Table saw weight importance

[Adam Levitt]

I'm designing an enclosure for my table saw. It's a Sawstop Jobsite saw which no longer needs to be mobile.
My question is how important is it to make it heavy? I'm considering putting sand bags in the bottom to get to around 300lbs of weight including the saw. Overkill?

[Art Mann]

300 pounds might be overkill but I think adding weight to improve stability is a worthwhile endeavor. I would probably remove the folding stand and build a solid plywood base instead. That might provide an opportunity to add to the table surface dimensions as well.

[Adam Levitt]

Thanks for the reply Art.
My plan was to build a solid plywood base plus cabinet with an out feed table and router table (8' by 18' shop).

[Jamie Buxton]

I don't see the point. Unlike a lathe, a table saw doesn't need to deal with badly out-of-round spinning objects. I want a table saw to not rock, so leveling feet might be useful, depending on your shop floor. And you're not planning to cantilever your outfeed table off the saw, so there's no benefit to saw weight there either.

[glenn bradley]

One of the main improvements I made back when I was tuning up a contractor saw for woodworking was wrapping a 90# bag of sand in plastic and tossing it in the bottom of the base. The improvement was definite, simple and immediate.

[Harvey Miller]

I remember ripping a full sheet of plywood on a sub-contractor table saw & have the saw tip. It didn't fall but I got two legs off the ground. Your laundry will thank you if you add a couple hundred pounds to the base. (I wish I had thought of that!) My solution was buying a track saw.

[John TenEyck]

Mass is never a bad thing with stationary tools. It can't hurt, makes them less likely to tip or walk, and often dampens unwanted vibration.

John

[Ken Fitzgerald]

^^^^ What John said ^^^^