and safe way.

Eshmiel
 
Hi Eshmiel, Gosh how could I have forgotten about that trick of tenoning on a band saw. Yep its certainly a good option. Thanks for reminding me. The next batch of tenons I do get done that way!
 
Paul,

One thing to consider is an alternative tool for the fast dimensioning of your planks into furniture parts. Many would recommend a bandsaw as more versatile than a table saw. Some claim to be able to get joint-quality cuts with a bandsaw although I admit that I've never managed that myself. A table saw of good quality with a fine blade can make precise joints with far less effort. Band-sawn joints (of mine, at least) always need some perfecting with a shoulder plane, chisel or router plane. But David Charlesworth, for example, uses a fish blade (one for cutting frozen fish, I think) to make accurate joints on a bandsaw. That blade is more like a knife than a saw, I believe.

But .... if you're already adept at hand tooling joints, you could use a bandsaw to make them accurately + 0.5mm or so then finish them with the hand tools. I have done this and can tell you it greatly speeds up the processes of joint making compared with doing it entirely by hand - especially for us amateurs lacking the 300 hour practice to perfect the tenons and such so they are right first time from our resharpened 150 year old tenon saw from the car boot. :) Bandsaw the tenon (or even dovetails) then finish their surface with an appropriate sharp hand tool.

A bandsaw of decent quality is probably half the cost of a tablesaw of similar quality. It's not so good at the cross cutting but you have a chop saw, so that might not matter. It can resaw wider planks than can a tablesaw. And it can do curves. The curve cuts are indispensable for many styles of furniture. A tablesaw can't do them in any practical and safe way.

Eshmiel
Yes I do realise the potential of a band saw and its definitely on my list of wants.

The one great benefit I have found of using a tables saw is being able to do repeat cuts quickly and accurately.

I love being able to set the fence and know that whatever passes between that and the blade will be "x" dimension over and over.

I love the versatility and speed, lifes short hey.
 
I had a bandsaw for years before I bought the table saw. Bandsaws are great versatile tools, couldnt do what I do without one. But not a lot of use on multiple straight pieces to the same dimensions.
 
I had a bandsaw for years before I bought the table saw. Bandsaws are great versatile tools, couldnt do what I do without one. But not a lot of use on multiple straight pieces to the same dimensions.

Ripping on a bandsaw takes longer than on a table saw but if the bandsaw is set up well and is of decent quality, it is possible to accurately cut multiple straight pieces of the same dimension - much quicker than resawing them with a panel saw at least. But the finish of the cut isn't usually clean enough. And bandsaws seem temperamental, going out of whack a bit when you change a blade or even look at them wrong so the cuts stop going where they should. But the resawing of big planks! The curves!

I too much prefer a table saw to a band saw for dimensioning timber and doing machined joints. I have a Scheppach 10 inch blade TS with a large cross cut carriage that cuts cleanly and precisely to 0.1mm accuracy, both ripping and cross cutting, with the right blades for the type of cut. It'll also slice up a sheet of posh plywood or blockboard without mangling the edges of the nice veneer surfaces. My bandsawn pieces were cut accurately but never cleanly enough that they didn't need significant planing down to the exact size. It murdered the edges of plywood.

When I moved house to one with a smaller shed, the winnowing of the large tools for which there wouldn't be room saw the bandsaw rather than the tablesaw going. I have to do the curves with a jigsaw now; and resaw large planks by hand. That is very, very tedious.

Eshmiel
 
I was looking at the scheppach table saws in Screwfix, I read that an induction motor might be beneficial (quiter-neighbors complained to the council when I was doing some extended router work).

Which model is yours mate?
 
Bear in mind that the actual cutting of the wood is noisy as well as the motor noise. If your neighbours are that sensitive it might be best to sound insulate before buying a saw.
Check the specs of each saw, they have to list the Decibels made (Db) that might be a determining factor for you.
 
The neighbours ain’t quiet themselves.

I’ll work within the the local council guidelines and try to do my power tools work at the middle of the day when possible.

the complaint came through at the beginning of lockdown and I was gleefully working away all day, so I can understand why. Probably a combination of my noise and their frustration at the situation combined.

I have mentioned to them I’m sorry about the noise etc, and told them to let me know if it’s a problem.
 
During the lockdown I ran a breaker/jackhammer for over 12 hours a day for three days, I'm amazed we didn't get a single complaint because you could hear the thing going for miles! :ROFLMAO:
 
I was looking at the scheppach table saws in Screwfix, I read that an induction motor might be beneficial (quiter-neighbors complained to the council when I was doing some extended router work).

Which model is yours mate?

It's a TS 2500 CI with the RH side table extension (a very sturdy but fold-down item) and the larger sliding carriage on the LH side. Cast iron top, 3hp 250V induction motor and plenty of precision. I believe the current version is entitled Scheppach Precisa 4.0. They aren't inexpensive, though - getting on for £3000 now if you want all the bits and the larger sliding carriage. I paid about half that for mine some 16 years ago.

It's a lesser version of their industrial range but for a hobbyist it's probably the sort of thing that's best bang for buck, in that it might not be made for working 6 days a week for 8 hours a day but stays well-adjusted and precise for years without undue attention. Plenty of capacity and power
Scheppach ts 2500 ci-1.jpg
Scheppach ts 2500 ci-2.jpg
Scheppach ts 2500 ci-3.jpg
These days it's connected to a much larger dust sucker and is clad with magnetic hold downs.

You can buy a sort of dado blade thing for it - more like a small diameter but thicker saw blade with just a few teeth shaped for grooving. But this item costs rather more than I'm willing to pay.

https://www.dm-tools.co.uk/product.php/section//sn/SCHPRECISA4DEAL1#.X141hxBKj18
Eshmiel
 
It's a TS 2500 CI with the RH side table extension (a very sturdy but fold-down item) and the larger sliding carriage on the LH side. Cast iron top, 3hp 250V induction motor and plenty of precision. I believe the current version is entitled Scheppach Precisa 4.0. They aren't inexpensive, though - getting on for £3000 now if you want all the bits and the larger sliding carriage. I paid about half that for mine some 16 years ago.

It's a lesser version of their industrial range but for a hobbyist it's probably the sort of thing that's best bang for buck, in that it might not be made for working 6 days a week for 8 hours a day but stays well-adjusted and precise for years without undue attention. Plenty of capacity and power View attachment 92117View attachment 92118View attachment 92119These days it's connected to a much larger dust sucker and is clad with magnetic hold downs.

You can buy a sort of dado blade thing for it - more like a small diameter but thicker saw blade with just a few teeth shaped for grooving. But this item costs rather more than I'm willing to pay.

https://www.dm-tools.co.uk/product.php/section//sn/SCHPRECISA4DEAL1#.X141hxBKj18
Eshmiel
Very nice mate, like TS porn for me !
 
Very nice mate, like TS porn for me !

Here's an option - an expensive one but a goodly dollop knocked off in their promotion: A Festool site saw of high quality, with a decent cutting capacity, a sliding carriage and that Yank sawstop tech to stop you cutting orf your fingers just to annoy the NHS. :giggle:

https://www.dm-tools.co.uk/product.php/section/12014/sn/FES575831#.X15T9BBKj18
They even have a vid of a dafty sticking his thumb into the blade! What some lads will do for 15 seconds of fame.

Eshmiel
 
Eshmiel,
That's a big chunk out of my workshop (garage) I can ill-afford, but a lovely bit of kit!

Did you notice this monster when you were at that website?

https://www.dm-tools.co.uk/product.php/section/7129/sn/MAFMKS185E#.X18uMhBKj18
I have often looked at this beast with a feeling of longing; but also a feeling of how much it would hurt should the beast escape one's control. The price is pretty eye-watering too. :) Still, imagine what you could resaw with that!

Eshmiel
 

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