Small shop with a table saw...

[Brian Sommers]

I'm putting in a shop in my basement, I have a small room in the corner.

10'-10" x 16'-3"

My Dewalt 7490RS is coming today, very excited about it, however some concerns.

I guess technically I would have enough of room to rip a full sheet, if I would stand off to one side but barely.

I guess I could cut it cross grain first and then rip the lengths I need.

I'll be making small craft items, toys, games, bird houses, frames, and occasional bench and maybe a small side table and crates and boxes.
No large pieces of furniture, etc.

I was going to get a Rigid sliding miter saw, but when I saw what people do with a table saw, wow! That did it for me.

Now that I think about it, I do have a nice size wall, maybe I could rig up my own rip guide with my circular saw to break things down... never thought that would be possible...

I want to be able to handle full sheets of wood so I can get a better price point when I buy wood.

Any advice/thoughts/ideas?

Thanks

[George Bokros]

If you have room to lay a full sheet of ply on sawhorses you could use a track saw to break it down both rip and crosscut. then the saw is out of the way for other work. Track saws fun from $300 to $700.

I went the Eureka Zone track saw direction for two reasons, price and I already had to circular saws so I could dedicate one to the EZ base.

[Aaron Conway]

You can rip the full sheet to rough sizes in your driveway with a circular saw or even have the store cut it for you.

Aaron

[Charles Taylor]

I have a table saw and the room to rip a full sheet of plywood on it, but I do that infrequently enough that the task usually has to be preceded by a fair amount of reshuffling other things in the workshop. Oftentimes I use a circular saw and a straightedge guide instead, sometimes following that up with a router to get a good, clean, straight edge.

I don't own a track saw, but I want one. It would make the breakdown of big sheets easier and more precise, and it would eliminate the need sometimes to clean up the cut with the router.

[Ole Anderson]

Tracksaws are nice and can be very accurate, I have one. But in your case, I suggest breaking down the full sheets in a rough manner, leaving a half inch or more, then final cut on your new TS. Even if you get down to half sheets, they become much more manageable. And don't discount just having the BORG do those first breakdown cuts for you for free. Plus it makes transporting them much easier.

[Michael Stein]

And don't discount just having the BORG do those first breakdown cuts for you for free.

If purchasing from the BORG, definitely take advantage of this.

[glenn bradley]

I agree on breaking down large sheets outside a shop that size. You do not need a tracksaw to do this but, if you want one, that's fine. A shop made guide and a decent circ-saw will get you to a size you can work with easily in the shop.

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GCS-v2 Shop Made 017.jpg

[Allan Speers]

If purchasing from the BORG, definitely take advantage of this.

As long as you don't mind the 3 hours and seventeen minutes it takes, on average, to find the guy that operates the saw.

[Ole Anderson]

As long as you don't mind the 3 hours and seventeen minutes it takes, on average, to find the guy that operates the saw.

I've never had to wait more than a few minutes at either HD or Lowe's. Sorry about your experience.

[Brian Sommers]

I'm tired, my TS arrived, I put it together, very nice saw.

I'll just get it ripped down at the store when I buy it. I live in Amish country and we have full service lumber yards around here.

I can handle a 4' square easily enough and the fact that the saw moves around, I'll be using shorter length stock anyway.. so I will probably make me a guide and be done with that.

[Tom Clark FL]

One more vote for making your own guide for ripping sheets to whatever size you want. I have a big shop and plenty of room, but I still prefer cutting up full size sheets before taking them to the table saw for final sizing. Handling a full size sheet on a table saw is a pain. Home-made guides are easy to make and produce very straight edges. They also cost almost nothing. I have been using my 4' and 8' guides for 30 years, and they make me giggle at the cost of the fancy new track saws…

[Art Mann]

One more vote for making your own guide for ripping sheets to whatever size you want. I have a big shop and plenty of room, but I still prefer cutting up full size sheets before taking them to the table saw for final sizing. Handling a full size sheet on a table saw is a pain. Home-made guides are easy to make and produce very straight edges. They also cost almost nothing. I have been using my 4' and 8' guides for 30 years, and they make me giggle at the cost of the fancy new track saws…

I used a home made setup for 30 years too. I finally bought a track saw about 3 years ago and my only regret is that I didn't buy one when they first came out. I use mine for final cuts on furniture projects. I could never do that with my plywood saw guides. I had both accuracy and cut quality problems that were the result of using a tool made for framing houses as a precision saw.

[Rick Potter]

One suggestion I would make about your new saw, is to make a cover for it out of hardboard or whatever. When not using the saw you now have a nice assembly table, finishing table, etc., and the saw won't get messed up.

[Charles Lent]

The first, and last time that I asked to have a sheet of plywood cut at a big box store. The guy cutting it pushed the panel saw through the sheet as fast as he could, creating splinters 3" long on both sides of the cut, and ruining the wood. I ended up having a go around with the manager over it and partially won because I ended up having to take a new full sheet home on a little car, then break it down myself with my circular saw and saw horses. That was 2 shops ago and I still don't have a shop large enough to break sheets down inside the shop with my table saw.

I do it outside using a specially built table, a 4' straight edge clamp, an 8' straight edge clamp, and my circular saw with a thin kerf, fine tooth carbide blade. I've installed a zero clearance base on my circular saw and built my cutting table using 2 X 4 stock laid flat for the cross pieces and 1X4 pine for the outside frame. (see picture). I use the table much the same as you would use saw horses, setting the depth of cut of the circular saw to about 1/4" deeper than the material being cut. No metal is in the table frame, except for the legs and the short screws into the 2 X 4s to attach the legs. The rest of it is put together with biscuits and glue, so it's nearly impossible to hit metal with the saw blade no matter where you cut from the top side.

My cutting table is very simple. The legs are banquet table folding legs from Harbour Freight, and when folded they fit up inside the 1 X 4 frame, so the table carries and stores very easily, even easier than most saw horses. The beauty of using a table like this over saw horses is that none of your pieces fall when you reach the end of the cut. They lie there on the table until you pick them up, so no corners are ever broken and the saw never binds. If I somehow make so many cuts in the top surface that it gets too unsightly or somehow weakened I'll make another frame and transfer the legs to it for less than $20. This table also makes a great picnic expansion table by adding a full sheet of plywood to the top, if extra guests arrive for the picnic at the last minute DAMHIKT.

The photo actually shows my first version of the table. I decided that it was too heavy and replaced the perimeter 2 X 4s with 1 X 4 stock, making the table about 20 lbs lighter.

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Charley