ryobi 254mm, 1500w table saw

[hsvls1255]

hello all.
am new to this forums, am interested in getting into this wood working.

just curious is this a half decent saw. i saw it for $250 @ bunnings mascot, seems to be abit cheap, when they had a dewalt table saw worth $1000 next to it.

thanks

[ozwinner]

Hi and welcome
I would say it would be a quarter decent saw.
Unfortunatly you ony get what you pay for.
If you are wanting to get started in woodwork, you should have a look a the Triton stuff.
You can start of on the cheap and add stuff to it later on.

Cheers, Allan

[hsvls1255]

i did a search and saw some people complaining about the
' fence ' on the saw....

what exactly is this, remember i am new to this game.
cheers

[ozwinner]

Hi
The fence is the guide for the timber to go in a straight line over the blade.
If you are refering to the Triton, I had a Triton before updateing to a larger table saw.
I never had a problem with the fence, if you take the time to tune your machines, and you HAVE to tune any machine you buy, you will get very accurate cuts, even with the Triton.
I could cut to within about .1 of a mm with the Triton.
Maybe I was lucky.
I'm not saying that other ppl dont, or havent tuned their machines properly either.
There are many issues as to why machines dont cut, or perform properly.
But if you take care and time setting up any machine woodworking is great fun.
But, if you just get it out of the box and expect it to be accurate, then you are in for a very frustrating time.
Believe me, I know from experiance.
When you get your machines whether new or second hand, take the time to set it up, the person who you have bought it off may never have done it.
There are threads on this BB to point you in the right direction on tuneing any type of machine.
I found out the hard way, before I came across this BB.

Cheers, Allan

[simon c]

I have one and it's OK - but it certainly isn't worth much more than the $250 that it costs

The problems with it are:
not the best fence in the world
VERY noisy (it has a brush motor not an induction)
no motor brake so the blade spins for ages after you switch it off which can be dangerous and can damage your product
but all of these things are what make the expensive ones expensive

good things are:
cheap
a reasonable cast aluminium top
better than anything at that price

I have a system for buying tools that means that I always buy a cheap one first so I can work out if I'm really going to use it. If I find that it is a useful tool, then I ditch the cheap one and replace it with something of a lot better quality. I'll probably spend 20% more than I needed to on the expensive item but I save it on buying things that I never use

currently the table saw gets used once a month - so at $250 it is proving good value