New Table Saw - £500 Sitting here waiting!

[TornUp]

Hi All,

I thought id create a new topic to ask for your help.

I have about £500 ish available to buy a new table saw after managing to convince SWMBO that it is required for me to make a cupboard around our gas meter! lol

I have narrowed my selection down to the following, with the following views and advice required:

The Axminister TS250M(Bigger brother to the TS200)
This gets mixed views, don't really like the non standard miter slot, worried about a sloppy/floppy rip fence....

I do however feel warm and fuzzy over the fact Axminister are quite good and i feel they might have my back a bit better?!

The Charnwood W619
This looks more solidly built, however i am still unsure of the Rip Fence.... Does anyone have a W619? What are your views on it? and horror stories?

I read something about the best place to purchase it is at: poolewood.co.uk anyone had any dealing with this store before?

The Xcaliber 10"
This looks the most solid out of all of them! It doesn't have the sliding table like the other 2, but this could be achieved with a simple crosscut sledge!

The website is a little limited, and i am confused slightly because the review on the front page(http://www.woodfordwm.co.uk/102103Xcaliburtest.pdf) sings and dances about how its solidly built, and it sounds AMAZING, however the review says its £1172.65 however on the website its listed as 509(with VAT) so is it even the same saw as they reviewed!?

Does anyone have one of these? what do they think of it??


I know i want a table saw.... i just don't know which one to pick... any views/advice?

Love this forum! i pop back and forth once in a while but now my shop is getting set up properly i plan to post more and show some work off!

Thanks guys!!

Tom.

 

[marcros]

I have just typed a long reply and lost it.

Anyhow, to summarise- dont worry about the mitre slots, you can make replacement runners for aftermarket kit.

woodford website is years out of date. I think that most of the models that superseded the ones on the site have since been superseded again. The new kit is way beyond your budget but is listed (I think) here http://www.woodfordtooling.com/accessor ... lades.html

what do you plan to make after the cupboard and what space do you have? what material do you plan to use- hardwood or ply/mdf (beyond the cupboard project)?

do bare in mind if you are using sheet materials, 8x4 sheets are awkward on most table saws, so it may be easier to get the merchant to cut it to size. Possibly better than buying a saw specifically large enough for the odd occassion that you do that task. better to buy something tailored to something you want to do often, if the two are different!

 

[TornUp]

Thanks for the reply! even more so that you wrote it again after loosing the original(i too lost my long version of the topic post! lol)

Ok, so the Xcaliber off the radar, kinda good, it was too much of a distraction!

ummm... ok so plans! I am currently making my kids an electric car (wheel chair motors, a lot like these: http://www.toylander.com/images/TL3_Army.jpg) which has been drifting more and more of of square as i build it(joys of ripping a 900mm long sheet of ply with a jig saw! :roll:

After the cupboard I will continue to probably build units and stuff for my workshop (13ftx10ft BTW!) and various things for around the house, some boxes, not sure what else! lol...

Mainly going to be working in hardwood ply, with some softwood and very occasionally I will be using hardwood..

I am also into my electronic engineering, so a number of projects will be enclosures for that, maybe some framing for future robot wars like creations... stuff like that..

my main main main concern is having a decent rip fence... I just want to be-able to rip 10mm off a sheet of ply, and it be 10mm at both ends, not 10mm -> 15mm after ripping!

Thanks for your advice and help!

Look forward to reading more!

Tom.

 

[marcros]

your intended use may be a bit of a game changer, at least in my mind.

what about this combination:

tracksaw of some form, with a couple of guide rails festool, bosch, scheppach etc.
mft top from stu2 on here (do a search). You would need to make a base or buy something suitable. ae-you-thinking-about-getting-a-festool-mft-3-t79021.html?hilit=parf%20dogs (read the whole lot!)
pair of parf dogs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQJhVMUYmmQ

 

[marcros]

sorry, that probably doesn't answer your original question, but i think it might be more useful.

 

[Mar_mite]

I have the charnwood. No horror stories. I think for the money it is amazing value. It's accurate, quiet and quite powerful. Yes the rip fence is a bit crap, but only for the initial set up for a cut. (It doesn't slide nicely along and you have to turn a knob to tighten) once it's locked down its fine. I use mine almost every day for paying jobs and it's never let me down. But as marcros says, you couldn't cut an 8x4 sheet down on it. I use track saw to break down full sheets.
Hope this helps.

 

[turnamere]

With your limited space I would seriously consider a Track Saw and a suitable work bench; large sheets on a table saw need slightly more than twice their length to allow for infeed, outfeed and you. A Track Saw only needs space for the sheet you're cutting. Table Saws also take up a lot of space when not in use.

I went through the same quandry a year or 2 back, I really wanted a table saw but capability at my budget was limited and space was an issue. In the end I settled on a Festool TS55 with 800, 1400 and 2700mm Tracks (was lucky to find the 2700 one for same price as 1400). I then used my TS55 and my new found ability to cut an arrow straight line to build my bench, which is a variation of the Ron Paulk Ultimate Workbench (Have a search on YouTube). The bench will take a full sheet of MDF or Ply, is as flat as I can measure, remarkably sturdy (I can jump up and down on it with minimal deflection), has great work holding, and best of all when packed up and stored on end only takes up 2 Sq Feet of my garage. I'm just starting to work on my hand tool skills and I think that adding a Moxon Vise and either Wonder Pups or and Inset Vise will also give me a pretty flexible yet compact solution since I haven't really got space for the 8Ft Roubo that I would love to build.

I'll try and post some pictures later.

 

[TornUp]

Hi all,

Many thanks for the comments! It has defiantly caused me to reconsider the direction i should be looking at heading.....

For the record, i rarely use a full 2.4M sheet of ply, most of the time i am using the nice little 606X1220MM sheets(they are easier to work on full stop! so breaking down sheet goods on the table saw isn't really what i need to worry about...

I just want something i can do rip and crosscut(i don't have a very good chop saw!) on and it be as accurate as possible...

however, the video that marcros linked to with the parf dogs is very interesting.... still pricey for a track saw though...

ahhh i cant decide! all i know is that i need a better solution for cutting up sheet stock and once in a while framing timber (when building benches etc..)

Help!?

Tom.

 

[HandyAndy]

Hi Tom - have a look at this thread from a few weeks ago: sub-500-table-saw-dw745-t81086.html

The 619 was pretty high on my list but the DW745 won on the portability stakes, just to confuse matters. You can get the 745 with stand for under £500 and it's SOLID. Been using it for a few weeks now and no regrets. The mitre fence isn't great but I've made a sled that works pretty well for cross cuts. Rip fence is accurate though. If portability isn't an issue the 619 looks great for the money though!

I use the circular saw to rough cut big sheets then do final cuts on the table saw. Also want a track saw but that will have to wait for now.

Sorry for confusing matters further.

Andy

 

[Zeddedhed]

I was in exactly the same quandary as you are. I ended up spending £440 on ebay to buy an old Wadkin AGS 10 table saw. It's absolutely rock solid, but suffers from a slightly iffy fence. A lot of people I know who have table saws that cost less than £2.5k say that fences ALWAYS require a bit of fettling/fiddling, so I don't know how bad mine is relative to what it should/could be. That said, I just check the distance from the blade to the fence at the front of the blade, lock it down and check the distance at the rear of the blade and adjust if required.
My guess is that this is what most people do. Hope this doesn't confuse you even more.

 

[Wuffles]

In the same boat. Have been looking at the 619 as it looks solid enough, but keep getting pipped to the post on anything half decent on eBay. I did pick up an old machine a couple of months back, but it turned out to be little more than a contractors saw - albeit on a cast iron table and driven by a very old belt (which I'm terrified of breaking).

I'd like to replace it with something more solid, but that said I may end up sticking with the old one and my track saws instead. Just need to knock up a sled for the table saw.

If you do end up with the 619, do please post back on how it works out for you? As you said, there's very little in the way of reviews to go by.