Sliding table attachment or track saw

[Mike Cutler]

Thank you for your advice and for keeping me honest. As I stated earlier in this thread I understand there are many ways to complete this job. However as I get close to starting this project I chose to expand my tool collection and improve my workshop in the process. This post was looking for constructive advice from people more experienced than myself with comparing 2 tools that can both achieve this goal.

My project is going to include many of the techniques discussed above, however I personally do not like using a router and a template for these type of cuts. I understand it works and many people seem to have great luck with this technique. I have better luck with making a jig for my saw and the sliding table attachment seems like it would be very good for attaching jigs to. But many people absolutely rave about their track saws and I felt that I could also do this job with one of them as well.

Do you have any pictures of the staircase that required hundreds of treads?

Steve

I misunderstood what you were actually asking initially.

IMHO the slider you are looking is the better long term investment in material processing, and project flow. Project to project, through the years, you'll use that slider much more often than a track saw system. They are just such a convenient option to have on a table saw.

I have the Festool TS 75 with guide rails. It was bought specifically to safely perform the initial processing of 8/4+ lumber. I also have the Eurekazone EZ rails, set up for a Makita 7 1/4" circular saw and a Milwaukee 8 1/2" worm drive saw. My table saw has been outfitted for years with a JessEm Mast-R-Slide.
I can use the track saws on solid lumber, and have many, many times, but their true value is realized in cabinet manufacture, and the processing of sheet goods, and both systems excel at it. Making it much safer, and time expedient, for a person working alone to cut down sheet goods. They will absolutely do what you need with respects to the project you have at hand, but you have a significant outlay in $$$$, regardless of the system(s), and I own both systems, in front of you before that first stair tread is made.

So for me, personally, I'd go for the slider.

[steve joly]

Steve

I misunderstood what you were actually asking initially.

IMHO the slider you are looking is the better long term investment in material processing, and project flow. Project to project, through the years, you'll use that slider much more often than a track saw system. They are just such a convenient option to have on a table saw.

I have the Festool TS 75 with guide rails. It was bought specifically to safely perform the initial processing of 8/4+ lumber. I also have the Eurekazone EZ rails, set up for a Makita 7 1/4" circular saw and a Milwaukee 8 1/2" worm drive saw. My table saw has been outfitted for years with a JessEm Mast-R-Slide.
I can use the track saws on solid lumber, and have many, many times, but their true value is realized in cabinet manufacture, and the processing of sheet goods, and both systems excel at it. Making it much safer, and time expedient, for a person working alone to cut down sheet goods. They will absolutely do what you need with respects to the project you have at hand, but you have a significant outlay in $$$$, regardless of the system(s), and I own both systems, in front of you before that first stair tread is made.

So for me, personally, I'd go for the slider.

thanks that hat is what I was leaning towards but it is nice to hear from someone with both set ups. The slider seams like a convenient thing to have and will be used alot.

[steve joly]

Steve

I misunderstood what you were actually asking initially.

IMHO the slider you are looking is the better long term investment in material processing, and project flow. Project to project, through the years, you'll use that slider much more often than a track saw system. They are just such a convenient option to have on a table saw.

I have the Festool TS 75 with guide rails. It was bought specifically to safely perform the initial processing of 8/4+ lumber. I also have the Eurekazone EZ rails, set up for a Makita 7 1/4" circular saw and a Milwaukee 8 1/2" worm drive saw. My table saw has been outfitted for years with a JessEm Mast-R-Slide.
I can use the track saws on solid lumber, and have many, many times, but their true value is realized in cabinet manufacture, and the processing of sheet goods, and both systems excel at it. Making it much safer, and time expedient, for a person working alone to cut down sheet goods. They will absolutely do what you need with respects to the project you have at hand, but you have a significant outlay in $$$$, regardless of the system(s), and I own both systems, in front of you before that first stair tread is made.

So for me, personally, I'd go for the slider.

thanks for for the input. Nice to hear from a couple people who have access to both tools and recommend what I was initially thinking. On a side note I see that you are from griswold I'm from Lisbon and I have a cottage in griswold on pachauge.

[Peter Aeschliman]

I'm a bit late to this thread, but here's my $.02: I have both a dewalt tracksaw and an excalibur sliding table. The first, most important thing to say is that this depends in the kind of work you do (or anticipate doing). I don't work with sheet goods very often... now that I think about it, I typically only work with sheet goods when I'm making stuff for my shop. If I end up building my kitchen cabinets, that will change! But for now, I rarely work with plywood.

My track saw is the best tool in my shop two operations: (1) Breaking down full 4x8 sheets of plywood into manageable dimensions to then be squared up on my sliding table, and (2) straight-line rips on rough-saw lumber that I have face-jointed and planed (the faces are flat and parallel, but the edges are still rough).

My sliding table attachment is the best tool in my shop for accurate cross-cuts too big for my miter saw. I use my sliding table far more often than my track saw.

There are many solutions for making accurate, square cross-cuts with a tracksaw. But from what I've seen, unless you have room for a semi-permanent tracksaw table setup with the necessary accessories, it takes a bit of fidgeting to get it ready to make dead-on square cross cuts... whereas my sliding table is already there, ready to go as part of my table saw.

So if I had a gun to my head right and was forced to give one of them up, for my working style, i would keep the sliding table and would give up the track saw. But my strong preference is to keep both because there are tasks that each excel at.

Just my opinion based on my working style!

[Mike Cutler]

thanks for for the input. Nice to hear from a couple people who have access to both tools and recommend what I was initially thinking. On a side note I see that you are from griswold I'm from Lisbon and I have a cottage in griswold on pachauge.

Wow!

You're only a couple miles away.
I'm right on the Pachaug River, just off 138.
It's a little cold right now, and the garage is full of crap, but come springtime give me a shout and I'll set up the track saws and you can give them a whirl. They really are nice.
I've been trying to get them to convert to the Festool's at work, simply for the dust collection aspect, and depth of cut for staging planking. At Millstone we have to worry about not only the sawdust, but potentially radioactively contaminated sawdust. They have some cheesy dust shrouds on the circular saws we are currently using, but nothing as refined as what is incorporated into a Festool.

[Rich Engelhardt]

I wonder though with a regular 7-1/4 saw and blade how good of a cut you can get. I have looked and there aren't to many options out there for quality 7-1/4 blades.

Freud 40T blade - $14.97 at Home Depot and/or the Freud 60T blade - $19.97 @ Home Depot.
Either blade, along with some blue tape, will produce a cut equal to anything my Festool TS55EQ can produce.
Those are my "Go to" finishing blades when I use my cheap Ryobi circular saw and a shop made guide to cut counter tops that have an integral back splash.

That type of cut is, IMHO. far more demanding and depends on a high quality cut more than any plain wood cutting you'll run into. The Formica has to be 100% chip and splinter free and perfectly cut. Any irregularity in the cut surface will stick out like a sore thumb when the Formica end caps are glued in place. Or I should say, when you attempt to glue them in place.

[Frederick Rowe]

I use my JessEm sliding table way more than my DeWalt track saw. They do 2 different things. I wouldn't get rid of either though.

Second this ^. The JessEm, while small in stroke length (compared to a full sliding table saw), excels at repeatable cross cuts of small/medium sheet goods and any dimensional lumber I can fit on the table saw. Track saw for ripping down sheet goods.

[Peter Quinn]

Do you have any pictures of the staircase that required hundreds of treads?

Nope. Not a one! I have a mental picture though. And scars! Not all of the hundreds were in the same building or on the same job. I didn't build the staircases, just made many of the parts. I worked for a millworks that provided treads to match custom flooring run in another part of the operation. Made lots of treads, often I never saw the finished staircase or even the plans. In this case there were 7 floors total, NYC apartment IIR, 5 floors plus servant staircase on in back of building. I've had opportunity to do a lot of odd shaped large panels of one sort or another, landings, winders, radius front treads, inlayed floor panels set around radial lines.


I can say for my home shop that a good sliding table on the cabinet saw would be much more valuable than the track saw for most projects. I have a brand new Jessum master slide sitting in the storage room for several years waiting for installation. On any given day I'm too busy to stop and actually put the thing on, but I sure would love to have it there. I recently bought a track saw and like them very much, never been my most used tool, but in some cases it has been my MVP, done things with ease that would have been very cumbersome to jig up on a stationary machine, and its portable, which means the world when I'm on a job site. But I got by for years with a traditional skill saw and a shop made track (1/4" mdf strip with a fence) and I swear its no less accurate. SO on a budget I'd get the sliding table and make a sled for the skill saw. In the specific case of your "other than rectilinear treads" I'd make a sled on the cabinet saw that runs in the miter slot to cut the tapers and do the ends what ever way suits you best, a sliding table could help there. My best "tapering jig" for big pie shapes was about 5' long, maybe 20" wide, I let the guide rail into the bottom of the sled about 1/8" using a dado so its good and straight and stays that way. The rest is just a stick of wood as the fence that sets the taper, a back stop to do the pushing, a few destaco clamps to hold things down. Very repeatable, fairly quick, less noise and dust than a router. I wouldn't do that much template work with a router personally, but I wouldn't hesitate to do with with the shaper. Is a large italian shaper in the budget?

[Jim Andrew]

I have resisted posting on this thread, but use my Hammer slider to break down plywood, if I want to rip a piece long wise, I use the rip fence, if I want to cut it the short direction, use the rip fence to set the size, pull the fence back and push the panel against the fence, then push the panel through using the crosscut fence. Get almost perfect square cuts. I saw on "this old house" demonstration of a track saw used to cut off a door, looked like a great tool. I also use the slider to straight line solid lumber, no longer need a jointer to make the boards fit together well. That is the reason I got the 79" length of slider.