Advice needed from sliding table saw owners
I am a semi pro wood worker (some cabinet work, furniture, and one offs) who desires to upgrade my table saw (PM 66) for several reasons. I am looking at a SS and a sliding table saw. I think the safety of the sliding table saw is pretty close to the SS and offers a few advantages over a traditional table saw. However, I have never used a sliding table saw and need some advice from experienced users. Ripping using the traditional fence appears to be awkward with the slider undercarriage sticking out on the left hand side which is where I normally stand, how do you slider guys rip? How do you do tenon work on the slider? How do you rip narrow strips on a slider? Will a 8 foot slider be big enough to process a sheet of plywood? How does one do many of the things on a slider that I perform routinely on a traditional table saw? Do you wish you had not made the switch to a slider and if so why? Sorry for all the questions but it’s a big investment to step up to a slider and I don’t have access to one to use to help my comfort level. I have seen a few in a few in person but the cabinet and furniture companies were too busy to really spend any time with me and answer my questions. Any input or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
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Confessions of a table saw junkie
You have a fairly easy solution, if you have enough room.
I went about setting up a commercial shop two to three years ago and have ended up with four table saw set-ups in my shop. You don't need four, two would do the trick. I have very little space limitations and if you bide your time, table saws are out there to be stolen.
I started my commercial shop out by basically moving my garage shop to my new location, and then just kept adding equipment. The only reason I ended up with so many table saws was because while trying to buy other types of machines, I kept running across unbelievable deals on table saws and since I had a latent tendency towards them in the first place, just kept buying them. As I added them, I began designating the older machines to one-function uses. Eventually, this is what I ended up with:
The saw I moved over from my garage, a Delta Unisaw, eventually became a glorified but exacting chop saw with the addition of a (on drastic clearance sale) Jessem slider. Off came the rails and the 'bee's' fence and on went a thin kerf cross-cut blade.
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A Northfield #10 with a power feeder ($400 in auction). A little work to supplement their fence for a true-flat and a designated 18", 3/16th kerf rip blade. This thing's a beast ripping down a lot of stock into uniform widths. By the way, in your table saw explorations, do NOT be concerned with cosmetics. As a matter of fact, the more beat-up they look, usually the cheaper they are. DO be concerned with the important, the non-cosmetic issues.
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A local cabinet shop closing down and my only interest was a 20" SCMI planer they had. It went too rich for my blood but I could not pass up this PM 68 for $600. You just can not buy cast-iron-real-estate like this any more. The fence alone was probably worth a couple of hundred. This is the saw that I set up as a designated one-off (more or less) rip and is what I would suggest you do with your current model 66. You could perhaps improve upon what I've done with some built-in extension tables.
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Lastly, and what really brought it all together, a 10' SCMI slider. I had searched and searched for a reasonably priced slider for the duration of my two+ year shop set up. My target was a good condition 10 footer for under $3k. I finally stumbled on one in another local auction. I have equipped it with a 3/16th kerf 12" combo blade (the only downside and my only combo blade). I use this saw for all sheet goods, large (heavy) cross cuts, and very important for me, straight-line ripping. I actually have a designated straight line rip (a Diehl) but that is a major pain to use.
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It is a pleasure to be able to walk up to any one of these saws and with just one or two adjustments (move the fence, raise/lower the blade) and get the cut you need. Outside of just the ease of use issue, and more importantly, is the designated blade factor. Up until the time I 'exploded' with table saw varieties, I always had a combo blade on my Delta. The results you get from the proper blade for the cut is dramatic, much more so than I ever imagined.
You could achieve very close to what I have going on here by keeping your PM 66 and setting it up as a designated rip saw and then picking up a good 10' slider. I have absolutely no idea of or affiliation with this fellow Creeker, but remembered seeing his post recently. I remember checking it out as a comparison to the saw I had bought and thinking, why hadn't this saw come up when I was looking for one?
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...Wilmington-DE)
I think that this solution would be less than the SS route and end up giving you so much more capability. Best of luck to you in your TS pursuits.
Post Edit: You posted that you do not have room for two saws while I was composing this. So...never mind.