pike":24b2dmgd said:
Bodgers":24b2dmgd said:
Ultimately, these tools are not precise, highly repeatable cabinet making machines so you have to lower your expectations somewhat, especially at the cheaper end.
Except the Kapex 120 and anything around that cost? For nearly a grand they had better be precise and repeatable.
Well that depends. Over the years I've used maybe five or six different Kapex 120 machines, tiny in statistical sample terms, but none the less a pattern does emerge.
The lasers rarely comes accurately set from the factory, you can adjust them but if you get them accurate for one cut they will likely be slightly out for another cut, so basically you choose, bevels or mitres or cross cuts, which do you
most need the laser for? Trenching is perfectly acceptable for most joinery applications, but for fine furniture levels of precision it's a bit too sensitive to feed speed and the amount of downward pressure you exert, if I really concentrate I can get a trenching cut depth accurate to one or two tenths of a mill across a 100mm wide tenon, is that good enough for your purposes? It's not quite good enough for mine so I often need to take a light pass with a shoulder plane to get it where I want it to be. Furthermore the Kapex adjustment mechanism for trenching cuts is fairly crude and often requires a test cut. Are the saw cuts
clean? Pretty clean, especially with a sharp negative rake blade and zero clearance inserts on both the base and the fence, but they're still not
quite as clean as you get from say a Morso guillotine. How precise is the fence and base? There's definitely some small manufacturing variation, place the machine on a flat surface and you'll often detect a small deviation in height from one side to another. And beware of second hand examples, particularly 115v site machines, kick back isn't uncommon with any mitre saw and the aluminium fences aren't really beefy enough to withstand it, so you'll often find used examples with fences that are no longer flat and true. Repeatability? Well the mitre scale can be read by eye to about a quarter of a degree, that
sounds impressive but it really isn't, for truly gap free mitres you need to go way beyond that, IMO around about 15 seconds of arc is getting you to visually gap free mitres on furniture scale items, so on a Kapex (or any mitre saw for that matter) you'll definitely need a master angle template to set against.
I could go on further but you get the point. I think the Kapex is a smashing machine, I've just freed up enough space in my workshop to buy yet another one so clearly I'm sold. But Bodgers is right, all machines have design compromises and manufacturing tolerances, and it's just not realistic to expect engineering levels of precision and repeatability from a machine that's also designed to be light and portable. You'll often hear some fanboy banging on about their latest purchase being "dead accurate", it's usually silly nonsense that tells you they haven't racked up enough real life experience with that particular tool, or that they're absolute beginners who are easily pleased. The only reviews that are worth a hoot is when an owner gives you a balanced appraisal that includes a fair evaluation of the machine's limits and shortcomings, so something like Nelsun's comments.
The
perfect woodworking machine doesn't exist so it's a fools errand to go looking for it, the more experienced and sensible woodworker asks what are the limits of this tool and can I work within that?
Here's a practical example,
The curved stretchers on this occasional table need a halving joint and very precise angled tenons. I can
just cut those joints to the standard I want with a Kapex, but it's certainly not do-able straight from the box, it will require test cuts, jigs, and a fair bit of faff to get the machine working to that level of precision. That's why I said "it depends", you can get there, but you're going to have to put some work in.