Thread: Making my De Walt TS safer, and why I chose this saw

I purchased a DeWalt 7491 job site saw about 18 months ago, and I find it very good indeed. The fence in particular works very well indeed - I suspect there may be some German engineering there. The 2000w motor is really good (noisy Universal of course) but I haven't tested it on say 50mm thick nasty hardwood yet, but I think it will be just fine.

When contemplating this saw I checked out the Metabo offering but the fence was ABSOLUTELY KERRRAP, flimsy as all get-out. I also checked out the ridiculously under-powered SawStop for ridiculousy double the money. Nearly half the power for nearly twice the dough? NOPE! The next closest was the Bosch, but again the fence wasn't as good as the DW, and there were a couple of other minor things.

Oh, and if anyone is contemplating the Festool CMS with either a TS55 or TS75 in it - ahhh, I had one one with all the extension tables and sliding table and couldn't WAIT to get rid of it. The DW absolutely KILLS it for performance, function, speed of use....and it's around ¼ of the price!!! I have also seen the CS 70 Precisio in action at my place and whilst it's a devoted table saw I still wouldn't give you tuppence for one (and it's still more expensive)



Along with the DW I also purchased the 74912-XJ stand for it thinking that I would use it in my shed. Unfortunately the legs stick out all over the place and it is a bad trip hazard in a small shop.

That meant that I placed it on a chest of tool drawers that I had previously made, but whilst it fitted ok, the chest is SUPER heavy and difficult to drag around. So I put some inadequate wheels on it and it was still very difficult to move around - especially when the two smaller wheel compressed to an oval shape......

Furthermore, the height of the saw was 1050 from the floor which is very uncomfortable ....ESPECIALLY when leaning over the blade ESPECIALLY with a 1200 sheet to manage. I can't wait to stop that damn blade spinning.....and that was not so easy to achieve.

Rightio, time to change this! Over last weekend I made a dedicated table for it which also has an outfeed table that is about 380mm long and 300mm wide. Previously, cutting a 1200 long sheet was pretty damned difficult by myself, but the outfeed has improved the safety of that dramatically.

1. TSt back.JPG .... 2. TSt front.JPG

The carcase is from Merbau that was on hand, and the box walls are 7mm ply from the local hardware. The top and base are 12mm and 16mm MDF, and the braked wheels are from McJings. I need the two door stops to compensate for floor unevenness - when in use I can't necessarily have it on the one sheet of Yellow Tongue flooring so one wheel is often off the floor. The door stops also add a bit more braking capacity (the wheels are smooth and slippery and so is the floor).

Merbau was also used for the "stilts" to hold up the outfeed table. I was going to add a very large steel bracket that I have on a third stilt in the middle, but it just wasn't necessary. Yes, there is some slight movement (a little nodding) in the outfeed, but not enough to worry about at all. The outfeed is a small piece of melamine chipboard, which is nice and slippery and will wear well too.

3. TSt ext table mounts.JPG


I ummed and ahhhed about making more than one drawer, but then I realised I have enough boxes of abrasives to almost fill a large drawer, and that meant I didn't have to make sets of runners to accommodate two or more drawers. Even though the drawer is around 570 x 650 x 330 internal it is not that heavy to move because abrasives don't weigh much.

4. TSt drawer.JPG



The previous weekend I had made a Crosscut Sled and that also dramatically improved safety. The mitre guides are waxed Merbau.

5. TSt Sled.JPG



Now, with the table at the correct height (~900mm) and with the sled, I can trim a 4 paling panel about 400mm wide, super accurately, dead square, and with almost NIL spelching, and the blade-on to blade-off time is around 4 seconds flat! If necessary I can left-knee the off-paddle. Because of the clamps in the sled it can be operated with one hand in complete and utter safety, with the other hand hovering over the off paddle. I can also stack up three 12mm thick panels at once if I want too. THAT is what I like! Absolutely minimum exposure spinny cutty things.

I can easily plug the saw into the take-off from the vac (adjacent), and I operate the vac with a remote control, but where to put the remote? Now I can put in in the sled and it travels within reach of my hand so I have yet another kill switch to choose from. :2TSUP:


Very happily the outfeed table goes straight over the top of one of the storage shelves. This means I can tuck it away when not in use and I haven't actually lost the space of the shelf either because my box of abrasives can sit on it.

6. TSt stored.JPG


All up it is a massive improvement over what I put up with for too long!