There are many things you will want to ponder before purchasing a new table saw for your shop. There are three main types of table saws: (1) the lightweight, inexpensive and portable contractor’s saw, (2) the cabinet saw, so-named because it has an enclosed cabinet as opposed to open base and (3) the new breed of so-called “hybrid” table saws which fill the price tag gap between contractor’s saws and cabinet saws. This discussion will be only concern cabinet saws because, in my experience, nothing less will do for a shop that engages in fine BLADE FORGE woodworking. Smaller saws lack both the accuracy and capacity of cabinet saws.
The table saw is the nucleus of your Folding Knives Australia shop. You will use it more than any other tool and its precision and capacity will determine the quality and size of what you will be able to produce. This is comparable to deciding on someone to marry: Ideally, it’s for a lifetime and you will have to live with your choice for a long time to come. Therefore, rushing into purchasing the first table saw you see, without doing your homework, is like a quickie Las Vegas marriage, always a bet.
There are numerous features you should before investing your hard-earned dollars in any particular table saw. As I have stated again and again, any woodworking machine you buy should be just slightly more capable than what you will demand of it now or what you imagine you would likely to demand of it in the future. While cost is important, affordability should not be the sole determining factor in your buying decision. If you can’t pay for the saw you need, wait until you can. Don’t saddle yourself with a table saw that may drive you crazy every day of your life. Take a few moments to consider what you really require and which machine will best fill the bill for you.
I’d like to take a minute to talk about the features that you should be looking for and what these features will mean to you after you unpack and set up your new table saw. These features include: Motor horsepower, blade size, trunnion construction, tabletop flatness, tabletop size, arbor size and arbor bearings, sawdust extraction, ease of operation including raising, lowering and tilting the blade, tilt of the blade (left or right), the necessity of a magnetic switch and the importance of its location, ease of access to the interior of the cabinet, accuracy and ease of operation of the fence, the amount of rip space to the right and the left of the blade, safety features and table saw mobility around the shop. In addition to the table saw itself, you may want to fabricate an outfeed table around the rear of the saw, if space permits. We’ll talk about that, as well.