By Dean Bielanowski
If you have not owned a table saw before and are considering purchasing one for woodwork, consider these following five points before you run out the door with a fat wallet to buy one…
1.) Portability. This is perhaps the major reason a person may buy one type of table saw over another. Large cabinet saws are some of the best featured table saws available, but you can forget trying to cart them around from one site to another. Many weigh in excess of 500 pounds! Smaller saws are designed to be portable, but may not be as durable or as full-featured as their larger counterparts. If you need portability, you need a portable saw, if you are not planning to move it once in place, save your pennies and get a cabinet saw – you won’t regret it! Wheel kits or mobile bases for table saws can be very handy indeed.
2.) Power. Depending on the thickness of material you regularly cut might determine how powerful of a saw you need. Personally I wouldn’t go for anything 1-1/2 HP or less. 3HP is ideal but these larger motors are usually reserved for the cabinet or heavy contractor-type saws. If you are cutting thick material, you need a bit of grunt driving the blade. However, using top-quality and very sharp blades can lessen the need for power in many cases as sharp, efficient blades require “less horses” to drive through a cut. If you plan to use a dado blade set, a more powerful motor is needed, as is a longer arbor length on the saw itself, so be sure to check out if the saw you want has an arbor long enough to stack dado blades on it… many do not.
3.) Fence Quality. It could be argued that Beisemeyer-type table saw fences are the best and easiest to use, as well as the most accurate, and I would agree with this, but there are other similar designs on the market. Essentially I would advise to avoid fences that lock both front and back because these seem prone to alignment errors. You want a solid fence that will not flex and retains its accuracy again and again through use. For good cutting results the fence must be squared to the blade so the ability to easily adjust the fence for this aspect is crucial.
4.) Dust Extraction. Check if the saw has a dust port or the means to easily create one or enclose areas where dust can escape from the saw. Table saws can create mountains of dust over time and not catching it at the source can mean a lot of cleanup time later on. Dust escaping into the air settles on EVERYTHING in an enclosed workshop environment so catching as much as possible at the source is crucial to minimising cleanup and protecting your lungs.
5.) Blade Adjustments. A good table saw must have bevel adjustments from 0 – 45 degrees as well as the ability to raise and lower the blade to a specific height you need (within the limitations of the saw or blade diameter etc). The adjustment wheels should move freely and the saw should have an accurate gauge for bevel angles to set blade tilt to the angle you need within a small amount of error margin.
Remember also that regular maintenance and cleaning will go a long way to ensuring your table saw’s lifespan is longer, rather than shorter, and will also result in ongoing accuracy. Good initial setup of the saw for square cutting is also a vital step that sometimes is forgotten! Spend time here to save time later.
