Contractor saw users - opinions on which is best

[Charles Wilson]

Any information on what you think might be the best brands/models to buy and why? Keep going back and forth on buying a TS or not.

Regards,
Chuck

[Anthony Anderson]

Charles, I believe the best bang for buck is the Craftsman 22124 with the Biesmeyer fence. You can get these on sale for around $800. These saws get really good reviews, and most seem very happy with them. Good Luck, Bill

[Charles Wilson]

How about this on Amazon?

http://www.amazon.com/Delta-36-982-H...330487&sr=1-46

[Brett Baldwin]

Charles, what is your intended use for it and is there a reason you are focusing on contractors saws? I think you'll receive more useful responses if you give us some general info.

[Jesse Thornton]

What price range are you looking at? I've been using the Ridgid TS2650 for about two years now, and for the money I think it is an excellent saw. It's definately not the best contractor saw out there, but it might be one of the best bangs for the buck. I've heard many others say likewise. On sale, I bought mine for $800cdn. I've pushed a fair bit of 8/4 hard maple through it (though I did upgrade to a Forrest blade for that), and ripped, crosscut, and dadoed a wide variety of other materials with it with great results. In fact, just this evening I was 'resawing' some 4 1/2" 4/4 cherry with it to make bookmatched panels, and with nearly 2 1/2" of blade completely buried in the wood, it was like cutting butter (albeit slighly chilled butter). The mobile base is awesome. After aligning the blade and fence to within ~.002" of perfect, it held that alignment through some pretty heavy use.
There's a pretty thorough and favorable review here:
http://benchmark.20m.com/reviews/Rid...650Review.html

From the link:
"I find the Ridgid TS3650 to have quite a few high-end features that belie its low-end price tag. The saw comes with two cast iron wings, a mobile base, an excellent rip fence, a stout trunion design, a trunion alignment aid, a dust collection shroud, and a poly-vee belt drive. Without these items, the Ridgid would be just another okay saw, with these, I believe it is an exceptional value and competes easily with saws costing much more."

[glenn bradley]

You say 'contractor saw' so I won't tell you I decided on a hybrid for the smaller footprint, better dust collection, fence, power, etc. The Ridgid 3650 gets a lot of praise by owners (under $600).

[Bill Huber]

I have been looking at different saws and thinking about getting a new one until I decided to rebuild the old one.
I was already to get the Ridgid TS3650 at Home Depot for $550 when I decided to do the rebuild on the old one.
It looks to me like for the money it was about the best bang for the buck.

I had read a lot of write ups and it was always one that was on top or close to it.

[John D. Thompson]

I have been looking at different saws and thinking about getting a new one until I decided to rebuild the old one.
I was already to get the Ridgid TS3650 at Home Depot for $550 when I decided to do the rebuild on the old one.
It looks to me like for the money it was about the best bang for the buck.

I had read a lot of write ups and it was always one that was on top or close to it.

I'm with Bill on this one. I don't know what saw you have but, my personal choice was the old model Craftsman contractors saw. I preferred the smaller motor as being less dangerous and, as I usually work alone, that was a big consideration. If you get in trouble you can usually overpower the motor.

I got it home and assembled and aligned it and every thing was fine until I needed to cut some two-sided melamine. It blew the edges out something fierce.

I trued up the arbor flange with a mounted stone chucked into a router and it cut melamine with zero tearout top OR bottom!

All I'm saying is that, if you treat a contractor's saw like you would a hand-plane, you can pretty much turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.

JT

[Phil Thien]

The Jet 708100 is a hybrid in a contractor footprint. The motor is IN the cabinet (but the trunnion extends below at 90-degrees a little, no biggie). It has EXCELLENT dust collection because the blade is shrouded (but w/ only a 2.5" dust port). And the unit is available for $400 at Woodcraft. It was on 10% sale last weekend. And this link:

http://www.powermatic.com/promos/RebatePromo2.pdf

seems to indicate a $50 rebate.

Heckuva deal. I didn't do it, but it is a heckuva deal.

[Tim Malyszko]

When I was looking for a table saw, I ended up purchasing the Ridgid TS3650 since it provided a number of features not found in the $500 table saw range. Here are some examples:

• Decent Fence - I did not want to have to upgrade my fence right off the bat. The Ridgid fence locks on both the infeed and outfeed table and it's been very easy to repeat positions over and over. It also has very little deflection when applying a side load to it and has a 36" rip capacity to the right of the blade.
• Mobile Base - The Herc-U-Lift base works great and makes the saw very easy to move around when I do occassionally have to rip full 4x8 sheets.
• Good Belt Drive - Many of the other saws I looked at, users recommended replacing the belt drive immediately. This did not seem to be the case on the Ridgid.
• Arbor could accomidate a 3/4" Dado stack - Again, not a big deal, but I noticed this was an issue with some other contractor saws out there.
• Ridgid Lifetime Warranty - Emerson is a very reputable company so I felt confident that they would take care of any warranty issues.
• Local Pickup - I could drop by HD, and walk out with a new saw in the back of my truck instead of having to wait for it to be delivered.

Now that I've had the saw for a while, the only thing I wish it had was a bigger motor. The 1.5 hp motor really bogs down on most hard woods thicker than 5/4 and ripping anything larger than 4/4 was near impossible until I replaced the blade with a Freud Thin-Kerf 24T ripping blade. I knew this would be an issue when I purchased the saw and would be an issue with any saw with this size motor; however, I didn't want to spend more than $600 since I knew I would upgrade to a full 3 or 5 hp cabinet saw in the next 2-4 years once I get a space that can accomidate a stationary cabinet saw.

If you do a search on-line on the TS3650, you will find many favorable reviews.

Good luck with your purchase.

[Julio Navarro]

I just bought the HItachi for under $500. I've bought three Hitachi routers as well as a 4" grinder and they are all built like tanks. I really like thier quality.

I was comparing the Ridgid and the Hitachi and went with the HItachi for its 3hp(15amp) motor as opposed to the Ridgid 13amp 1-1/2HP motor. (please correct me if this is wrong, I know that motors have crazy rating criteria but those are the lable ratings for both motors)

The Hitachi is more of a hybrid since the motor is inside and this machine is very quiet.

One other thing that attracted me to the Hitachi is it's micro adjustment fence, it's very smooth, but so is the Ridgid.

The only bad thing about the HItachi is the two sheet metal wings which though they are very thick guage are still not cast steel so thats one drawback but if they are adjusted correctly they dont make seem to be to bad.

The base has heavy duty casters which like the Hercu-lift can be lowered and raised to move the saw. They are easier to assemble than the Hercu-lift. I have the Herculift on my Rdigid band saw and it was a not the easiest thing to put together, least not for me.

The HItachi is a left tilt saw and has a large top with miter slots on either side of the blade.

With the HItachi at under 500 I was able to get the DeWalt heavy duty two speed planer all for under $1,000.00 and the handy 10% off coupon from Lowes didnt hurt either.

If you compare the Hitachi to the Ridgid I think you may think twice about the Ridgid.


It's definately worth the look.

[Rod Torgeson]

Chuck....I have a Delta contractors saw that I got about 4 years ago. It has the cast iron wings and Biesmeyer fence with the extension table. Fence goes out to 30 some inches. I enclosed the sides and front and back and hooked up dust collection to it. It is not the best for dust collection, but it works pretty good. I am very happy with it. It has the 1 1/2 hp motor. Never had a problem with it bogging down when cutting. Hope this helps.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Any information on what you think might be the best brands/models to buy and why?

It would be well to explain a little about the sort of work you want it perform, how often and the means by which you will transport it from job to job.

There are all manner of contractors saws that range in size and capacity substantially.

[glenn bradley]

"The HItachi is a left tilt saw and has a large top with miter slots on either side of the blade."

Julio, is this the Hitachi with the non-standard miter slots?

[John Hain]

I've noted alot of the pros use this contractor's saw from Dewalt. FWW has at least 2 of their guys on video who use this saw exclusively. I also noted the guys building the house next to mine using it on the job to do high-end cabinets.

http://www.amazon.com/DeWalt-DW746X-...3367313&sr=8-3