As you may have noticed from my other post, I recently picked up a RAS for my basement shop I'm setting up. Now I'm faced with figuring out where to put it and how to "mount" it, if at all, as well as what kind of station I make for it. So my question is two parts - location of the saw and how to build it in to cabinets.
I've been thinking about this for quite some time but it's been tough to make a decision. I have 2 walls where the saw can go, one being 17' long and the other being 20'. I'd prefer the 17' wall so I can leave my jointer on the 20' wall which would make my DC work a bit smoother. Assuming I keep it on the 17' wall, should I position the saw at the center of this wall? The negative to that I see is that it would limit my longest board to 8'6" to either side of the blade, so if I needed to make say a large dining room table or something I may not be able to use the saw. If I offset the saw a few feet to the right of center (I'm right handed) it would mean a reduction in the size board I could cut in half. I think the latter setup would be best, as there are more ways than one to skin a cat, and I could always use a different saw (circular, jig, etc) to halve a long board into manageable sections. Does this make sense?
Secondly, I could use some design ideas on building a station for the saw too where the top of the saw table is flush with the cabinets. I'll keep looking around the internet for ideas too.