Tablesaw V Bandsaw - ding ding, round 300!

[Woody Alan]

so let me get this right, are you saying that I could do away with the sliding table, at the extensions to the right of the saw, and cut panels using an EB3 or similar mitre guage and using the fence as a guide? This would still give me 30" of x-cut which I think should be quite adequate for most tasks.

Mostly No I don't think that's what I am saying, If I understand what you've said, I haven't explained myself properly. You DO NOT use the fence and mitre in combo unless a false short fence is attached before the blade simply to allow for crosscut consistent cuts (eg shoulders of tenons with no guard definately dodgy compared to bandsaw but still done). If you consider the mitre guage it's primary use is for crosscut of lengths of timber.
The limit in use is when the mitre gauge is pulled back towards you assuming a facing the saw stance there is a point where it becomes wobbly and falls of the edge of the table. This distance between the face of the guage and the leading edge of the blade is the maximum panel size to safely cut with the mitre gauge. A sliding table increases the ability to do panels in two ways, firstly the rail extends further towards you beyond the front edge of the saw giving a stable platform for the material, secondly the panel is placed with it's leading edge against the mitre rail further away from you. In other words it would be like putting the mitre guage in the slot the other way round (don't) and pushing the gauge with the work.
The other method using just the fence is just that. You set the distance to cut the panel between the right of the blade and the fence and push the panel through against the fence. I am not a great fan of this method since getting a kick back through stupidity when a panel lifted on the blade (no gauard :roll: ) and fired itself at me and I was on the floor before I realised what had hit me. I hadn't found the resources here to help at that time.
So to conclude either you keep the rails to the right to cut panels or the sliding table to the left or make a sled which I have to say is vastly underated as a cheap means of acheiving what's required. I hope that helps it's not easy to communcate in words something that can be explained in seconds with gestures The osbourne is not suitable for panels in my experience.

Alan

 

[lurker]

Byron,

Here is a totally "thinking out of the box" suggestion that solves your space problems and is damn light on your bank balance.

I go to my local college Tuesday evenings for "Advanced woodworking".
I get use of industrial sized table & band saws, a monster P/T, a brilliant morticer, some superb lathes and not least a horizontal oil fed grinding table.
I buggered up a band saw blade last time and whilst I had to grovel as bit it cost me nothing and there it was fully functioning the next week :lol: :lol:
Costs me £40 for, I think, 15 evenings.
Can have a gossip with other "students" and the tutor is first rate bloke

Downsides:
Its only in term time and the Easter to summer one was cancelled .
You have to plan your projects to fit in with jobs.
There is occasionally a queue for the machines.
Transport of big lumps of wood.

 

[ByronBlack]

Woddy thanks for percevering with me over that. So it seems if i'm doing a fair bit of panel work - and I suppose with my ambitions of tables and cabinets that I will, the sliding table is more suitable than having loads of space for rails and a fence..

So, I could for example as you say cut the rails short, use a single extension and keep the sliding table on.

While we are on the subject. How would a sled work for panels? Would I need to add a large 'in-feed' area to support the sled to give it the distance before the blade?

Lurker - thats a great idea, but alas, there are no colleges near me that run woodworking courses

 

[Woody Alan]

How would a sled work for panels? Would I need to add a large 'in-feed' area to support the sled to give it the distance before the blade?

You will certainly need good a good area to move around in, but no, in my experience of using one on my previous saw as long as support is added to the left side(roller stands) you can set up your panel on the sled and raise the sled and panel together and settle into position well away from the blade, then start a controlled pass into and past the blade, an outfeed table is essential, but a folding one as Waka I think it was demonstrated would be neccessary.
I think it was Scrit who said never underestimate the difficulty of handling sheet goods and being able to break them down into near size away from the saw will make life a lot easier, even handling a bit of 4x4 18mm can be awkward when trying this on these types of saws, because the weight is going away from you, (dodgy back ? I recall) unless you are really set up with space and outfeed tables. Also the weight of a 4x4 18mm may well be enough to deflect ta sliding table of this standard, it certainly did the brief time I had a Scheppach 2500 enough to be unimpressed by it. If you can rough cut a sheet by lowering it to the ground on bearers it will be a lot easier to handle. My goal here is not to put you off just to consider the actual practicalities of your aims in YOUR workshop.

 

[ByronBlack]

Woody, thanks I really appreciate your thoughts on this. I want to be absolutely sure something like this is the right move for me as I only want to buy once!

I can break down larger panels to rough size without too much bother use the circular saw and guide rail, so the max size panels i'll be using is determined by the size of cabinet/table I intend to make which is certainly a lot smaller than 4'x4'.

One more question: If i'm making a bunch of mitre cuts, would I still use the guide and sliding table for this? Or cut on the right hand size of the blade using a mitre guage?

 

[Mike.C]

Byron, do not forget that if space is a problem and the sliding table is the same as the SIP (which except for the rails it looks like it is) then it only takes seconds to lift it off the tb and store it. This way your space will be kept clear and only used when you are using the sliding table. It means you will have to have a place to store it (under a bench maybe) but the area around your tb will be free.

Cheers

Mike

 

[Woody Alan]

One more question: If i'm making a bunch of mitre cuts, would I still use the guide and sliding table for this? Or cut on the right hand size of the blade using a mitre guage?

If you have the sliding table then that is the way to go, crosscutting is usually done to the left of the blade mitre or not (unless you're talking long mitres on a panel which are fairly rare) . Like Mike C says You can always take the sliding table off to store.
Lets put a scenario for your potential setup.
Tablesaw with removable sliding table for cutting smaller panels after pre breaking down a board.
Folding outfeed table.
Cut down length of rails to minumum ripping width/ odd panel when you can't be bothered to get sliding table out of storage
You no longer have a requirement for the Osbourne as the table should be more accurate.
If you, and whoever cares to step in as well, you can thrash the pros and cons of that as a starting list, as your way ahead.

Alan

 

[woodbloke]

BB wrote:

Rob - this maybe a personal question, but how 'big' is your bandsaw?

I've got a Inca Euro 206 which I got from Axminster some years ago, with a 150mm depth of cut, fantastic little saw, in fact I saw a video clip recently of this guy's workshop and if it's good enough for him....... :wink: Byron, I see also from an earlier post about the size of stuff you intend to cut, have you considered this saw as it's got a smaller 'footprint', does cost a few more pennies tho' but it had a fantastic review very recently by the editor of F&C - Rob

 

[Anonymous]

Byron

You won't like my answer.

Get shot of the MFT (ebay) as it is clearly severely, limited and buy both a tablesaw and bandsaw as both have strengths (unique abilites) that you will need whereas there is nothing I know of that the MFT will do that the Axi and a decent bandsaw can do equally well or better.

At the end of the day, I find circular saws are great for a very limited number of jobs (I last used mine 8 months ago and typically do 10-20 hours woodwork a week theses days)

 

[Paul Chapman]

I've got a Inca Euro 206 which I got from Axminster some years ago, with a 150mm depth of cut, fantastic little saw, in fact I saw a video clip recently of this guy's workshop and if it's good enough for him....... :wink:

Krenov plane; Krenov bandsaw - so that's the secret of your success :wink: :lol:

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[ByronBlack]

Tony - I've no worries about selling the MFT - this was the plan if I went ahead with the tablesaw as it currently in the place were I would put the TS, just not sure if I ought to get both machines. Rob - I did consider the Jet as i've been impressed in the past with their machines, and it's about the same size as the MFT so will have virtually no impact on my current layout.. but the extra expense? I could for that money for example buy the Axi AND a 12" Jet BS... so many darn choices, I hate tool lust.

 

[wizer]

Byron, MarkW has a very neat little turn table in his workshop which make great use of limited space. Might be an idea for you.

 

[ByronBlack]

Wizer - anything that can make use of the space is a good idea in my mind!

 

[Scrit]

I can safely rip up to 26 inch wide on the TS, more if I use a panel jig, now how big would a band saw need to be to do that :lol:

A 30in machine, although to be honest 26in wide is a sheet material size and doesn't BB already have a Festool and rail for that?

I'll still be keeping my Festool saw and loose rails so can resort to that for wider panels if need be.

Byron

Here's my two pennorth. A table saw even with a sliding carraige just won't do "panels". In my context that means 8 x 4ft sheets - and for that you need a (very) large saw. In my limited experience (I now have a small OPP W/Master table saw - cheap copy of the Ulmia - as well) the average small crosscut carriage is pushed to crosscut more than about 30in and is useless for handing long pieces (i.e. over about 3 feet), even if you have the space. Your Festool and rail will be a far more effective way of breaking-down large panels into smaller components.

A table saw is fundamentally a ripping device and to rip boards (i.e. the 8 to 10 ft long x 12in wide things I call a board) safely requires a run-off table. Never mind all the sliding carraiges, etc. - a lot of those are there to add bells and whistles onto the saw.

So I'd look at this differently. In a joinery shop the process goes crosscut first to approximate length, then rip, then plane and thickness. The dimension sawing bit, where you may need a table saw with mitre or crosscutting facilities comes later (after joint cutting, profiling, edge forming, etc) and can be just as easily be done with a chop saw, long fence and flip stops. That means if you already have a Festool and rail, and you have a chop saw or radial arm saw then what would work best in a small workshop would have to be something like a 14in bandsaw with some decent blades

Scrit

 

[RogerS]

Good points, Scrit, but what I think is eluding BB (and me) is the ease of repeatability and accuracy of cutting panels to size and of setting up a 90 degree cut on panels. Both of these can be done (with extreme care) on the Festool and guide rail (and everyone elses' guide rail system for that matter, perhaps?) but it takes time for each cut.

BB got the MFT for this purpose (correct me if I'm wrong, BB). Actually, BB, what is wrong with using the MFT to cut small panels accurately and at 90 degrees?

I do know that John Elliott tried different systems also for this same purpose...moving from table saw to MFT and back to table saw again but don't know what conclusion he came to.

Cutting panels is the Holy Grail we're after, I think.

 

[ByronBlack]

Scrit, you make some excellent and valid points, and have put a different slant on things for me to consider. Roger though does have a point and sums up the issues I have - repeatability.

Now, the MFT can provide that and it does it well, but only for very small panels, and not particularly long pieces (when cross cutting). So far for the projects ive used, it's been ok. But in the long run I feel there is a lot of marking out, setting up and re-setting for each cut until the stock is small enough to use the MFT's repeatability.

The other issue I have is that i'm limited to 2" stock, anything thicker than that is a real problem - but then i'm thinking I can rough cut on the bandsaw and tidy up after.

Thinking about this again last night I think I might have come to a different solution: Make a bigger MFT. Festool sell longer side rails to the table and extra perforated tops so I could double up the size of it which will allow much bigger panel cutting. However, i'll still be left with the difficulty of ripping much longer pieces - I suppose if push come to shove, a couple of roller guides and the bandsaw could do this..

 

[Anonymous]

Byron

Since buying my Axminster tablesaw and osborne, they way I work has completely changed. I think you should visit someone with a decent quality tablesaw and a bandsaw and have a play.

I agree with Scrit's comments up to a point, but have to say that my sliding compound mitre saw is covered in dust through a lack of use since getting the new tablesaw combo which si more accurate, quieter and quicker to use.

As always, you are welcome to try mine out but other members might live closer to you (I am off work next Tuesday if you feel like popping over) drop me a pm if you fancy it

 

[Andy Pullen]

Dont festool make a side fence for ripping long lengths ?

 

[ByronBlack]

Andy - aye they do, and I recently purchased one, but working with stock narrower than the width of the saw base is quite tricky, as is doing shorter lengths - but this is where I see a bandsaw being quite useful.

 

[RogerS]

Aren't we talking about two different types of material/stock here?

Panels - what size are you needing to cut? IIRC you can cut 600mm wide panels on the MFT. If you want to cut long panels that are 600mm wide (for a tall kitchen cupboard, say) then a roller guide would work I reckon. The only possible drawback would be the panel knocking the rear guide out of 90 degree register but that's easily fixed by permanently screwing it to the MFT table top (I'm talking about the rear guide and not the guide rail).
When you talk about stick 2" tick then I guess you're not talking panels?

If I'm right then where does the 90 degree problem come in?