Thread: Sliding Compound Mitre Saw

The mistake that is being made by the tablesaw brigade is in saying it is the only way to do what they do....

I could not build what I do with only a tablesaw, but by jimminy its handy to to have, a SCMS is by far the most used tool, followed by table and bandsaws, none can do the job themselves, nor are they the only way to do a job, its the combination and methods that are used which dictate which tools are used the most.

And for anyone who blames their SCMS for being inaccurate, this was built using a Ryobi SCMS as a piece of joinery practice.

mm thats quite a piece of work cruzi

as has been said before it really depends on what you do - hence the dilemna of the starter - at the beginning of ones obsession with woodcraft it is difficult to see where it could end up

imho it is good for the starter to hear the arguments for and against the different machines that may become the heart of their workshop - hearing input from users who have found their way with the ts, scms, or any other machine is the best way they can move forward.

wether one is from the tablesaw or any other brigade each of us have found our separate way with a core machine that sits at the heart of our workshops -
in my particular workshop every job begins on the TS

here is a piece of my work - not exactly joinery but it is made mostly of wood

Here's a piece that the tablesaw never saw ()

There are plenty of other pieces where the tablesaw was very important as well as many that the SCMS was the key even others where the bandsaw was key, there is no one single tool for every job, nor is there no one single method that is the best, what works for you safely is the aim.

No worries, for a straight answer to the original question, it depends on your budget.

I am a big fan of the Festool Kapex, however, it was too expensive for my budget.

The next best in my estimation is either one of the big Makita SCMSs. I went for the LS1214. This saw is very accurate and repeatable right out of the box, with a very small amount of tuning it is supremely so. The main area where it doesn't measure up against the Kapex is dust and chip collection. However, with a little bit of work you can achieve good results and this saw is around the $1000 mark whereas the Kapex, even with recent price cuts, is double that.

Next up is probably the big Hitachi, followed by the big Bosch and Metabo saws. None of these are poor machines, just not quite as good as the Makita in my view. Once you go into the rank below all these on quaility you get neither the repeatability nor the durability.

Originally Posted by Horaldic

this saw is around the $1000 mark whereas the Kapex, even with recent price cuts, is double that.

In terms of price for Festool products it seems that Festool dealers do not advertise prices for less than the RRP on their websites. However it also seems clear that some will do good deals when shopping in person or over the phone.

There was a post elsewhere in the last couple of days when a member said he bought a new Kapex for $1450 from Beyond Tools (authorised Festool Dealer) in Perth. I would have thought other dealers would at least match that price.

I've heard the same sort of thing, i.e. if you haggle you can get the Makita for around $800 and the Kapex for around $1500 in Melbourne