Thread: Makita 2704 Tablesaw

I think this saw is probably about to be/ has been replaced with the 2705? However I thought I would do a review anyway for those in the second hand market.

I got my saw for NZD1000 from Mitre 10 in Auckland, it was the floor stock they had left and looked like it had been out for about as long as they had stocked that model. I had to bend the riving knife straight again, but apart from that it was in good condition (they offered to get me a replacement knife, but I didn't take them up on it).

I built a basic workbench, trimmed some small plywood pieces and most of the work I have done since is cross cutting bulding a bit of furniture.

For cutting 100x50 and knocking up a bench, the saw worked well. I could fault it for not cross cutting well with 1m+ timber, but really that is the job of an SCMS which I didn't have.

The positives:
The riving knife is a plus, I wouldn't like to use a saw with just a splitter now.
The saw has plenty of power and certainly went through the few bits of 100x100 H3 that I've cut no worries.
The stand on wheels is good, its easy to move around over bumps and humps.
The switch is big and easy to use and feels solid.

The negatives:
Dust Collection
The mitre gauge
The rip fence

*I'll temper this dust collection complaint with the fact I'm using a wet/dry vacum to collect dust, one with a fine filter and positioned down vent, but without the airflow of a big DC*. Dust collection on this saw might have been an afterthought, but I suspect it wasn't really thought about (maybe tradesmen need to give a bit more consideration to the hazards of breathing saw dust all day? Particularly with the use of boron and cca treated timber). There is a big slot in the base of the blade guard presumably to allow thin slices of timber that fall through the wide insert plate to fall to the floor...so I covered this with duct tape to improve dust collection. To the right of the blade there is just a large gap and area for dust to collect on a plastic insert, this is all done to allow the blade to bevel, I don't use the bevel much so I blocked this up with a piece of 7mm ply that fits snuggly, this helped. After these bits and a few more pieces of duct tape, I can now get what I rate as reasonable enough dust collection with the blade guard fitted to use the saw without a mask on untreated timber. I don't expect a saw of this style to have a dust port on the blade guard.

The mitre gauge is not good enough quality, the gauge is really short so holding long/heavy timber flat and square against it is challenging, the guide wobbles in either mitre slot and the two mitre slots aren't quite parallel (you need to slightly adjust the mitre gauge when swapping mitre slots). with the side table extended it did a reasonable job cross cutting any stock shorter than about 1m. I built a cross cut sled the size of the table and now I'm comfortably cutting 1.6m stock provided it isn't too heavy (docking some 300x50 totara glue ups this evening made cuts a little inaccurate, again a job better suited to an SCMS).

The rip fence is a poor design, adjusting it sort of works, but you can easily lock it in a position that isn't parallel if you aren't taking great care (such as when focusing more on measuring position rather than getting it parallel), I'm not sure what is stopping this having a single ended perpendicular type locking handle.

If you're looking for a contractor type saw to use where portability rules over accuracy this saw will probably serve you well. It certainly looked a lot better than the MLT100 I looked at and it is preferable to the old triton I had used a few years ago. For my current rented house with carport workshop I would probably buy it again, though I would have a better idea of what to look for in the future from the likes of Festool CS-50 and bosch GTS that I've never seen and the dewalt that I have seen. A moot point as when it gets replaced it will be with a cabinet saw.

I hope this might help someone, if not at least it was interesting to try writing my first review...sorry about some of the spelllling