Thread: Ryobi BT3100K - the little table saw that could

Now I know a lot of you are going to poo-poo my little beastie in favour of much bigger, better and generally more expensive options, but my floorspace and budget are limited and I wanted something slightly better than an Ozito or other low-priced plastic-based tradie saws.

I happened upon another BT3100 in very good condition a few months ago on Gumtree, the seller was asking $450 which seemed reasonable. I did a bit of research and decided that it fitted my requirements quite well (cheap, small & capable). I arranged to buy the saw pending inspection the following weekend. When I called again to confirm a time I was informed that the saw had been sold, sorry, too bad, so sad. So now the search was on to find another one. I set my eBay notifications and scoured Gumtree daily for a few months when finally another one appeared. This time it was in pieces, actually a lot of it was still sealed in original boxes!

The seller was having a shed clean up and the price was right at just $200! I wasn't going to miss out this time so I sent my Dad around to buy it for me on a Friday afternoon while I was still at work. What arrived in my shed was this:



Effectively a brand new saw, it has never been fully assembled or used. Unfortunately it has lost it's original box and packaging, and some poor storage has left it with some scars, but only cosmetic and nothing which will prohibit it's performance.



So I downloaded a copy of the manual and started reading the assembly guide and checking the parts list before I realised I was missing a few key components. 1x of the clamps which hold the rails to the main saw body was attached and the other 3x were missing. Not something easily replaced as their correct fitting ensures alignment for everything else on the saw. The seller had a look around his shed for me but came up empty handed. I hit up the special orders desk at the big green shed (Ryobi wouldn't deal direct) and ordered $40 worth of nuts, washers and plastic handles. And here she is all assembled.



I'm not a big fan of the stand, it makes for a large footprint and wastes space. I'm going to build the saw into a work bench, something like this. Needs to be mobile so I can move it around the garage and have provisions for my SCMS with removable fences. Maybe some version of the Ultimate Tool Stand


tl:dr I got a new saw!