Thread: sliding compound saw

Haven't heard that the sliding saws lose their accuracy. No doubt the members will have lots to say about different brands.
Carry Pine

G'day
Generally speaking, you get what you pay for. The subbie working on our extensions has left me his beautiful Bosch 10" SCMS. I've never used an SCMS before and this one is excellent. Quiet, accurate, no slump and a smooth operator.
Cheers

Originally Posted by Shedhand

G'day
Quiet, accurate, no slump and a smooth operator.
Cheers

The Saw or the Subbie:confused:

Originally Posted by Ivan in Oz

The Saw or the Subbie:confused:

The saw you goose. ..actually, the subbie is a real gem. Nothing's too much trouble and he's a very good tradesman. He also has no problem with me using his excellent tools. I went through some of the chisels and brikkie tools he left here last weekend and put the wire brush and bees wax over them as well as grinding all the nail chips out of his decrepit old Stanley 1 1/2 inch chisel :eek: . Very happy man he is. Used the chisel for its intended purpose and declared her nicely sharp.
Cheers

Originally Posted by kingy_180

is there much diffrents between a sliding compound saw and a non sliding one ,ive heard that the sliding one after time loses its accuracy thanks kingy

Hi Kingy 180

Mines a non-sliding makita. Lovely saw - fence square and accurate cuts every time. However, its width of cut is limited to the size of the blade. With a sliding CMS, you can crosscut wider boards - which I sometimes miss.

jas

I have a makita scms and is as accurate today as when I set it up
I wouldn't waste me time effort or money buying a cms , with a scms you can lock the slide and then you have a cms as well
BTW once you get one you will wonder how you ever got on without one


Rgds

I'm saving my pennies foe a bosch SCMS. Saw the 10in at the WWW show here and I decided that I have to have one. I have my triton, but to have the other saw will make life that bit easier.

With the Makita Sliding Saw the slide is acutally two rails, not one. This goes a long way to maintaining stability. Also, if your serious look for a saw which has an adjustement for altering the vertical depth of the cut. Most saws are designed to cut right through the piece, however some have a small screw setup which allows you to set the bottom of the blade higher than the plate which the wood sits on. This gives the ability to cut tenons, lap joints etc

Originally Posted by Bluegum

I'm saving my pennies foe a bosch SCMS. Saw the 10in at the WWW show here and I decided that I have to have one. I have my triton, but to have the other saw will make life that bit easier.

I have a GMC to complement the Triton - bloody useful tool! Tried kerfing with it yesterday - not bad at all. Find the laser an extremely useful addition (once calibrated properly) - can spit a pencil line accurately, and repeatable. Mine is a double-rail SMCS, with the motor tilted so you can mitre to both sides. Definitely needed some work to calibrate it out of the box, but the initial setup time pays for itself in the long run.

I reckon the smaller the blade the better the accuracy. If you're looking at them in the shops, set the base to 90 deg, pull the saw head all the way forward then grab hold & move the head side to side & check for play. Sometimes there's play in the rails but on good saws there's an adjustment (usually a pair of grub screws) where the rails slide. If there's still play after this adjustment it may be a little more difficult to "tune it out". Other things to look for, try locking the base plate at an odd angle & see how easy it holds that setting. The best here is the DeWalt lever style. Base plates that swing to more than 45 deg are also handy. Soft start is nice, especially on a big 300mm machine. base plate indexing - some of the older models of Hitachi are deplorable, & also the fence. A wide gap between the fences is a bad design, once again the old Hitachi's were bad for this. Have a look at the stability of the saw with the head in different positions, some of them want to fall backwards when the head is pushed right back. The Makita's have a bad design feature in the compound angle adjustment. At the pivot point, the meeting surfaces are honeycombed instead of solid. This allows a lot of stuff to accumulate & leads to jamming of the movement. Also on the Makita's, the blade change window thingy is held to the cover with a mild steel screw into aluminium. It's prone to jamb itself in there, the DeWalts have used a nice insert instead of going the cheap option of just tapping a thread into the cover. Thats all that comes to mind for now.

Originally Posted by namtrak

With the Makita Sliding Saw the slide is acutally two rails, not one. This goes a long way to maintaining stability. Also, if your serious look for a saw which has an adjustement for altering the vertical depth of the cut. Most saws are designed to cut right through the piece, however some have a small screw setup which allows you to set the bottom of the blade higher than the plate which the wood sits on. This gives the ability to cut tenons, lap joints etc

Couldn't agree more. Two rails for stability and trenching feature a must. The scms types where the rails pivot to bring the saw head down, eg Archer and Elu are accurate but can't have a trenching feature. They are perfect for fitout work because they are quiet tho'.

Cheers
Michael

Originally Posted by stuart_lees

Definitely needed some work to calibrate it out of the box, but the initial setup time pays for itself in the long run.

dead right Stu, and probably the best tip anyone could get. no matter what the brand/cost of a new tool i always take whatever time is necessary to make sure it is set up properly and accurately. sometimes that takes hours but its time well spent. if you dont do it when its new you will still have to do it after its wrecked some wood or you will always have to compensate for the errors.

There was a discussion a few weeks ago about reviewing power tools. What review could be better than what we've just read in this thread. Brilliant, thanks fellas.