Charnwood 305 DB sliding Mitre Saw

[Lazurus]

Has anyone any direct experience of the quality and accuracy of this? I like the idea of the space saving offered by the fixed bars and sliding head - Also a good price at £275 for a 12" saw but never had any charnwood machinery so unsure of build quality and customer service?

 

[user22161]

One thing to check, is how the swivel table locates, does it have positive indents for the various angles - 90/45 degrees etc or, does it just require the user to line up an arrow against a mark? If the latter, I wouldn't buy it.

 

[Lazurus]

Has all the regular angles preset with indents, just seems too good a price for this size saw.

 

[Fidget]

I bought this saw when I was first buying tools for my shed about 3 years ago because the price seemed right. In my opinion it's fine for rough work, but I could never get consistent, clean or completely straight cuts from it!

I spent quite a long time (as a novice at this kind of thing) trying to fettle it into shape and buying a good blade, but to no avail.

I ended up buying the Kapex when Festool and FFX were both doing offers, the results are like chalk and cheese, and I don't really miss the extra capacity of the 12" blade.

It's now sitting in my garage waiting for the secondary log store build :roll:

If there are any other questions about it I can help with/try and answer for you...

Maybe I just got a 'Friday' one, YMMV

 

[Lazurus]

Hmmmm, that was my fear - its no good if it is not accurate, I will keep looking. Anyone recommend a better saw?

 

[RichardG]

I have a Bosch GCM 8 SJL 216mm which I’m happy with. It has a 70mm depth cut which is very good for a 216mm blade saw. My only issue is the size of the thing, the 312mm cut means the rails stick out the back a long way. I have thought a number of times about looking for a replacement using fixed rails but have never found anything in a similar price range that matched. Looks like you may be after a much greater but though if you’re considering 12 inch saws?

 

[user22161]

I'm very happy with my Bosch GCM10SD but it's far more expensive than the Charnwood - https://shop.bosch-professional.com/gb/ ... 0601B20542

I've had a couple of cheaper makes but in both cases wasn't happy and lost money selling them on.