Hammer K3 winner 79 x 48 in 1-car garage

[Wakahisa Shinta]

I'm interested in getting a sliding TS. The Hammer K3 series fits my needs/wants. My shop is a dedicated 1-car garage. It has an overhead garage door. Currently, I face my TS outward (i.e. I stand near the door when pushing material through the saw). This arrangement works very well. Outside the garage is a 30 x 30' court yard that I always convert into a temporary open-air workshop every time I use my woodworking equipment. I want to know if anyone with similar size shop has successfully placed a K3 winner 79 x 48 in it and be functional.

Base on the dimension data provided by Hammer's website, I can fit the saw with its outrigger and have about almost a foot left to the wall. Without the outrigger, no problem; footprint is the same as my TS. I am not sure if this is a good idea. I can roll the saw into the courtyard every time I use it with the outrigger. However, the garage floor has about a 1/2" drop off at the very front, where the concrete floor becomes the courtyard's floor. That might get in the way of an 700+ lbs machine.

I can opt for the 48 x 48, but I would like the larger slider capacity for sheet goods.

Thanks for your input.

[Myk Rian]

Lay a 1/2" sheet at the drop, and use the saw as far away from the door as you have sheets.
Not sure what type of wheel would work without the ply.

[Jim Andrew]

I have that very saw, but not in a crowded space. The mobility kit works very well, you might have to make a wedge shaped piece to put in the 1/2" offset, to help you get over it. Nice saw, the ability to crosscut panels practically perfectly square is nice. I use mine as well to straight line solid boards, easier to get a fit for edge joints than with a jointer.

[David Kumm]

I find that the width is a bigger issue than the length. Gets old squeezing around the edges. Front and back isn't so bad. Issue that would concern me is the need to move the machine. The longer the slider the more it can lose adjustment if moved over a rough floor. My saw has a 6mm base and a full floor with internal partition and will sit on three wheels without screwing up settings so it handles the constant pushing. Make sure your saw is built to handle the stress of not being set level and constant. Dave

[Frank Martin]

I have a Minimax combo and would not recommend planning on moving it every time you need to use. Not sure of your future plans, but one option would be to buy the whole thing, but in your current place use it without the outrigger unless you really need it for some large cross cuts. When you get a larger shop in the future you can leave the outrigger installed. Even in my two car garage shop I remove the outrigger most of the time because it takes too much space. Install it when I really need it.

[Bill Neely]

I'd think about buying it with the 30" fence and extension table, leave enough room on the right of the saw to cut a full sheet in half crosswise.

[Wakahisa Shinta]

Thanks for all your comments. It looks like moving it frequently is not a good idea. I suspected this much. In my ideal world, I would have a larger shop, with a perfectly level floor, 200 amps panel, outlet everywhere, etc. But what I have is a one-car garage with a slanted floor that I call my shop. My wife suggested to place the saw in the 2-car garage, but I don't want my woodworking hobby to take over all the garage space.

Frank, your suggestion is one of my solutions. I want this saw to be my last saw, so I want the most capacity I can afford. I think I will just do what you do. With the smaller space, I need to plan better. It should make me a better woodworker.

[Frank Martin]

Thanks for all your comments. It looks like moving it frequently is not a good idea. I suspected this much. In my ideal world, I would have a larger shop, with a perfectly level floor, 200 amps panel, outlet everywhere, etc. But what I have is a one-car garage with a slanted floor that I call my shop. My wife suggested to place the saw in the 2-car garage, but I don't want my woodworking hobby to take over all the garage space.

Frank, your suggestion is one of my solutions. I want this saw to be my last saw, so I want the most capacity I can afford. I think I will just do what you do. With the smaller space, I need to plan better. It should make me a better woodworker.

Of course you set your own priorities, but cars are made to live outside. Don't know where you live, but even when we lived in Chicago, both of our cars were parked outside. I solved the cold car problem, by having a remote starter installed on my wife's car.

Also, nothing wrong with a one-car garage shop. That is what I had in the past and actually made of the furniture in that small space. Now I have a larger and better equipped shop, but have little time for woodworking.

Get the best quality equipment you can afford and enjoy the hobby.

[John Sanford]

Thanks for all your comments. It looks like moving it frequently is not a good idea. I suspected this much. In my ideal world, I would have a larger shop, with a perfectly level floor, 200 amps panel, outlet everywhere, etc. But what I have is a one-car garage with a slanted floor that I call my shop. My wife suggested to place the saw in the 2-car garage, but I don't want my woodworking hobby to take over all the garage space.

Frank, your suggestion is one of my solutions. I want this saw to be my last saw, so I want the most capacity I can afford. I think I will just do what you do. With the smaller space, I need to plan better. It should make me a better woodworker.

If your wife suggested the 2 car garage, go for it. If possible, just swap garages, and leave your car out in the driveway. That way her car is still sheltered, and you've got a better shop space. (Note: I've been in a 2 car garage for 3 years now, my truck has NEVER been in it. So my perspective may be a bit biased.)

[Myk Rian]

Of course you set your own priorities, but cars are made to live outside
Tell my Wife that. :(

[Mike Heidrick]

Id buy a piece of XPS foam and a tracksaw if in your close quarters.

[Gilbert Grenier]

Of course you set your own priorities, but cars are made to live outside. Don't know where you live, but even when we lived in Chicago, both of our cars were parked outside. I solved the cold car problem, by having a remote starter installed on my wife's car.

Also, nothing wrong with a one-car garage shop. That is what I had in the past and actually made of the furniture in that small space. Now I have a larger and better equipped shop, but have little time for woodworking.

Get the best quality equipment you can afford and enjoy the hobby.

I'm having the exact problem, trying to set up shop in a garage in which a car is suppose to fit at night and no matter how I re-think everything, the table saw is simply too big a piece of equipment to move around twice a day (or more). I'm also looking into the K3 option as well as the B3, A31 and C31 combo machine, trying to fit everything in there. So far, the TS is the big issue. That being said, I never brought up the remote starter option...could it be that simple..?? Let's try :cool:

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi, I have the 49 inch slider B3 Winner in a small shop in a townhouse basement.

Normally I don't have the outrigger on the saw, I only put it on when I'm using sheet goods or long timber.

Regards, Rod.

[James Baker SD]

I have a narrow, long slider (about 39X110 I think). It sits on one side of the garage up against the wall on passenger side. Garage may be a little deeper than most as I can get full range on table motion with the big door closed. Car (wife insists) fits in nicely parallel to the long table. Passenger cannot get in or out while the car is inside, but we live with that. Other side of garage has a jointer/planer (planer/thicknesser if you like) combo in front of a long miter saw table. JP is on mobile base to pull out away from the storage cabinets the miter saw table sits on. Slider itself is in its permanent spot, not on a mobile base, carefully leveled, balanced and tweaked just the way I want it. Bandsaw and drill press are on the wall I look at as I drive in. Car is a tight fit, but I haven't hit a tool yet. Car definitely has to be moved out to do any work, but that again is OK. I often don't even move the JP unless I need something in the cabinets behind it. It is not an ideal solution, but it gives me what I want and my wife what she wants, so what's not to like.

[Wakahisa Shinta]

I am very lucky in the sense that my wife supports my woodworking hobby whole heartedly (she even green lighted the Felder K line of sliders). She is the one to suggest that I take over the larger garage for my shop. However, this is my hobby, so I limit myself to the smaller garage space. If I make a decision to purchase the slider, then it will most likely be located in the larger garage to one side. My car will then be permanently outside. Hers will be parked on the other side of that garage.

Rod, I have read your thread about your K3 a few times. It is the first thread I saw when I started researching the Hammer K line. Thanks for your posts. They are very helpful, at least for me.

James, which slider do you have, if you don't mind me asking? What's it's footprint with and without the out rigger?

[Chris Parks]

I too have K3 winner and I deliberately did not buy the outrigger for three reasons, firstly I wasn't sure if I would use it enough and secondly it costs no more to add to the machine later. The third was I have shoulder issues and trying to pick up a heavy full size sheet and get it on the saw was asking for trouble.

I break down a full sheet on the floor with an electric saw and then put that on the slider against the cross cut fence. I found one problem with doing that is the slider misses out by maybe six inches in not retracting far enough for the sheet to fit between the blade and the fence but I worked my way around that for the first project. One of the major problems doing things the way I did and I have heard others comment on this point is that the on/off switch is only accessible by crawling under the sheet on the table which is a pain in the bum to say the least.

I was looking at the Franz & Fritz video when the light came on and I figured out what I needed to do and it wasn't to buy an outrigger though that might came later. I rang Felder and ordered all the same fittings that the factory used to instal the cross cut fence on the rear of the table and fitted the bits I got to the front of the slider and fitted the fence. I can now have it at either end in about 30 seconds. What I had found before I did this was that the table slide moved far enough to cut a half sheet in one movement and it was only that the fence was not far enough back to allow the sheet to drop flat on the table before the cut was started. By putting the fence at the front that problem went away and I could also use the F&F method of holding the work with a sliding rear clamp which is great.

The outrigger is really only needed for the first cut in most cases and I have overcome that need for day to day use enough for me. One other thing I did was fit a Wixey to the rip fence which I pulled off my saw I had previously and I am going to fit an Incra rail to the cross cut fence when I find the time. Nothing beats repeatability in my book, it makes life easy.

[James Baker SD]

Wakahisa:

My saw is the KF 700 S Pro (saw shaper combo) with a 2800mm table. It is the older green model from 2012. It has a odd shaped cabinet due to the extra support for the long table. Under the table is about 70"x 6" rectangle attached to a 30" wide by 39" long (parallel to table) piece of the cabinet. That is the actual floor space covered. Due to the overhead blade guard support arm, the saw control panel edge of the saw sits 73" from the wall. It could be closer if it only had the single extension table without the overhead guard. Outrigger adds another 45" (out from table) by 31" (parallel to table) placed where ever I need it. It has the 2 meter fence which sticks out another 16" beyond the the outrigger. This completely blocks my access to the drill press when the car is in (and the table moved toward the distant end), but as I said I cannot do any work without backing the car out. It is a tight fit (passenger side of car sits about 3" from the table, 6" from the main door and I move the outrigger to touch the car after I am inside), but I prefer that to the PM-66 on mobile base which had to be rotated and moved to a non functioning location to get the car in. At least the KF stays put which allowed me to run permanent ducting for the DC instead of my old approach of every machine on mobile bases and connecting only one machine at a time to the DC (which I was often too lazy to do, I am never too lazy to open a blast gate). Today only the Jointer/planer is mobile and I really like having machines in fixed spots.

[Jim Andrew]

I bought the 79x48, which includes the outrigger, and I find it much handier than the small crosscut fence for crosscutting, the accuracy is amazing, and it has the scale and stop, so you can crosscut one end, then set the stop and crosscut to length without using a tape measure and a pencil. So accurate and easy it is fun to use. I check ends with a steel square, and they look perfect, measure diagonal and they are off less than 1/32". I made brackets to mount all the accessories on the wall behind the saw, so it is easy to grab the pieces I need and install them quickly. Usually I take the outrigger off when not using it. Have to take it off when ripping, which is usually your first operation in building a panel. I rough cut to length with the scms.