Looking for a sliding miter saw

[Patrick Curry]

I'm leaning toward the Bosch because of space, I have a small shop, but at the same time I need something that is very accurate.

If you're doing a lot of trim work, 10" blade might be the way to go. 12" blades thin kerf will deflect s bit more

[Stew Hagerty]

I actually just sold my 10" SCMS and bought a 12" DEWALT DW716XPS. I found that I almost never used the extra width afforded by the slider. But what I did want was the ability to cut thicker material. The Dewalt was perfect, plus it was even a dual bevel, and had the LED/Shadow feature.
It was very nearly dead-on in both miter & bevel settings when I got it. I could have easily just used it as-is. However, I had to tinker. I easily got it adjusted to .0015 over 6" using the 5-cut method at 90°. Once I set 90, the rest of the presets tested just as good. I didn't mess with the left bevel because I didn't think I could do anything to improve it. I ended up adjusting the right bevel only by about 3/4 of a turn of the stop.
I have used it for about 3 weeks now, and I absolutely love it. Oh, and I added a Kreg track & stop kit. I've got it set up fot 8' to the left and 3' to the right, although I actually have over 10' of space to the left and approximately 6' on the right.

[Wayne Lomman]

Go with a decent sized DeWalt. I use a 12" slider every day for everything from house framing to window glazing bead. I change the blade depending on the job. I also have a basic 10" for smaller work. They cut everything from cedar to F27 and F32 hardwoods and are still accurate after years of service - 7 years and 14 years respectively.

Cheers

PS Finally raining here in Tasmania!

[Art Mann]

In answer to someone's question earlier in the thread, the Bosch GCM12SD glider does not provide satisfactory dust collection. The design looks and performs like an after thought. That is the only bad thing I have found about the saw. Otherwise it is outstanding in accuracy, ease of use and general operation. It takes up much, much less depth than my previous Hitachi slider.

[Steve Peterson]

How is the dust collection on the Bosch, as dismal as everyone else?

The dust collection is not that great on the Bosch, although I am not sure if any miter saw is going to be very good. There is a rubber shield behind the blade and most of the dust gets thrown into the collection bag.

I have a wooden shroud around my saw with a 6" pipe collecting dust through 3 3.5" diameter holes. I also have a 2.5" flex tube running to the blade, but it chokes down to about 1.25" and has a sharp 90 degree bend. Someday I will try to increase the top collector to 2.5" all the way to the opening.

I would say that the top collector grabs about half of the sawdust and the wooden shroud collects about 80% of the remainder. A fast spinning miter saw blade throws sawdust at high speed and it takes a huge amount of air movement to catch the sawdust. As a reference point, the wooden shroud around my lathe appears to catch over 99% of the sanding dust with the same size 6" port. You can see the stream of fine sawdust heading straight for the dust port.

Steve