Mitre saw madness

[Shrubby]

Interesting that Metabo used the Holzher symmetric fence design. Maybe someone has been back through the archives to when Festo,Holzher and Metabo were collaborating. The Metabo mitre saw sold then (kgs 1670)passed the German wood dust emission test so they have a track record in that area
Matt

 

[Nelsun]

I have to confess to watching the video over and over a few times now. Two things have stuck:

1) You see a good puff of dust (e.g. at 1:29) not get collected when the blade starts the cut.
2) The rotating fences, while a clever way of getting a mitre bang on with seaming ease, offer nothing to stop wooden bullets getting fired out the back.

Both are little niggles that would be pretty hard to circumvent IMHO. I'd still like one. Santa? You listening? Only nine months to go :ho2

 

[Nelsun]

Well Santa was obviously listening and delivered one today. I've been after a smaller saw with no rear footprint for a while so it was a tossup between the Metabo or KS60. The latter being more dosh for probably higher quality but less capacity and no sliding symmetrical fence. Initial impressions are good: positive stops on common angles with overrides, lots of knobs that feel good and give a reasuring click when engaged and the twin rails slide oh so smoothly.

I've yet to see how accurately it's set up out of the box and what fettling is needed. Oh, and how it cuts... but wine beckons so that'll have to wait.

One surprise feature is the OKish hold down in that it goes where they normally go but also horizontally to squash fodder against the rear fence.

First niggle is there's no blade brake which means it's about 6 or 7 seconds before the blade stops at higher woody speeds. This is something that bugged me about my 12" Dewalt but I could forgive it due to the size of the blade being harder to stop.

If anyone's interested in more impressions let me know.

 

[Alexfn]

yes please!

 

[No skills]

Yes

 

[Eric The Viking]

I missed this thread first time around -- what a really nice thing!

Nelsun: how good is the mitre-fence movement - any slop in it, and can you adjust the two halves, so as to get it spot-on?

The whole thing looks really neat and ought to be accurate if done well, and at the price it's very tempting. I also like the trenching facility (my old KGS300, whilst accurate, can't do that), and the work stand.

But... the Metabo UK site (Deutch, aber auf Englisch), is rubbish* as the poor transliterations of the technical stuff makes it impossible to compare the specs properly, as you can't work out easily what they mean (e.g. it can't have 75" depth of cut!).

On the dust collection thing, it's obviously very good, and you can't expect it to work perfectly at the start of the cut, as the blade isn't cutting in the same part of its arc. I doubt any saw would do well, unless it had some sort of blade guard/hood that covered the top of the workpiece -- and most of us probably wouldn't want that as you want to see what's happening.

E.

*Metabo UK: if you're reading this, your company has obviously spent a lot on web design, and then spoiled it with rubbish copywriting and translation. What a shame! Feel free to get in touch: Professionally speaking, I can probably help...

 

[Nelsun]

The 72" depth of cut is real people! Those clever Germans It'll be a number of days until I get a feel for it as other things to do first unfortunately

 

[MikeJhn]

I also missed this thread first time around, looking at the video I was impressed and thought I need one of those, started shopping around for the best price which gave me time to think about it, I had just been carried away with the thought of it, my present Makita cuts perfectly well and has an accuracy on mitres that allow glue up without putting anything through the guillotine, funny how you can get caught up in tool envy without needing to be.

Best price I came up with was from ffx at £548.00: https://www.ffx.co.uk/tools/product/Met ... -Mitre-Saw

Mike

 

[Nelsun]

I managed to get sh*t done and spend a couple of arse numbing hours in the shed yesterday with assorted rulers and gauges to try and see just how precise this precision marketed saw was. TL;DR - hmmmm (hammer)

So this is him:

for scale this is it against a 900mm rule

Things I liked

Rear carry handle that folds up flush against the back

The hold down can go horizontally on left and right side

Fine enough trenching stop that's not too fiddly

The overall subjective feeling is good. Not great (that feeling is reserved for only a handful of tools) but I didn't lump it out of the box and immediately get that what-have-I-done sinking feeling.

Things I didn't like

The table "extensions" extend a whopping 75mm either side

The left fence was obviously off. The picture doesn't quite do it justice!

After checking the blade was at 90 to the right fence I used it to reference off to get the left one sorted out. I rested the woodpecker rule on a couple of shims on the saw table so I could then get some clamps on it to hold everything in place while I tightened up the bolts securing the left fence.

Moving the top section of the fence exposes 3 bolts to slacken to make adjustments

After a few attempts I got there

More in next post...

 

[MikeJhn]

At least it has the facility for adjustment, looking forward to more insights.

Mike

 

[ghettoblaster]

After owning the last generation 315 metabolism mitre saw it can safely say I will never buy another metabolism product! The saw is the most flimsy, inaccurate toy I have ever had the displeasure of owning. The motor was the only good thing about it.
I now have a kapex 120 and would not look back. Metabo are not what they used to be and I would not be throwing money in their direction any time soon. As far as I'm concerned they have really slipped in the last 10 years. If I want a tool I can rely on I avoid the metabo brand.

 

[Nelsun]

The predefined stops need some more looking at but they didn't give me a huge amount of joy at first glance. I released the bevel stop lock so the saw head moved freely from side to side and locked it down with the blade at 90 degrees to the table:

I then attached a magnetic angle finder and zeroed it

I re-engaged the bevel stop lock and tried moving it from left to right and seeing whether the digital doo-da returned to 0. It turned out that if you entered the 90 degree stop raising the saw from the left you'd be dead on. Raising the saw from the other side locked it consistently 0.3 degrees out. Not good but I can live with that I supposed. It'll need an eye keeping on it before any trust relationship gets built I thought!

I then carried on to check out the other positive bevel positive stops: 22.5, 33.9 and 45:

Not what I'd call outstanding results! Thinking about it now, I didn't have the saw clamped down to the bench so there's a chance of the shifting weight influencing things. Anyroad, I decided to leave the bevel stops there until I see how to tweak the stops... assuming you can... and likely resort to setting them manually or making some jigs when I'm bored.

This thing has lasers and a LED light. I marked up a piece of scrap with 2 lines at 90 degrees and stuck it up against the fence

Looks good to me! Nothing is ever quite perfect though as the 2 black roller wheels on the blade guard block out sections of the lasers as it raises up. I'll wait and see where the lasers point at and where the kerf actually goes at a later date. They are adjustable too and I brought the right laser just a hair closer to the blade to prove it. I'd still say I prefer the Dewalt XPS lighting (and now on the KS60 I believe) however as it doesn't need calibrating, works automatically with differing kerfs and isn't obscured by anything although you do have to drop the blade down nearer the wood to see it.

By this time the fingers were about to start snapping with the cold so I had only a quick look at the sliding fence wizardry. With the positive stops engaged I swung it into the 90 degree position and stuck in my square. Nice.

As of the time of writing I haven't actually cut anything with it yet! I have a 36mm hose enroute so I'm waiting for it to arrive before seeing what the DC is like. Tomorrow hopefully!

 

[Fitzroy]

Interesting read, given me a bunch of things to think about and check on my own saw. Once you've completed your review and testing, i'd suggest you change the thread title to include some verbiage about the saw make and model and it being an in-depth review. Would be way easier to find once lost in the barrage of threads a year down the line.

F.

 

[pike]

Thanks nelsun. I'm interested in a furniture accurate very portable mitre saw but only if it can come close to Kapex dust collection ( ..and ideally with a good UG style cart).

 

[transatlantic]

I was testing my saw for accuracy the other day (Ryobi) and it was very frustrating. I found that if I set the saw up using a square or angle box to the exact values I need, then the resulting cut would be consistently off. I know the square is dead on, not sure about the angle box though.

Yet if I don't set it up using a square or angle box and instead just make a cut, measure, tweak slightly, make another cut (repeat until correct), I could consistently get accurate cuts.

Not sure what is going on, I suspect it is down to some play somewhere, but it feels pretty rigid.

 

[Nelsun]

Thanks nelsun. I'm interested in a furniture accurate very portable mitre saw but only if it can come close to Kapex dust collection ( ..and ideally with a good UG style cart).

I'm planning to try out a 27 and 36mm hose on this saw and also on my 12" Dewalt monster and see how they compare. The marketing blurb for the Metabo lists exceptional DC so here's hoping.

 

[custard]

The predefined stops need some more looking at but they didn't give me a huge amount of joy at first glance. I released the bevel stop lock so the saw head moved freely from side to side and locked it down with the blade at 90 degrees to the table

....

As of the time of writing I haven't actually cut anything with it yet! I have a 36mm hose enroute so I'm waiting for it to arrive before seeing what the DC is like. Tomorrow hopefully!

That's a useful post Nelsun, objective, informative, and it's refreshing to read something that goes beyond the normal superficial fanboy nonsense. You clearly thought about how you'd evaluate performance and then set about it in a systematic and rigorous fashion. I'm sure you'll overcome these issues and simply knowing about them will help you achieve accurate work. Thanks for posting.

=D>

 

[pike]

Here in known as nelsun aka Mr Mitre. Can you do the KS60 next please? ;-)

 

[Nelsun]

Here in known as nelsun aka Mr Mitre. Can you do the KS60 next please? ;-)

I'll send you my address if you arrange delivery (homer) Wondering if the KS60 is 99.9% spot on is something that's going to niggle away at me. The build quality (assuming it's up to normal Festool levels) will almost certainly be better than the Metabo.

That's a useful post Nelsun, objective, informative, and it's refreshing to read something that goes beyond the normal superficial fanboy nonsense. You clearly thought about how you'd evaluate performance and then set about it in a systematic and rigorous fashion. I'm sure you'll overcome these issues and simply knowing about them will help you achieve accurate work. Thanks for posting.

=D>

Thank you kindly Custard. I do hope to arrive at the end of it all with an accurate saw (that is a selling point that Metabo make about it after all) but the admittedly cursory look at the predefined stops has me wondering. There's that many knobs on it, how one adjusts the stops isn't immediately obvious without taking it to bits (the mitre detents are part of the base unit) and likely end up making it worse. Softly softly is the order of the day me thinks.

 

[pike]

Just noticed you can get the same saw without the SYM feature. £100 less. Then again it's about the same size and is only 2kg lighter.