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First Table saw

1K views 10 replies 8 participants last post by  JRsgarage 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
Hi All,

New to the forum and somewhat new to the hobby. I am finally gathering myself a fairly decent arsenal of tools, and a table saw is the next piece to the puzzle. My circular saw and orbital sander are dewalt, both of which I absolutely love, so I was thinking of sticking with a dewalt portable job site saw (DWE7491RS). I have limited space for a work shop, and a lot of the time I do my cuts on the terrace outside of the shop door, which is why the job site saw was very appealing to me.

Any information will be greatly appreciated, and looking forward to learning from all of you on the forum.
 
#2 · (Edited by Moderator)
Depending on what your doing and your needs is what will determine what saw works for you.

I recently went through this as did many others on here. Many people trying to stay on the cheaper end with limited space go the Delta 36-725 (like me) or Rigid version of the same. It comes with rollers so is easy to move around. Still not terrible on size. And has a little better accuracy than the little portable job site saws. My experience with them is a fairly cheap older one and boy it wasn't fun to use. The fence was terrible and hard to use and the vibration when you turned it one was really bad. Granted it was a cheap direct drive unit. Can you do stuff with them? Sure but I think you'll find you will get more out of a little more saw. Plus your right in the price range of the Delta and Rigid. A little more and Grizzly has some nice saws. Add a rolling base and you have the same mobility.

Do some searching on here you'll find a ton of info. Search for the dewalt you mentioned and a few other keywords like "first tablesaw" etc and you should find plenty to confuse you LOL
 
#3 ·
You will soon see the limitations (as Jason did) in your ww'ing so I don't recommend one. They are notoriously bad on holding settings, crummy fences, and low on power.

We could help you more if we know whats your budget?

Similar money could get you a used contractor saw like a Delta/Rockwell or even a later model Craftsman before a jobsite.

BTW you would be surprised what you can do with a sliding compound miter and a track saw.
 
#4 ·
BTW you would be surprised what you can do with a sliding compound miter and a track saw.

- rwe2156
Good point. I was given a decent Dewalt circular saw and used an old level as a fence and did really well at a decent cut. Now that is on plywood etc and for sure a track saw would do much better.
Heck people did this stuff with hand saws for centuries. Makes me feel like a cheater sometimes with power tools… lol…
 
#7 ·
Thanks guys, appreciate the feedback. Good points all around. I actually got a miter saw for christmas, works decent enough (master craft maximum 12" dual bevelling sliding compound mitre saw). The terrace outside of my shop has a couple steps up to it so thats the main reason why the dewalt seemed liked a great choice. Ive heard that this model has improved quite a bit and has great quality, precision and power. I won't be cutting extremely thick, hard woods much, mostly sheet goods and smaller projects. That said, I will definitely look into the delta and possibly the grizzly as long as the price isn't too much more and it wouldn't be too difficult to ramp it up those couple stairs for outside cutting. The Dewalt is often available on sale for around $600 so id like to stick to around that price range for now if possible, I should have specified that in the original post, kind of flying by the seam of my pants getting used to the forum.

Thanks again
 
#8 · (Edited by Moderator)
hi. i just went through the TS saga. i've been using a craftsman professional portable unit for several years but the gears finally died and a new motor would have been over couple hundred dollars. so decided to try out the grizzly g0771z since they replaced the fence. i assembled it this past weekend and the fence definitely seems better, holds and locks down good (i will need the fence replaced because the tracks look really bent, probably from factory). for the money, seems to be a decent saw. as a hobbyist, this is all i needed. i'll do a proper review after couple months of use.









 
#9 · (Edited by Moderator)
hi. i just went through the TS saga. i ve been using a craftsman professional portable unit for several years but the gears finally died and a new motor would have been over couple hundred dollars. so decided to try out the grizzly g0771z since they replaced the fence. i assembled it this past weekend and the fence definitely seems better, holds and locks down good (i will need the fence replaced because the tracks look really bent, probably from factory). for the money, seems to be a decent saw. as a hobbyist, this is all i needed. i ll do a proper review after couple months of use.

- JRsgarage
I'd call Grizzly and have them ship out a new fence rail. They are known to have decent customer service with a nearly "no questions asked" policy.
 
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