Despite Proven Technology, Attempts to Make Table Saws Safer Drag On

Re:Despite Proven Technology, Attempts to Make Table Saws Sa... by greedo on Wednesday August 16, 2017 @02:13PM (#15029772)

A tracksaw (Festool is a good brand) is a better alternative than most table saws, at least for cutting down sheet goods. Combine it with a chop saw and you've covered a lot of the use cases for a table saw.

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Re:Despite Proven Technology, Attempts to Make Table Saws Sa... by spathi_fwiffo on Wednesday August 16, 2017 @02:59PM (#15030148)

So, it's a circular saw that can optionally ride on a long and straight metal track that clamps to your wood. I have rigged up things like that with 2x4s in the past.

Hadn't seen it as an actual product before, but much more convenient this way, which makes it more likely to get used. Not as advantageous as a table saw if you need to do a lot of identical cuts; but, seems like it would work well for the occasional need.

I might just replace my cheap/scary table saw with one of these the next time I build something. Thanks.

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Re:Despite Proven Technology, Attempts to Make Table Saws Sa... by jasode on Wednesday August 16, 2017 @03:15PM (#15030288)

>Not as advantageous as a table saw if you need to do a lot of identical cuts;

You can do repeated identical cuts if you buy extra accessories for the tracksaw.[1] (I assume we're talking about "repeated cuts" using stops instead of constantly re-measuring with a ruler.) The parallel guides work ok but it's a lot more work to set up and dynamically adjust widths than a table saw's sliding fence.

If you like to use table saws to cut dados, rabbets, and slots for box/drawer joints, a tracksaw isn't as useful for that. Might have to get a router for those cuts in addition to the miter saw when supplementing a tracksaw.

[1] example: http://www.festoolproducts.com/festool-57000023-parallel-gui...

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