Are sliding tablesaws good for straight line ripping?

[Suzanne Launer]

I'm not real familiar with sliding tablesaws.
If I have a lot of straight line ripping to do, are these good for that?

[Robert Chapman]

Sliders are good for ripping larger panels. Check out some of the saws that are for sale on line and you will get a better idea of how they work and what they do best.

[Rod Sheridan]

I'm not real familiar with sliding tablesaws.
If I have a lot of straight line ripping to do, are these good for that?

Hi Suzanne, please define "a lot of straight line ripping".

If you're running an industrial application where you will be straight line ripping a significant part of each shift, then you need a straight line rip saw.

If you're running a small cabinet shop then a slider can indeed be used to straight line rip.

I use mine for that, you put an edging shoe on the far end of the sliding table, butt a piece against it, clamp the near end using a hold down on the slider and slide the table. One straight line rip.

http://www.felder-group.ca/ca-us/video/hammer-b3-winner.html

At 5:40 in the above video you can see a slider being used to straight line rip.

Regards, Rod.

[Steve Ryan]

It took every penny I could muster up to buy my first Altendorf slider, and that also included trading in my Powermatic jointer. (So very long ago) I used the slider for many many years to edge all of the solid wood we used, and we used a lot. Much faster than a jointer and I could edge and rip and go straight to glue up with the right blade. Stock length is limited by the stroke of the table to some extent, but I did find a way to work around that with a fence length addition.
I still have that saw and it is just as accurate as the day it was delivered 25 years ago.

[Frank Drew]

Not all sliding table saws are set up, or have the capacity, for ripping with the slider; my Ulmia only had a crosscut capacity of 53", but was a fine machine nevertheless. Just not a straight line ripper; I used the fence for ripping.

[Jim Becker]

Are sliding tablesaws good for straight line ripping?

In the most succinct way I can put it:

YES!

That's one of the primary reasons I bought my slider. Note, I have 8'6" of ripping capacity on my MiniMax slider. Rarely do I work with material longer than that when it comes to ripping and most of the work is considerably shorter. What I really like about locking something down on the wagon and ripping it is that I know that the edge is perpendicular to the faces without question...I face joint everything before thicknessing. I never go back to the jointer for edges now.

BTW, I built a small jig for parallel ripping for the same reason. The only time I use the fence for ripping is for very narrow things that wouldn't be practical or safe to cut using the slider wagon.