The beginning...
I suppose that it would be foolish to begin anywhere else. Somewhere around 2 years ago, I wanted to make a straight cut on something. I don't even remember what i was working on. After doing a little research, I decided to purchase a miter saw. Of course, I was aware of the old adage, you get what you pay for. However, my wife and I agreed that I wasn't building furniture. It wasn't necessary for me to buy the best.
A little more research led me to purchase a Ryobi 10" sliding miter saw. It had a laser. What else could I possibly need? I brought the saw home and screwed it down to a rolling table that I had in the garage and called it a day. It wasn't long before I realized that the built in extension arms were inadequate for cutting longer material, so I built a folding sawhorse to support longer material.
Using that setup, I built all new furniture for our master bedroom. In doing so, I freed up a tv cabinet that previously resided in our bedroom. Inspiration struck, and I repurposed the cabinet into the heart of a miter saw station. I completed that station with a set of fold down wings that provided about 120"of material support. That project and all of the improvements that I have made are listed in my projects list.
Fast forward to present day, and now that I am actually building furniture, it was time to upgrade my miter saw. My experience with the Ryobi was going to provide the baseline for what I wanted in my new saw. First, allow me to say that the Ryobi has been a nice saw. As I previously stated, it had a laser, rarely bogged down, and did allow for straight 90' crosscuts. It had detents in all of the common angles and could make bevel cuts.
The features that I wanted to improve were the accuracy, the capacity and ease of use. As far as accuracy, the Ryobi was not bad. There was a little slop in the bade when the saw was fully extended. Also, my miter were always lacking due to the vibration that the saw had.
I knew that I wanted to go to a 12" slider. For the additional power and capacity. Ok, so really, I just wanted a bigger saw, but I prefer to say. the power and capacity stuff.
In addition, I hoped to find a saw with the controls in the front. One of my biggest gripes with the Ryobi was the difficulty to access the bevel control on the rear of the saw. In addition, once you got to it, it was ridiculously hard to get the knob to turn.
My thought process for this blog is to take you through my decision making process, and then once the new saw is up and running, give you a review of its performance. I will let you know that the new saw is in my shop and I am currently getting my miter saw station adapted to its dimensions. More to come! Thanks for reading!
I suppose that it would be foolish to begin anywhere else. Somewhere around 2 years ago, I wanted to make a straight cut on something. I don't even remember what i was working on. After doing a little research, I decided to purchase a miter saw. Of course, I was aware of the old adage, you get what you pay for. However, my wife and I agreed that I wasn't building furniture. It wasn't necessary for me to buy the best.
A little more research led me to purchase a Ryobi 10" sliding miter saw. It had a laser. What else could I possibly need? I brought the saw home and screwed it down to a rolling table that I had in the garage and called it a day. It wasn't long before I realized that the built in extension arms were inadequate for cutting longer material, so I built a folding sawhorse to support longer material.
Using that setup, I built all new furniture for our master bedroom. In doing so, I freed up a tv cabinet that previously resided in our bedroom. Inspiration struck, and I repurposed the cabinet into the heart of a miter saw station. I completed that station with a set of fold down wings that provided about 120"of material support. That project and all of the improvements that I have made are listed in my projects list.
Fast forward to present day, and now that I am actually building furniture, it was time to upgrade my miter saw. My experience with the Ryobi was going to provide the baseline for what I wanted in my new saw. First, allow me to say that the Ryobi has been a nice saw. As I previously stated, it had a laser, rarely bogged down, and did allow for straight 90' crosscuts. It had detents in all of the common angles and could make bevel cuts.
The features that I wanted to improve were the accuracy, the capacity and ease of use. As far as accuracy, the Ryobi was not bad. There was a little slop in the bade when the saw was fully extended. Also, my miter were always lacking due to the vibration that the saw had.
I knew that I wanted to go to a 12" slider. For the additional power and capacity. Ok, so really, I just wanted a bigger saw, but I prefer to say. the power and capacity stuff.
In addition, I hoped to find a saw with the controls in the front. One of my biggest gripes with the Ryobi was the difficulty to access the bevel control on the rear of the saw. In addition, once you got to it, it was ridiculously hard to get the knob to turn.
My thought process for this blog is to take you through my decision making process, and then once the new saw is up and running, give you a review of its performance. I will let you know that the new saw is in my shop and I am currently getting my miter saw station adapted to its dimensions. More to come! Thanks for reading!