# Sliding Tablesaw vs Cabinet Saw



## walkerwg (Jan 2, 2012)

I am in the market for a new saw. I've owned a POS big box store contractor saw for the past 7yrs and am finally fed up with it. While in art school I daily used a Unisaw and enjoyed the fact that I could achieve accurate cuts with it time after time. My search has taken me towards either the Hammer K3 lineup and the huge sale on right now or getting a Powermatic/Sawstop Cabinet Saw. To those that have experience with sliders, can you review your experiences with them, those with PM's or Sawstops well there are a great many reviews already posted on those already I know I've read a ton of them but humor me please with your thoughts. Thank you for responding
Bill


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## childress (Sep 14, 2008)

I got a deposit on a new K3 right now. In my opinion, a cabinet saw doesn't even come close….


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## StumpyNubs (Sep 25, 2010)

Get the cabinet saw and then hose down the floor and turn off the heat so it ices up. Then you'll have a sliding-cabinet saw!


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## Loren (May 30, 2008)

I you have the budget and the space to get a slider, it makes so
many important table saw cuts easier and setups for many cuts
significantly faster.

That said, a slider can be difficult to resell if you tire of woodworking
and larger ones are not so easy to move either in the shop or to
a new shop. Significant bargains can be found on larger sliders 
hogging up whole garages or a corner of a warehouse, unused. 
Many big sliders get bought on credit and resold for a fraction, really
to the first guy with some cash and ability to take the saw away.

You won't regret having a slider as long as you do woodworking 
actively. I'd just recommend assessing your commitment to the 
craft accurately since they can be hard to resell for anywhere near
what you paid when new. Just like cars, if buying new certain 
brands hold their value a bit better than others.

If I had the space I'd get a used Altendorf probably. They are
huge saws that take lots of room, but the quality is way up there.

Holz-Her, Martin, Felder, are also excellent full-sized saws. A bit
of a step down would be the various Italian saws like SCMI,
Paolini, EMA, and so on. Then there's Robland and so forth,
on which you can find some bargains.


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## jusfine (May 22, 2010)

If you don't want to go whole-hog with a slider, you can add an Excalibur sliding table to your Powermatic or Unisaw, etc.

I have had one on my Unisaw for the last 15 years or more, wouldn't be without it!


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## rum (Apr 28, 2011)

Either will be vastly better than what you have.

I recently stepped up to a slider with a Hammer B3, I would concur with Loren that if you have the time/energy there are some decent used deals out there, check exfactory.com and google around for others (if you're up to that ). On the flip side the guys at Felder have been great to work with and answered all my questions promptly so I'm pretty happy to have bought new.

The sliders do take a TON of space compared to a traditional (even the "smaller" 79" hammer I have is a beast). I spent a fair bit of time doing mock layouts in my shop before I committed and still under estimated the actual effective footprint some.

Overall, worth the price delta? Hard to say, depends on what you do  if I could fit it, I'd have both, since I can't.. I'm keeping the slider until I can.

cr1: nice ZCI, good job there! It would be interesting to see a picture of your chainsaw slider setup. I would also concur - make your own shoe, the hammer one sits to far back from the edge of the slider for my liking.


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## BLarge (Aug 29, 2011)

robland sliders have a 20% VAT on top of the price of the saw…. Lol


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## a1Jim (Aug 9, 2008)

It's going to make a big difference what kind of work your going to do. In my opinion a slider is a good tool but only if you have the room and the budget. From my experience companies that have sliders specialize in cabinet work. If you have used a good quality cabinet saw and like it ,that's what I would suggest you go with,say the 5hp sawstop.


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## TCCcabinetmaker (Dec 14, 2011)

Sliders are great, in some circumstances, in others they aren't. They're really different tools and have different applications.

Sliders are good with sheet goods, but they do take up alot of space and making ripping long lengths ackward.

Tables are great for ripping long lengths but tend to be less than ideal for cross cutting long lengths, such as sheet goods.

My thought is though, you can pretty much work around not having a slider, it's really difficult to get around not having a tablesaw.


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## Loren (May 30, 2008)

I bought my slider used, and it's not a big one; it crosscuts a
sheet of ply on the slider but won't rip one as the big sliders
will. I don't need the 52" rip fence it has and would be just fine
with 25" or 30", which would reduce the footprint of
the machine considerably. When you have a slider you don't
need the big rip capacity much since full sheets are halved on
the slider and pantry sides are squared on it too. The rip fence
does give you a working stop to the right as well as the left
of the blade, which is an interesting way to work with stops.

I pivot the machine on a pallet jack. It goes one way for
crosscuts and I just turn the saw about 70 degrees if I want
to make long rips on it. The sliding carriage reduces or eliminates
the need for outfeed support for the offcut site of rip cuts
since the infeed support table moves into into an outfeed 
support position effortlessly during the cut.

Still, nothing less than a full-sized slider is a full-sized horizontal
panel saw. That's why I am building a vertical panel saw for
full sheet breakdowns and straightline ripping long boards.
A tracksaw can serve a similar function.


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## walkerwg (Jan 2, 2012)

After touching the K3 and Excalibur attached to a Unisaw at the Baltimore woodworking show I am definitely getting the K3 79×48. I also work with steel so making jigs and holddowns is not a problem. CR1 do you have any other pics of your K3/jigs and whatnot? Thanks guys for all your input.


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## Donges72 (Nov 14, 2015)

I have an old Delta contractors saw that us strictly a rip saw. I use a Festool track saw to cut down sheet goods, and a Makita miter saw for crosscutting,


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