Thread: Trade Tools 12m10a Cabinet Saw

Hi Damian,

I followed your thread (all 6 pages!) to the end with interest, the feedback you guys had was one of the reasons that lead me to the TTD version.

Thanks for the heads up about the carbatec side tables, good to know if I want one in future.

Ive been using it so mich, Wifey was even kind enough to stitch me up a cover!


So I was kind enough to put the saw to use in return!
Still have to attach the legs, but you get the drift...

Lee Roy, you promised me feedback on the TTD.

I am going to buy one in the next few days. The comparisons are a nightmare but the TTD looks mighty fine indeed.

Anything after having time to pound it that you suggest? Fence good, power, dado?

Suppose my only Q was the dado and amps/plug.... Though I might call TTD tomorrow.

Btw, nice chess board

ohh sorry, was too busy cutting!

I'm not too good at official reviews, but I'll give you a rundown!

So far I've cut down some heavy old jarrah posts, sliced up that board pictured above and tidied up some other bits and pieces I have laying around. So far, I LOVE IT! Compared to the home brand chinese one I had before, there is no contest. Power wise, seems good, it has a 10amp plug which is one of the selling factors for me (rental property, no 15amp or 415v power.)

I'll start with the fence because it's really the only thing I have had any problems with. Annoyingly mine was missing a plastic bush on the guide plates, which now explains why I had slop in the display one I looked at (I purchased the display)

This made the fence sit crooked and gave me all sorts of grief when aligning the top until I worked out the bush was missing. I rang TTD and informed them and they said they would swap the whole thing with a new fence entirely rather than try to match the bushes, it took them 1 week but told me it was no problem if I used the dud one, which I did by just removing the opposite offending bush.
The fence sit rock solid on the table, absolutely no flex, and putting some weight into the logs caused not even the slightest of play.
I find this does change a little bit when the fence leaves the far extension table and it resting solely on the two fence runners.

This pic is before I assembled the fence, but you can see where it continues past the right extension table, this goes for about 800mm-ish or so past the table

The rear runner sits lower than the table which causes the fence to lower 1/4" or so (at the back end ONLY) which can give a small amount of play. It's past the blade so it doesn't seem to have any impact on the cut, but it is there. I haven't ruled out the back runner not being installed correctly, I also noticed a rounded nut at the back of the fence that looks like it should be extended and rest on the runner which would eliminate the problem. So I will do some more research there before I blame the design any more.
However, aside from this part that I haven't fully worked out, I am very happy with the fence. It gave beautifully straight cuts every time, even using the mitre gauge.

As mentioned with the GPW saw, it comes with the 'green' brand 10" blade which is excellent, much better than I was expecting for a blade that came with the saw. Gives a lovely smooth rip and even a very nice crosscut. I hadn't noticed a twist in one of the posts until I couldn't push it any longer, but I was stuck and had to 'push on' so I gave the log all my oomph, that was really the first time I noticed it slow down at all, only other time was trying to rip a decent piece in a hurry (130x100 jarrah log) and really leaning into it. Handled it fine, I just heard the whine change tone.

I have it and the H&F DC1 dust extractor connected which takes most of the dust away, I haven't connected anything to blade cover port (don't have any hose) but I think that would make a big difference because the only dust I ended up finding is out all over the table from the blade as you cut. I'll look into that down the track.

Dado, I am not 100%. I must admit it wasn't a sticking point for me I have never used a Dado and don't know when/if I will. However, this is the same unit (cabinet at least) as the GPW and his does take Dado, so I see no reason that this wouldn't. If you like I can measure the arbour and compare with someone who has a dado on another branded 12m10a?

2 things that were as frustrating as hell when setting up as the instructions are next to useless. The first was discussing the adjustment of the blade tilt via grub screws within the table. It even points to the location on the table top. There aren't any grubscrews on the table!!!! You can see the boss where they would be cast underneath, but they are not cut out of the table. I believe all the new 12m10a's are like this no matter which brand. I was lucky in that both 45 and 90 degree stops were dead on, so no adjustment required. But it would mean some long allen keys to make adjustments if necessary. Not hard, just fiddly and completely different to the instructions.
Other was tightening the hand wheel for the blade tilt. There is a lock at the front (small red thing below the top in the pic above) which I tightened up very tight, but I hadn't noticed a spring loaded screw at the same position around the back. Tightening this tensions the rear part of tilt mechanism and removed the 'wandering tilt' I experienced when ripping.

Overall I am very happy with the saw, quality of cut, power when under load, dust extraction seems good, top is fantastic and square and couldn't beat the price. As a plus it had a router table albeit small. All up I'd highly recommend it.

Thanks dude, I'll definitely order one on monday now.

I might even write again and ask for your lovely wife to whip me up a cover just like yours!

Thought to say my table finally came. Ive spent the last 3 days setting it up and I'm a bit upset.

It looks to be a good saw, but I'm having a bit of time setting it up. Lee-Roy, you must have received the good one, for not one single thing on mine is flat, straight, aligned or not without needing mods.

The wings dont go on cleanly, they butt against the underside of the table top and right up against the cabinet, removing any capacity to align the top. Taking them off again to get the top right and checking the level, its off against the blade, so I shimmed this with feeler guages, then attempting to align the top to the blade was problematic as one of the bolts had a dag that needed to be drilled out.

Lets hope its all good for now! I'm dying to use it!

Hmmmm, why can't you long the top with the wings attached? To get mine off the ute I took the entire top off, wings and all. When I put it back on I had to realign, there were 4 black Allen key screws, in the corner of the cabinet that attached to the top. I just kept adjusting the top (actually mitre slots) against the blade and it went together beautifully. I wouldn't say mine was square to the blade by 1000th of an inch, but it's close! It should be easier than our response.

Time flies.

Ive finally managed to get around to the TS and set it all up. There were a few frustrations, but these are all covered off. I would agree with Lee Roy in the instructions are useless, perhaps I would say they are actually horribly misleading.

If it didn't keep saying 12m10a on each page, it would seem to be for a completely different saw. There are ZERO instructions for the router table and the instructions for the fence actually showed it being installed upside down.... So I assumed they were for the wrong fence.

I ended up using a google image search to see how it fitted on. You are also left with a few spare screws and bolts. They are for the fence, but the holes are not on the table.

Now to get a cover made up like Lee Roy!

And how is the cutting??? Curious minds want to know!

Glad it went together finally. Any pics of the router table? Still haven't attached m router

No pix yet. My daughter just went to Sydney and flogged my SD reader.

The blade is a "Green" blade. Cant find much info on it. I ran some wood over it to see how my alignments went.... it cut very nicely and made a rather pleasurable "tssssing" at the end of the cut. I do like that. I learned to fight with a katana when younger (Aikido) and sword use was part of the rumble... cutting made that sound when you cut cleanly.

Tonight was a big set-up-and-bash-it-around-to-learn-it-night. No beer tonight! Stopped just shy of midnight. Getting a bit brisk.

So far my "review", if it were, follows. Keep in mind this is my first TS. I has used them in the past, but never owned one, plus I am a very deft hand with woodwork. (never had the space for one previously, now do).

This is based on doing a really good setup. Noodling with the guts and doing about 2 hours of cuts using a variety of scraps (pine, merbau, oak, ash, lots more pine)


Pros ------
= Very very quiet. My DC makes more noise. Cuts are really quiet. Haven't yet run anything really hard through it.

= Nice and heavy. I'm a strong bloke and the weight feels good for when Im going to do long/wide work.

= Power. It seems to have gobs and gobs of power. While I didn't run my gnarliest peice of 200 year old oak bridge offcut through it, I did use a 100mm chunk of 30 year old hardwood to trim the ends. It sang through it. I know this wood is tough, for it slew an old thicknesser and I had to buy a new carbatec spiral head thickie... so it met my expectations for power. A few good blades will improve things no doubt... next pay day!

Negatives ----- (this may be generic to TS's in general PLUS these complaints may have been minimised by spending more dosh)

= The table top is a touch hard to align. I've done it twice now, second time after giving it some thought. It seems to me that a simple machine screw that you can wind on two opposite corners would provide incredible accuracy without having to resort to a basher. None the less, I managed to get it down to 0.05mm from front to back on the 12" blade, fully up, using the same marked tooth. This comes out at 0.002" according to my digital callipers. (NOTE: I don't know yet what is good or bad, or whether I am being stupid. I know the woods expansion alone will move around.... but I do like accuracy if I can get it)

= This is a big negative (for me), the cabinet must not be very square (not tested) for the tabletop has VERY LITTLE spare tolerance for alignment. Unfortunately the iron router wing is just a hair too deep and catches on the lip of the cabinet. On the slide table, the goddam bolts press hard up against the cabinet. I will solve this later with an angle grinder, but it seems sloppy to me. This made alignment a Bit Of A Bastard. Other less competent people would be frustrated by this.... maybe most woodies are just competent and engineer around a problem....

= The mitre guage (the big one) is very basic. No rewards for amazing engineering. Serviceable unit, but an Incra 1000HD is already ordered. I set the unit up and it was out a bit. There is a screw for a 90' stop which I calibrated. No biggie, but I wouldn't be doing picture frames with it.

= On the very top height wind the arbour flexes to the right. Just wound it back a touch and it goes back into place. Can be seen visually, didnt bother measuring the deflection as it may account for a mm or two of height. If 2mm of height matters I'm doing something wrong on a 12" blade.

= Cant lock the height or angle. Its stiff, but stiff isn't locked. There is an undocumented (dont get me going on that!) feature of a red hand that tensions the guts somewhat. There is another on the rear that uses a Philips head that does the same. Its a bit Goldlocks to get both right. I might be doing something wrong. I felt a lock for angle and height would be important.

= Doco. Don't even bother. Its translated into English from Chinese via Russian. Plus its wrong. Also, despite it saying its for an 12m10a, its clearly moved on quite a bit since it was written, or TTD made some "choices" at the factory when they optioned it up. Again, useless. Toss it.


Unsure-Ofs (not negative, but I'm not Just Married Happy)------------

= Dust collection seems a bit iffy. There are a few holes in corners of the cabinet and what-not that I will gap fill. I have 134CFM though a 2" pipe on a vortex and 0.3 micron HEPA. It might be too small. I might be forced to get a DC for outside. We'll see.

= The angles for 90 and 45 seem OK from the factory. I ran my engineering rule over it and it seems pretty close. Adjustment stops for both is via a grub screwed collar on the thread. Not very amazing. Servicable, but I expected something a bit more, uh, robust. Its probably one of those one-time things and Im just a Newbie who know no better.

= The fence seems serviceable, but its out 0.3mm from front to back. I'm unsure what this means. I think I can adjust the little grub screws on the user side of the rail/fence, but they seem to be more for reducing slop rather than front/back alignment... they don't look industrial enough for long term use in that purpose.... I could be wrong though! I'll tool with it tomorrow. I was tired and thought to do some internetting instead.

= The gullet plate is a bit ordinary. It has a 5 (?) screws for adjustment. They work "OK", but the plate is not as flat as the table so there is either a lip at the front or the back, or the front and the side. Its out 1.7mm front to back/left/right and it cannot be adjusted out. I'm unsure if this is important, but I have caught a workpiece on the lip at an unfavourable moment already, so it is going to be used as a template to make some good plates with some UHMW. Last thing I need is for it to spit a bit of wood back at me because of a lip catch on a plate. BOOF!

= The riving knife is not fun to set up. It has four grub screws. You have to fully remove the knife to adjust it, bolt it back on, test it, then remove again to adjust. I did this three times before thinking there must be a better way. Shame it does not have a quick release. This would be VERY USEFUL and may be a mod for my Future To Do List.

= This one is WEIRD. The mitre slot for the sliding table is a different size to the main two slots!!!! ###! It makes no sense. I can't work it out why they would do this.

= The sliding table is held on via two bolts on one side, a rough as guts bracket and two more bolts to the table. The brackets are really rough. I had to leave a washer out just to bolt it to the table. It has an alignment problem as it does not slide perfectly front to back. Its out by a mm or so, probably means nothing, but it irks me badly and I'll shim it with some old feeler gauges to get it dead right. Im not going to align the main table so accurately to have the wing out!


Overall -----

Everything out of the box was out. I started fresh and tuned it up assuming it was put together by some poor factory slave in a very big rush.

Finally, am I happy? Yes, I am. It is quite a good saw. I researched the hell out of it and read a LOT before committing. Its price/features were very good indeed. It is clear that there is only so much that can be stuffed into $1300, so what I have must be good for the price.

I'm not loaded and a TS is only one of many tools in the shed, so it was important for me to buy well, but not over commit. Last thing I needed was an awesome TS but no bux for anything else.

I however, I've saved and will be getting an Incra 1000HD mitre, a wixey angle gauge and digital measuring readout (nothing wrong with the tape however!) and a nice cross cut and separate rip blade (not that there seems to be anything wrong with the Green one supplied). I will scrape up more for an Incra fence of some kind perhaps, but I'll only do that after I've given the one provided a good go.

I don't think I will use the router table as I already have a Festool router and the table for the MFT/3 I've used for ages. I'll give the cast iron one a go, but the Festool one doesn't take up much room (though I am unhappy with it on a few fronts, so it may be sold... no mitre channel!)

Evanism
www.timeonthetools.com

Originally Posted by Evanism

This one is WEIRD. The mitre slot for the sliding table is a different size to the main two slots!!!! ###! It makes no sense. I can't work it out why they would do this.

because what you have there is a rather nice (for the money) Taiwanese-made tablesaw to which have been bolted generic and unrelated Chinese-made sliding table and router wing. Thats how its able to be sold for several hundred dollars less then the price of the standard configuration (ie standard cast iron extensions, rather then slider and router wing).

cheers
Arron

Hmmm that's pretty bad, so much so if its that bad I'd be taking it back. I didn't have any of the probs you've encountered, particularly with bolts/side tables not aligning. Although after reading your review I looked and there is a small amount of dust escaping from the cabinet (evidence in the cabinet.) Mine too does have a smaller mitre slot on the sliding table. Mine came with 2 mitre gauges. One that slides nicely on the main table, the other fits to the sliding table, but actually stops against it once level with the wing, pushing the slider forward. I figured it was meant to do this because I couldn't see how a mitre and table all moving at once would work. I could be wrong though.

Hi Aaron, Lee Roy,

I thought to do a follow up. I was pretty wordy in my assessment but I think I've been quite fair. I want everyone to know I am a new TS owner and not coming at this from owning several before.

I also want people to know that I was not being negative in the review, just critical. I think it's a great saw with lots of promise, I also think that as Aaron pointed out -and I think I wrote in my assessment - the the price/quality/quantity its always a balance.

Would I recommend it to others? Absolutely.

It seems to be a great performer and has a bunch of features that I am yet to see the value in, namely as I haven't used them yet.

Im lucky in that I'm a bit of a modifier of things in Real Life, so fixing a few minor issues to satisfy my needs for perfection wont hold me back. If I had more dosh, perhaps I would buy a $3k TS, but being my first I need to crawl before I run.

Since the review I've jumped on and run a train load of hardwood through it. I have some pallets that the local fruit guy gives away. Some of them are made of hardwood, decent stuff too. It's a crime to be used for pallets, but a bonus for me. I cut them down and recovered the wood from 5.
After thicknessing and jointing, I did the final edges and trim with the saw. It was great. I will definitely be getting a new blade as the "Green" is nice, but some of the edges are frayed. Nt much, but enough to be painful.

If I might offer a few more points to my review, it would be these:

= it would be nice if after hitting the off switch that the blade used an electric brake, like on my festool stuff. After cutting it can take the blade up to 10 seconds to stop rotating. I had a small bit of wood get stuck in the plate gullet and it was potentially dangerous

= the reaving knife cowling is basic. It functions but I think I might buy a second hand or after market one. Additionally, it would be nice if the knife were quick release. I use it only half the time, mainly taking it out as its much taller than the blade. It would be good to get a knife the same height as the blade for low detail cuts.

= as Aaron pointed out, the side tables mitre is different due to the yumcha way it's optioned up. A standard is a standard, having a thinner mitre is silly. I have used the table slider when I was cutting up some sheet plywood, it is a great addition and adds a good size to stabilise the work, so it's thumbs up on this feature, but thumbs down on the mitre.

Overall I am very happy with it and Lee Roy's opinions mattered a great deal towards my purchase. I am glad I listened and purchased this one, it will make a fantastic base to expand upon.

Comments and criticisms to reduce my ignorance are welcome

Evanism

I think the best thing you can do to get the most out of this saw is to get new blades. That
Green blade that came with it I used once - enough to see its good for cutting firewood. I bought a 12 inch 26 tooth rip blade and a 10 inch trim/crosscut 100 tooth blade. It does mean that I'm swapping blades a lot, which is a special pain because of that riving knife mount, but its well worth it. Its a revelation how good each blade is at its job and how bad they are when asked to do the other's job.

If you havent done it yet, a zero clearance insert and a fold-down outfeed table will make it feel safer and more convenient to use.

I also made a replacement riving knife out of scrap. If you make it slightly thinner then the one supplied then you can use it with thin kerf blades. I would avoid thin kerf blades for that saw, but its good to have the option.

Cheers
Arron