Table Saw Buying Guide

It's not too long ago that I was reading a survey about woodworkers in the United States. And one of the numbers that came out of that was that a lot of woodworkers are in areas of about 275 square feet to do their woodworking. I thought about that for a little bit and it makes a lot of sense. Cause you know what that is. That's one stall of a garage and that's the space that a lot of woodworkers are in. They're borrowing their woodworking space from a lawn tractor and a car and anything else that goes in a garage. So what that means is space is precious and that's what drives a lot of woodworkers toward table saws like this. Without question table saw is the heart of your shot. Do a lot, a lot of work on it. So you're going to demand a lot of it. You got to have one but it's got to fit into the space that you have available. Saws like this bench-top or portable saws can bring a lot to your woodworking and they've really come a long way in recent years. I want to talk a little bit about if I were shopping for a saw like this, the kind of stuff I would look for. First off, both of these models offer 10 inch blades. I think that's a big deal. What I like about that is that I can share blades between my table saw and my miter saw if I have a 10 inch miter saw. A real common example would be a good cross cut and sheet stock blade for my table saw can also be used as a good cross cut blade on a miter saw. So there's nice economy there that I can share those 10 inch blades on both of them. The other thing I want to look at is what kind of capacities do I get on the saw. Now this one, I've got a set distance right here between the rip fence and the saw blade. But on this one it also offers the ability to unlock the side table, scoot that out and get increased capacity. So it offers me a little bit more than a saw where I'm locked in just right up against the table here. Let's talk too about data heads. We talked about blades. I want a table saw for woodworking that has the ability to take a data head. Now, if you're not aware of it yet, a data head is a blade that I can put on that I can build up and with. On some models, like this one, I can go up as wide as a half inch. On other models like this one I can go up as wide as three quarters of an inch. One of the things that's so great about these is I pull the saw out. I do my woodworking at the end of the day, when I'm done I can pick that up, put it away. So it's out of the way. Or if it's on a stand like this one I can very easily roll it like a wheelbarrow get it off to the side of my shot. So it's not taking up space. Looking at the front of these machines down here. We have a dust port. That is huge. Without question, table size are going to make a mess. If we don't have dust collection hooked up to them. What's pretty cool about these is that's a standard shot vacuum size. So I take a standard hose. I plug it in there. I run the vacuum. It's got great dust collection through the shroud that surrounds the blade. So if I am working in the garage that I'm sharing because it's attached to my house I'm not going to be tracking a lot of junk into the house that comes off the table saw. So the other thing I'm looking for is a guard that's very easy to use because that means you're going to use it all the time. Guard like this. Very easy to take off when it needs to come off. Very easy to put back on. The other thing that's pretty cool here is this is a portable saw with a riving knife, riving knives travel up and down with the blade. Part of what that means is that the blade is always equally distant from the knife regardless of what the height of the blade is at. That's a great safety feature great thing to shop for on table saws. So if your table saw shopping, don't overlook portable saws like these, they really bring a lot to the marketplace. They've come a long way. There's a lot of functionality here in real small package.