I'm with you entirely, Jim.
When my Dad had a furniture business we had a fantastic, but simple, tablesaw, known then as a dimension saw, for cutting rails to length, largely, before dowel jointing. But then we had a factory with lots of space, and the saw pretty much performed that one job.
In the average home workshop I'm far from convinced it's the best solution considering the amount of space it takes up. There are many good ways to cut tenons, and a well set up bandsaw is just as good for ripping (if not better). If you use enough sheet materials to justify a tablesaw for cutting up panels you probably have an industrial or semi-industrial workshop with enough space already. For those of use cutting up sheet materials very occasionally we will find it quite difficult to manhandle 8x4s around our small workshops anyway.
That said a tablesaw is fantastic for cutting up smaller pieces of sheet material or solid wood panels, to produce accurate and repeatable panels, but even for that sort of job you need a fair amount of space. We are testing a Kity for exactly that purpose at the moment.
Interestingly I have just finished work on a 6x8ft shed to see how much woodwork can be done in such a space. It will have a small bandsaw, a small lathe, some sharpening gear, a small planer-thicknesser, a Woodrat, a lightweight drill press if I can fit that in, and possibly a router table. I want to see how much can be achieved with this setup. I'm tempted to think that the Woodrat might be able to replace both a tablesaw and router table, which would be a significant saving in money and space. Obviously batch production can't be achieved in such a small workshop, but it is nice being snug and it is more realistic for many woodworkers who are just starting out or don't have the space or money for more kit.
I'll tell you how I get on. If I knew how to do it I'd start a blog!!!
Cheers
Nick
I've just realized i still have'nt read the
