Euro talk - format sliders

[Paul B. Cresti]

There has been a lot of talk and comparision on the way "industry" or shops of various sizes machine wood. I have attached some scans from another manufacturer, in this case Altendorf, which does a pretty good job at describing some of the possible applications of their sliders. Many of us have further adapted our own machines via jigs, special uses or needs as per our own requirements. Yes some of these machines have a very high price tag and some are more reasonable but the fact still is that they are quite amazing machines none the less. The general public and small shop owners may have never known that these machines exist let alone have ever seen them. But rest assure, they do exist and they provide a real purpose and extremely accurate, flexible, robust and easy to use. They are not to confused with any aftermarket add on to CS or for panel processing soley to a cheap vertical panel saw you find at you local home center.

[Joe Blankshain]

Thanks Paul. Glad to see you out there educating people like me.

[Jim Becker]

Much better...the first pictures just didn't make sense!

[Chris Barton]

Great illustrations of how format machines work Paul!

[Frank Chaffee]

Paul,
Thanks for the instructive set of pictures I would not have otherwise seen.

Joe,
Just so you know guy, I am doing pretty well at not resenting you for having nabbed Dennis’ Robland before I could.
Best of times with it!
Frank

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

For those thinking of making a purchase you are not likely to get in the door for less than $5 - 6 - Grand usually more when you are done building your saw. Yah it's not often an "I'll tale one of those please." type of transaction. There are option and equipment options that may be more or less important to you. Table length, scoring, support tables, fences, all play a role. Some makers have proprietary dado equipment. When you are done you will have a tool that you'll be happy with long after you would have outgrown other equipment and an invoice that gives you fits.

A couple of suggestions I'd make to any prospective buyer are: Get the 12 inch blade. Don't settle for 10," and get the longest sliding table you can fit in your shop, and get whatever support table attaches to the slider. That way you can throw a 4-inch thick OAK door on the saw and cut it any way you please without infeed outfeed or support tables. A 6-foot slider will let you use the cross cut on the length of an 8-to-12-foot piece of ply. The longer table combined with the bigger bllade also lets you rip rough lumber from log stock with a sweet 4" depth of cut.

The one thing that I am unhappy about in all the Euro sliders is the extensive use of aluminum. There is way too much of the stuff. They design and own their own extrusion dies which are run in mills producing the extrusions for the sliding tables. The extrusions are not machined where the sliding bearing races go. The designers simply trust the estrusions. It is fallacy to place such trust in something as transient as an extrusion. Yet they all do.
A cast iron table would be far superior but more costly and require more expensive bearings and mounts.

One thing they do is to try to compensate for the inherrent error in an extrusion os to place bearings across a large area in an attempt to use the law of large numbers to mitigate the variations. It does work - sort of. There is one manufacturer who is using very small bearings and running them along small steel rods.
The bearing surgace area is almost microscopic as a result. That, standing alone, is a bad thing. The maker claims this is a good thing as they can slice a business card in hald by ramming it in the bearing interface. I am entirely unconvinced that this is anything more than their way to make a slider as cheaply as possible.


Of course non of that will prevent me from acquiring one of those woosey European saws with the weird paint schemes.

[Ed Kowaski]

Cliff I owned a 5' slider that was steel and cast, horrible thing to use, way to much inertia. Old SCM's have steel and cast sliders. I've used them with 8' tables.. eeekkkk YMMV

[lou sansone]

For those thinking of making a purchase you are not likely to get in the door for less than $5 - 6 - Grand usually more when you are done building your saw. Yah it's not often an "I'll tale one of those please." type of transaction. There are option and equipment options that may be more or less important to you. Table length, scoring, support tables, fences, all play a role. Some makers have proprietary dado equipment. When you are done you will have a tool that you'll be happy with long after you would have outgrown other equipment and an invoice that gives you fits.

A couple of suggestions I'd make to any prospective buyer are: Get the 12 inch blade. Don't settle for 10," and get the longest sliding table you can fit in your shop, and get whatever support table attaches to the slider. That way you can throw a 4-inch thick OAK door on the saw and cut it any way you please without infeed outfeed or support tables. A 6-foot slider will let you use the cross cut on the length of an 8-to-12-foot piece of ply. The longer table combined with the bigger bllade also lets you rip rough lumber from log stock with a sweet 4" depth of cut.

The one thing that I am unhappy about in all the Euro sliders is the extensive use of aluminum. There is way too much of the stuff. They design and own their own extrusion dies which are run in mills producing the extrusions for the sliding tables. The extrusions are not machined where the sliding bearing races go. The designers simply trust the estrusions. It is fallacy to place such trust in something as transient as an extrusion. Yet they all do.
A cast iron table would be far superior but more costly and require more expensive bearings and mounts.

One thing they do is to try to compensate for the inherrent error in an extrusion os to place bearings across a large area in an attempt to use the law of large numbers to mitigate the variations. It does work - sort of. There is one manufacturer who is using very small bearings and running them along small steel rods.
The bearing surgace area is almost microscopic as a result. That, standing alone, is a bad thing. The maker claims this is a good thing as they can slice a business card in hald by ramming it in the bearing interface. I am entirely unconvinced that this is anything more than their way to make a slider as cheaply as possible.


Of course non of that will prevent me from acquiring one of those woosey European saws with the weird paint schemes.

Wait a minute here ... what are you saying ? Have you actually checked a martin with an aluminum table and found it sloppy? I don't think so. There are some poor aluminum sliders, but there are some really poor cast iron ones from the 70 and 80's. those things were all wiggly and wobbly. The extrusions are pretty accurate, but the saw makers do some post processing on them as well in order to establish a accurate dimension. Most of them have some way of adjusting the slider for the final tweak. All I can say is you are not going to want to push a 10 foot cast iron table, my 3 foot oliver 260d felt like a 10 foot scmi aluminum job.
Lou

[Joe Blankshain]

Frank,

Come on down to this neck of the woods and use it any time you like.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Wait a minute here ... what are you saying ? Have you actually checked a martin with an aluminum table and found it sloppy? I don't think so.
Lou

I don't think so either. In fact the word "sloppy" did not appear in my post. I said exactly what I meant. There was nothing implied or unspoken. In short, I stated that I disapprove of the extensive use of aluminum and I said why.
My thinking applies to any manufacturer using aluminum extrusions because there are inherent inescapable limitations on the precision and strength in all extrusion processes, in aluminuum as a material choice, and in the engineering approach to how extrusions are used to side step machining for precision.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Cliff I owned a 5' slider that was steel and cast, horrible thing to use, way to much inertia. Old SCM's have steel and cast sliders. I've used them with 8' tables.. eeekkkk YMMV

Yah that'd be my likely complaint were I using a Cast Iron slider. But ya gotta admit the durability of cast is superior and the weight forces engineers to apply heavy bearings.

[Paul B. Cresti]

I don't think so either. In fact the word "sloppy" did not appear in my post. I said exactly what I meant. There was nothing implied or unspoken. In short, I stated that I disapprove of the extensive use of aluminum and I said why.
My thinking applies to any manufacturer using aluminum extrusions because there are inherent inescapable limitations on the precision and strength in all extrusion processes, in aluminuum as a material choice, and in the engineering approach to how extrusions are used to side step machining for precision.

Cliff,
I guess I still do not understand your issues with extruded alum sliders, unless it is that you have a personal disdain for them. I say that in meaning that good ones sure are accurate "enough" for creating the parts needed for furniture or cabinets. Not sure why anyone would need any more accuracy than they do provide, after all we are not cutting parts for the space shuttle or cutting steel for erecting a building. ;) Heck you will here people talk about settings in the thousands of an inch all the time! and I can not even understand those!

[Bernhard Kühnen]

You are right Paul,

the aluminium sliding tables from Altendorf (the benchmark of the saw manufacturers) are very precise and durable. I tested it on a fair and the full sliding table resisted my weight of 120 kgs. Of course the price of the famous F 45 is plus Euro 20k.

Unfortunately there are sliding tables with minor quality e.g. the Hammer K3. Here the manufacturer tried to safe some money and reduced the diameter of these tables in order to make them affordable for private persons.

Bernhard

[lou sansone]

I don't think so either. In fact the word "sloppy" did not appear in my post. I said exactly what I meant. There was nothing implied or unspoken. In short, I stated that I disapprove of the extensive use of aluminum and I said why.
My thinking applies to any manufacturer using aluminum extrusions because there are inherent inescapable limitations on the precision and strength in all extrusion processes, in aluminum as a material choice, and in the engineering approach to how extrusions are used to side step machining for precision.

Cliff ... most of the decent extruded shapes hold +/- 0.001 or 0.002" on the basic shape. There are several methods for creating a sliding way using round balls or rollers. My research indicates that the race foundation is machined ( post extrusion ) and then bearing grade steel is inserted, using a variety of methods, into the machined ways. Grizzly uses the method of rods that you talk about, and I agree that seems challenging as well if one were to do the FEA they would find out that the point loads are probably pretty high. After all is said and done, all of these sliders use an adjustment method akin to the gibbs on a traditional CI machine to tighten up the assembly and allow for wear.

How about we turn the question around and ask how would you design a slider and what materials would you use.
Lou

[Dev Emch]

You are right Paul,

the aluminium sliding tables from Altendorf (the benchmark of the saw manufacturers) are very precise and durable. I tested it on a fair and the full sliding table resisted my weight of 120 kgs. Of course the price of the famous F 45 is plus Euro 20k.

Unfortunately there are sliding tables with minor quality e.g. the Hammer K3. Here the manufacturer tried to safe some money and reduced the diameter of these tables in order to make them affordable for private persons.

Bernhard

I have to say that the words Sloppy and Martin are never in the same sentence. Well maybe the only example being the previous sentence I just wrote. And Lou is right. No extrusion is going to be accurate enough. Period. End of Story. So the machinsts are called into to fix things. Grizzly even has a new shop with a new CNC milling machine back east just for post machining of their tables. The bearing technology used has to be both accurate and long wearing. And you have options. My sliding table on my hoffmann shaper uses an SKF linear recirculating ball bearing riding a hardened steel rod. You can actually hear the balls moving if you listen ever so carefully (with all motors off!). Later Martin euro sliders based on the T-17 body had replaceable hardened steel wear ways.

I would not hesitate to use an Altorndorf or a Martin for a second. Personally, I have to disagree with Bernhard (in a friendly mannor of course:p) that Martin is the standard by which all sliding tables saws are based and the F-45 takes second place.:D

But if you do bicep curls with 200 pound barbells and compete for the Mr. Universe pagent, then by all means go and use a slider with a 10 foot cast iron table! For the rest of us, we have to allow for the use of aluminium. Titantium is worthless here. There is nothing in this application that can truely benefit from this space age material. The only thing I dont like about it is the fact that this table is so darn large. This makes cutting precise panels child's play. But if your doing any hardwood dimensioning of smaller parts, even an aluminum slider is going to get old compared to an olde fashioned sliding table saw like a wadkin PK or a Hammond Glider. But there is no way in this world that a Hammond glider is going to cut precise sheet goods into precise panels.

[Bernhard Kühnen]

No problem Dave,

writing from Germany: the question whether to place Altendorf or Martin first is like placing DaimlerChrysler or BMW first.:D Both are extremely good. For sure Martin has the better varity as Altendorf manufacturers only saws.

Bernhard

[tim rowledge]

The only thing I have against my aluminium format slider is that I can't use my magnetic featherboards on it!

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Cliff, I guess I still do not understand your issues with extruded alum sliders, My concern is with Alum in heavy stress applications.


unless it is that you have a personal disdain for them. Not the slider the cheap out of using alum. I have disdain for substandard engineering. Of course there are always differing opinions. I'm sure the Altendorf engineers would snort at me.


Heck you will here people talk about settings in the thousands of an inch all the time! and I can not even understand those! That is funny.

Before I went back to school to get my JD I was a machinist tool maker in Mass., for a little better than 15 years then I served another 10 as a mechanical engineer.
All of which makes me somewhat biased in favor of heavy itron and steel construction and somewhat opposed to lightweight materials especially in what I think of as heavy applications.

Aluminum hasn't got much (if any) hysteresis recovery capability and about zero fatigue stress resistance. That's why the Aloha Airlines Flight 243 (April 04, 1988) fell apart in the air. Once you begin stressing alumunim you set up a fatigue pattern that can only end in crack propogation and material falure. Unlike steel Alum cannot shake off the stress induced by flexing the metal.

Granted: Cast Iron isn't particularly good at expansive and torsional fatigue recovery either however, the amount of stress one must apply to overcome cast iron is far greater than that for alum..


A table saw is a place where I apply a fairly heavy hand. I am a bit of a brute on most of my machinery. I'll set logs, beams, you name it on a TS and expect it to take the punishment and bury it'self in the work and cut. As capable as a Euro style Alum slider is of handling exactly that, the aluminum itself is too delicate to treat as casually as I'd treat Iron. I'm be afraid to set the lumber down too hard for fear of bending the material damaging the bearing races. I'm also concerned that the mere fact of a one or two hundred pounds on the slider might cause the bearing races to swage open and become loose over time.

I suppose there is the "Switch Watch" analogy. Wherein one might suggest that a Euro slider isn't the beast of a tool I expect from an old iron Oliver or Northfield. What is? And there is something to that. Except they advertise their saw tables as capable of handling log stock and even sell shoes for that purpose. Of course there is the cost. When one purchase a 6 thousand dollar saw one reasonably should expect it to take some punishment.

I said in a previous post responding to a query about euro style saws that "all machined have failings." They do. I am merely speaking to this particular failing. It's not an impeachment of the slider.

So there ya go.
I ain't sayin that a Euro Aum' slider is somehow inferior. It's the particular failing of heavy construction or the lack of it which I am yammering about.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

How about we turn the question around and ask how would you design a slider and what materials would you use. Lou
Thomson linear recirculating bearings, or (my favorite) an air bearing pad. The air bearing is such a sweet thing. A hundred or so pounds of compressed air in a space a few tenths (0.0005") & spaning a few square feet of surface can create a frictionless bearing that will move tonnage about with zero resistance.

With linear slides I'd like to have the slide's ways compounded so they expand and collapse as the user moves the table. The table cast iron.

Didn't Robland do this about 15 years ago?

What kills me is that of the American makers only Griz seems to have the courage to enter the slider market and they are only doing it with a full blown panel saw.

For myself and I'd guess most folks, a full scale panel saw is not merely overkill it's the wrong tool for most of what we do being unweildy on small work.

[lou sansone]

[quote=Cliff Rohrabacher]Thomson linear recirculating bearings, or (my favorite) an air bearing pad.

great idea if you can keep the sawdust out.

on the other points ... no sense in trying to out engineer each other. If you are a ME, then you know to design in the elastic region and you will be fine for most applications ( granted the point on aluminum and its hysteresis curve and the plastic range is much closer than steel ). Bottom line are the facts on the street... sliders are now made out of extruded aluminum.

peace
Lou

[Paul B. Cresti]

CLiff,
Well with your engineering background I am sure you understand the principal of triangulation. While the cast iron beasts rely on the shear mass of the casting (assuming it has been cured correctly) and some ribbing, the aluminum tables we are talking about rely on internal webbing and cavities to provide the rigidity. As others have said it is extruded and then machined. In addition, remember we are talking about this aluminum being in a somewhat controlled evironment (aka a shop) so it is not out in the open air so to speak being hit with every type of weather condition known to man. Even within the ranks of sliders there are varying degrees of machines. Some are set up to handle smaller loads while others can handle very large loads and be able to stand up to the rigors of non stop production and abuse....how big is your wallet and where do you want to be is more the question ;) If a saw is equiped with a 12, 14 or 16 inch blade I tend to believe it is designed to cut some very large stuff!

What you will see in the sliders is as the table is extended to its full extension, there will seem to be some flex but as it moves towards the blade it firms up as it engauges the track. This does happen to some degree for all sliders, at least that I aware of and the larger the slider and the larger the slider carriage the less the flex. In all steel framing in buildings, the steel is designed to flex within its designs limits without yielding or incurring a lasting deformation. When cast iron is stressed it just plain cracks/shears. All of these sliders are designed to withstand these forces in the direction that they recieved them. Just look how strong something like a hollow corrogated top of something like a large conference table can be. It is extremely lightweight but along its designed line of force application it is very strong.

[tod evans]

i`ve got a pretty simple philosphy about slider design, the big boys have design engineers who are far more intelligent than i am and these guys know that folks like me will be abusing their equipment day in and day out so they design them with this idea in mind...after a few decades the folks who got it right tend to have a good name in the industry and the others rely on slick advertising....02 tod

[edit] dev, although i like martins paint job better i`m siding with bernhard as i think altendorf is top dog...02

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Bottom line are the facts on the street... sliders are now made out of extruded aluminum.

They are indeed. I'm going to get one too.

[Dev Emch]

[quote=Cliff Rohrabacher]Thomson linear recirculating bearings, or (my favorite) an air bearing pad.

great idea if you can keep the sawdust out.

on the other points ... no sense in trying to out engineer each other. If you are a ME, then you know to design in the elastic region and you will be fine for most applications ( granted the point on aluminum and its hysteresis curve and the plastic range is much closer than steel ). Bottom line are the facts on the street... sliders are now made out of extruded aluminum.

peace
Lou

As mentioned, my hofmann has balls... recirculating that is. These are SKF and they truely work mighty fine!

The airplane/can opener example is not entirely fair. In a commercial aircraft, the body is made from very thin material and it has to pressure cycle each time it goes for a hop. Sure you can design well below the hook on the young's modulus curve maintaining a linear slope for the young's modulus. Even below your 2 percent yield point. But if you have cyclical fatique loading, your eventually screwed. Aluminum has the nasty habbit of taking on a cast iron young's modulus curve after a certain number of cycles. Not nearly as strong ****BUT**** the region between linear loading and destructive failure known as plastic deformation disappears. It just snaps as the curves BEGINS to go non-linear. This is why large aircraft are limited to a certain number of landings before they become raw material for industrial furntire makers. You know, guys who make coffee tables by powder coating F-4 burner cans and putting a chunk of pencil edge tempered glass on top. Actually this stuff looking pretty darn nice if you like airplanes!

Personally I cannot imagine a fatique loading sernerio relating to sliding tables. Maybe around the bearing support mounts but stress is area dependent and you can always add a tadd of beef in these areas to drop those nasty red and yellow stress risers.

Lou was correct in his assesment of the oliver 260 table. A cast iron sliding table on a 6 or 8 foot saw would be so heavy that it takes three men to lift it. The cast iron table on a fay and egan shaper weighs about 700 pounds and that is a standard shaper table!

If you really wish to see the insane at work, take a look at the table on a DeVlieg jig bore or a Rockford Openside metal planer. These are sliding tables. But they can weigh more than your car and require a hydraulic support unit to operate. In fact, Oliver actually made a huge monster table saw with a massive cast iron sliding table. It too had a heavy duty hydraulic ram under it to operate the table day in and day out. Leaving a human to do this would turn him into Popeye Arms before you know it.

I myself am not a fan of aluminium tables. But I have to conceed that the practical and pragmatic rational for doing this is quite valid and I have to support the decision. For what it was designed to do, this is the right choice.

[Dev Emch]

i`ve got a pretty simple philosphy about slider design, the big boys have design engineers who are far more intelligent than i am and these guys know that folks like me will be abusing their equipment day in and day out so they design them with this idea in mind...after a few decades the folks who got it right tend to have a good name in the industry and the others rely on slick advertising....02 tod

[edit] dev, although i like martins paint job better i`m siding with bernhard as i think altendorf is top dog...02

Altendorf goes way back and wrote much of the material on sliding table table saws. But so does Otto Martin. But Martin was one of the first woodworking machine builders to incorporate the composite concrete construction used in the metalworking industry. Companies like Dekel-Maho and Hardinge have been using this system for a number of years and it works. At first I was skeptical and that is one of the two reasons I bought a german made Hofmann shaper. Its 4500 pounds of cast iron! The other reason is that I did not want all the extra electronics at the time. I like things simple. But since then, I have come to have a real respect for this construction method. It is able to absorb and damp out vibration SIX times faster than cast iron which is many times faster than standard steel. And sheet metal just resonates. Its like a perpetual motion machine at work. Vibration gets into that base structure, you might as well have a load speaker hooked up to a base amplifier!

Altendorf has made some incredible machines over the years and one of the first things I look for is tiger stripes. Tiger stripes is a kind of grey colored cordaroy finish on the cast iron tables. Its left behind from the metal planing process which is the best way to finish a rough table casting. Martin, Altendorf, Hofmann, etc. all use the traditional metal planer and do not grind the tables. Its more time consuming and expensive but the end product is much nicer and more accurate. I did look at a robland slider at auction a couple of months ago and it too had tiger stripes.

But Altendorf has had some tough times of late and has had to move machining operations elsewhere. Some work has moved to the old chech replublic and some has gone overseas. I am not sure how much is moving around or who is doing what. Just know that not everything is made in germany today. The machinists of the old chech replubic are almost all german defense industry trained and these guys are good. Many have a heritage going back to the old german mauser works. So I am not that concerned about these guys. Its the stuff moving over to china and what not that I retain any final opinions. Your going to have to show me that these guys are doing the same work as the germans. Martin as far as I know is still building in germany.

So I still like martin over altendorf but your comparing a benzer to a bee-mer as Bernhard had previously mentioned.

[Chris Barton]

The airplane/can opener example is not entirely fair. In a commercial aircraft, the body is made from very thin material and it has to pressure cycle each time it goes for a hop. Sure you can design well below the hook on the young's modulus curve maintaining a linear slope for the young's modulus. Even below your 2 percent yield point. But if you have cyclical fatique loading, your eventually screwed. Aluminum has the nasty habbit of taking on a cast iron young's modulus curve after a certain number of cycles. Not nearly as strong ****BUT**** the region between linear loading and destructive failure known as plastic deformation disappears. It just snaps as the curves BEGINS to go non-linear. This is why large aircraft are limited to a certain number of landings before they become raw material for industrial furntire makers. You know, guys who make coffee tables by powder coating F-4 burner cans and putting a chunk of pencil edge tempered glass on top. Actually this stuff looking pretty darn nice if you like airplanes!

Go Embry-Riddle!

[David Less]

Cliff,

The machine you must be referring to is the Knapp Signature series. I saw the same DVD as you did and felt just the opposite about their use of round steel rods as races. I guess what sold me on their slider was a 30+ lb piece of wood dropped on the far end of the 8' slider showing close to zero deflection using an indicater. With the use of 8 rods for bearing races, the point loads you are referring to has to be minnimul at the least. In doing machine design at work as well as installing/setting up high end German turn broach laths used in the auotomobile powertrain manufacturing I feel I have alittle experiance when I see a well built machine. Let me tell you the the Knapp looks like a very well built machine uner the table (where ir counts.

oh well, just my $02 again.

What a forum, I log on to discuss wood working and I feel like I am back in Mechanical engineering school. Oh well, I guess it's just as fun to read everones opinion on machinery.

David

[David Less]

Sorry for my poor grammer and spelling. I hit the wrong button before I had a chance to check.

Hope everyone has a safe and joyous Easter.

David

[Bernhard Kühnen]

Altendorf goes way back and wrote much of the material on sliding table table saws. But so does Otto Martin. But Martin was one of the first woodworking machine builders to incorporate the composite concrete construction used in the metalworking industry. Companies like Dekel-Maho and Hardinge have been using this system for a number of years and it works. At first I was skeptical and that is one of the two reasons I bought a german made Hofmann shaper. Its 4500 pounds of cast iron! The other reason is that I did not want all the extra electronics at the time. I like things simple. But since then, I have come to have a real respect for this construction method. It is able to absorb and damp out vibration SIX times faster than cast iron which is many times faster than standard steel. And sheet metal just resonates. Its like a perpetual motion machine at work. Vibration gets into that base structure, you might as well have a load speaker hooked up to a base amplifier!


Altendorf has made some incredible machines over the years and one of the first things I look for is tiger stripes. Tiger stripes is a kind of grey colored cordaroy finish on the cast iron tables. Its left behind from the metal planing process which is the best way to finish a rough table casting. Martin, Altendorf, Hofmann, etc. all use the traditional metal planer and do not grind the tables. Its more time consuming and expensive but the end product is much nicer and more accurate. I did look at a robland slider at auction a couple of months ago and it too had tiger stripes.

But Altendorf has had some tough times of late and has had to move machining operations elsewhere. Some work has moved to the old chech replublic and some has gone overseas. I am not sure how much is moving around or who is doing what. Just know that not everything is made in germany today. The machinists of the old chech replubic are almost all german defense industry trained and these guys are good. Many have a heritage going back to the old german mauser works. So I am not that concerned about these guys. Its the stuff moving over to china and what not that I retain any final opinions. Your going to have to show me that these guys are doing the same work as the germans. Martin as far as I know is still building in germany.

So I still like martin over altendorf but your comparing a benzer to a bee-mer as Bernhard had previously mentioned.

Hi Dev,

you are right Altendorf went through a hard time but they are now back and produce about 400 saws a year which is record.

The famous F45 and F90 (that are their highend machines) are still produced in Germany.
Their new invention the WA 6 is produced in China. With this saw they want to compete against the low price market. Unfortunately this saw has some weak points regarding quality e. g. the motor fixing is rather poor.
The WA 80 - medium sized saw - could be produced in Czech Republic.

You are well informed about these high quality saws. Do you call a Martin your own? These saws are giants and I would need a workshop three times bigger than I have today to get it into (not to talk about the money:eek: ).

Bernhard

[Frank Pellow]

No problem Dave,

writing from Germany: the question whether to place Altendorf or Martin first is like placing DaimlerChrysler or BMW first.:D Both are extremely good. For sure Martin has the better varity as Altendorf manufacturers only saws.

Bernhard
And my answer re the cars (and sticking to Germany) is neither one. I would place Audi first. :)

[Frank Pellow]

First of all, I would like to thank you Paul for posting these most informative pictures. Then, I would like to thank everyone who contributed to the technical discussion. I really enjoy learning this stuff. Right now, I have a lot to learn about these machines and very little to contribute. But, maybe that will change someday.

[tod evans]

dev, hoffmann isn`t the only manufacturer to offer recirculating ball bearings to guide a tennoning table on a shaper, here`s pics of the design used on my minimax(scmi)..02 tod

36501

36502

36503

[Jim Becker]

Sorry for my poor grammer and spelling. I hit the wrong button before I had a chance to check.

David, you can edit a post at any time...just click on the icon at the bottom right corner of your post that looks like a notebook and pencil.
-------

I haven't weighed in on this subject earlier 'cause I'm not a real engineer, but all of the sliders I've physically touched (which is MM, Felder and Altendorf) were obviously precision machines that could "take it" when it came to heft and strength. I think that the manufacturers are also constantly looking at ways to improve the sliders, too, from the stand point of how they engineer the mating of the aluminum extrusions with bearing surfaces, etc. I know one of the firms I mentioned above has recently re-engineered such things for a few machines...

[Bernhard Kühnen]

And my answer re the cars (and sticking to Germany) is neither one. I would place Audi first. :)

No problem with that either, I drive the A4 station and indeed it is a good car

Bernhard

[Bernhard Kühnen]

First of all, I would like to thank you Paul for posting these most informative pictures. Then, I would like to thank everyone who contributed to the technical discussion. I really enjoy learning this stuff. Right now, I have a lot to learn about these machines and very little to contribute. But, maybe that will change someday.

Frank,

I believe that was one of the original reasons of Paul. From the other side of the Atlantic we have a hard time to understand that the sliding tables are so rare in the US and Canada. They make life easier and much safer. On the other hand there is no need to make such sophisticated sliding tables like Martin Altendorf etc. My saw (much smaller and from Metabo) has also a sliding table but on simple tubes (perhaps you can see it on my earlier posts) and this works well.

Bernhard

[Paul B. Cresti]

Frank,

I believe that was one of the original reasons of Paul. From the other side of the Atlantic we have a hard time to understand that the sliding tables are so rare in the US and Canada. They make life easier and much safer. On the other hand there is no need to make such sophisticated sliding tables like Martin Altendorf etc. My saw (much smaller and from Metabo) has also a sliding table but on simple tubes (perhaps you can see it on my earlier posts) and this works well.

Bernhard

Bernhard,
Does your Metabo place the slider portion in close proximity to the main blade similiar to what we here know of as the European Format type slider?
We did have a few companies inthe past that used to have sliders (cast iron & right next to the blade: Oliver, Tannewitz (still made but $$$$$++++)) but they have all seemed to "die off". Not sure why other than the fact that the general public here never heard of them or was unwilling to pay for them. I sure hope some of these European companies, especially the ones from Italy ;) , can make a good showing here. If people would just get the opportunity to use one for awhile they would understand what I have been posting about in the past. It presents a whole 'nother world of safe accurate woodworking.

[Ian Barley]

I have a (relatively) small, lightweight slider made by Elektra Beckum (AKA Metabo). I wouldn't want to drop a huge chunk of lumber on the end of it but then again I don't need to. The table and slider table are ali. It does a great job and performs the tasks I need it to really well. Yes it needs more than a slight breeze to move the table but I manage to cope with the effort involved for hours at a stretch. I would say that the best situation we can be in is where equipment is available that meets the needs of different users at varying levels of sophistication and need, from varying price points. Pretty much where we are I think.

[tod evans]

ian, i`m curious, as paul asked bernhard, does the table of your slider ride against the blade or is it quite a way from the blade? tod

[Bernhard Kühnen]

Tod, Paul,

the slider is 20cm (about 8 inch) away from the blade. Only the next Metabo model (bought by Metabo and build by a French Company) had this slider next to the blade. But this one is very poor quality and one of my friends call it a pain in the neck :( (not to use the other expression:rolleyes: ).

But my slider is of decent quality and the running steel tubes are supported by a leg so you could drop big load on it. On top of this the slider could be easily removed by two screws when I need the saw outside the shop.

Bernhard

[tod evans]

thanks bernhard, i was just curious. tod

[Paul B. Cresti]

Ian & Bernhard,
Could you guys post some pictures of your saws and maybe how you use them? Most people on this side of the Ocean have never seen or heard of your machines before.

[Ian Barley]

Tod

My sliding table runs within 5mm of the blade. It is a small capacity machine and is really aimed more at the serious hobbyist/tradesman. The pics below don't show all the panel support gizmos that come with the saw. I have to say the main reason I stick with this saw is that I rip a max of 6" wide. A bigger saw increases width in proportion to length and simply would not earn its living in my shop. I pay £1300 in rent and taxes for my workshop. Every square foot has to earn me $195 a year before I start covering other overheads and about the same again before I'm making profit. A bigger saw would be like carrying a sledgehammer all the time just on the off chance that I ever needed to crack a walnut. That is why I use a well engineered compact saw and get my GCSS out when I need a longer cut or have sheet goods to process. Making better use of 4 square feet for one month pays outright for the GCSS AND I get the huge benefits of the slider for the vast majority of my cuts.

Paul

The majority of my use of the slider is very simple. I use mainly shorts. I place a planed board on the slider wedging it into the clamping shoe and holding the free end down to the sliding table. I run a straight edge onto the board. I draw the board back and slide it across so that the straight edge is against the rip fence. I then run the board again for desired width. I have a taper shoe that lets me cut my tapered pieces. I never use the TS for crosscuts. I never cut dadoes. The slider is accurate enough for wood, easy enough for me to use and happily works 8 hours a day when I want it to without me having to worry about what material the bearings are made of. A cleverer bloke than me has done that already - I just trust that he knows what he's doing. 5 years of use suggests that he does.


I will post some actual pics of my saw one day so that you can see a bit better.

[tod evans]

thanks ian! i was just curious about how the saw was set-up, and i agree let the folks who design equipment for a living earn their pay. .02 tod

[Bernhard Kühnen]

Hi Paul

here we go:

36515

We see the sliding table on the two tubes

36516

and in more detail

36517

from the top

36518

and the stopper with the magnificant lense

Sorry, but I am at the moment in the middle of milling marple for table so please forgive the mess.

Bernhard

[Dev Emch]

And my answer re the cars (and sticking to Germany) is neither one. I would place Audi first. :)

GO AUTO UNION! GO ROSIE BERNDMEYER!

[Dev Emch]

dev, hoffmann isn`t the only manufacturer to offer recirculating ball bearings to guide a tennoning table on a shaper, here`s pics of the design used on my minimax(scmi)..02 tod

36501

36502

36503

Hey Tod, I knew somewhere in that shop you had to have balls.

[Dev Emch]

David, you can edit a post at any time...just click on the icon at the bottom right corner of your post that looks like a notebook and pencil.
-------

I haven't weighed in on this subject earlier 'cause I'm not a real engineer, but all of the sliders I've physically touched (which is MM, Felder and Altendorf) were obviously precision machines that could "take it" when it came to heft and strength. I think that the manufacturers are also constantly looking at ways to improve the sliders, too, from the stand point of how they engineer the mating of the aluminum extrusions with bearing surfaces, etc. I know one of the firms I mentioned above has recently re-engineered such things for a few machines...
No worries Jim.... Just make sure to stay at a Holiday Inn last night and everything will be fine.:D

[Bernhard Kühnen]

that is history Dev

[Dev Emch]

that is history Dev

And what lovely history that is!:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

[tod evans]

Hey Tod, I knew somewhere in that shop you had to have balls.


not with a 10 foot pole.....:D

[Bernhard Kühnen]

And what lovely history that is!:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

right you are at that time the cars did not look uniform:D

[Dev Emch]

right you are at that time the cars did not look uniform:D Yah, most everything today looks like a rolling jelly bean!

[Jim Becker]

No worries Jim.... Just make sure to stay at a Holiday Inn last night and everything will be fine.

Sorry...I almost always only stay with my mistress, Marri Ott...a lot...:p I very rarely need to edit anything that she provides me, either...

[Paul B. Cresti]

Bernhard,
Thanks for the pics. Do you rip on your table saw? using the slider & a jig? or do you rip on the bandsaw?? Ok here is a loaded question for you....is it true that most Europeans rip soild stock on the bandsaw??

[Paul B. Cresti]

Tod

I run a straight edge onto the board. I draw the board back and slide it across so that the straight edge is against the rip fence. I then run the board again for desired width. I have a taper shoe that lets me cut my tapered pieces. I never use the TS for crosscuts. I never cut dadoes. .

Ian,
Thanks for the pics. What do you use to crosscut? and why not use your crosscut fence on your slider? Do you rip using the rip fence and pushing the stock through ? or do you use your slider to rip, referencing off of the rip fence? Ok same loaded question I gave Bernhard to you....do most Europeans use the bandsaw to rip solid stock??

[Paul B. Cresti]

BY the way guys.....I am typing my posts here while sipping a nice pint of Guiness :D

[Ian Barley]

Paul

I have never used a bandsaw to rip solid stock. The only operations I know of that do are those who are using a band resaw and working with stock too large for most table saws. I do not know of any professional joiner or cabinetmaker who uses a bandsaw to rip. In the UK at least it is a myth.

I have an upcut crosscut saw - pneumatics lift the blade from under the table while clamping the stock from above. As close to 100% safe as anything with moving parts can be 'cause the action doesn't start until you simultaneously depress two switches on opposite sides of the tool. Quick , accurate, safe - and Italian! I dont use crosscut on the slider mainly for space considerations but also I repeat the same lengths many many times for standard components. By using dedicated crosscut saw I have a fence with stops at those standard lengths which never need to be moved.

I rip a clean edge with the clamping shoe on the slider. I then rip my width using the rip fence and pushing the board through. Sometimes the slider goes with the board - sometimes it doesn't. I am using what works best from a speed point of view bearing in mind that at this point I am working in mm tolerances - lots of slack.

My operation is all about maximising the leverage, working fast and workng in as small a space as I can get away with. My saw fits great in that environment.

[lou sansone]

thanks Ian for the insight into how you folks use a slider over there.

lou

[Bernhard Kühnen]

Bernhard,
Thanks for the pics. Do you rip on your table saw? using the slider & a jig? or do you rip on the bandsaw?? Ok here is a loaded question for you....is it true that most Europeans rip soild stock on the bandsaw??

No problem Paul,

I am enjoying to participate because I have gained myself a lot of information from this forum. So it is time to contribute from my side. Like my english friend we are not ripping to often with our bandsaw. OK a few friends do but they have giants like HEMA´s and they are more than 2,30m tall with wheels more than 70cm:D So really smart machines.

I do ripping either with my Festo and a sliding guide (but only because my shop is fairly small) or for smaller pieces (around 1,50 m) I use my table saw with a jig from Metabo.

Here are the pictures:

36563

36564

On the first picture you see the jig which runs in a T Dadoo of the table saw. It is 2 m - so almost the maximum I can handle in my small shop on the long triangular side. On the front of this jig there is a stop with a nail which fix the lumber. You will realize that now the sliding Table is very close to the blade. (It goes without saying that the piece of wood on the ripping table is just for demonstration).
By the way on the right side is my Bandsaw from Hammer (about 2 m with 440 mm wheels). And behind the saw is a Festool Table for my router. And everything has to be on wheels.

Second photo a little closer.

Hope you enjoyed your Guinness. I had a nice Bavarian Beer in the evening while watching soccer.

Bernhard

[Paul B. Cresti]

No problem Paul,


I do ripping either with my Festo and a sliding guide (but only because my shop is fairly small) or for smaller pieces (around 1,50 m) I use my table saw with a jig from Metabo.


Hope you enjoyed your Guinness. I had a nice Bavarian Beer in the evening while watching soccer.

Bernhard
Bernhard,
I created a similiar jig for my slider so I could use for ripping also, see it here:

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=31545

I find that now with the jig, I no longer need to run anything through the jointer anymore inbetween cuts. I most like the fact that I an away from that blade and not in the line of fire. Where do you stand at your saw? since I have a format slider all the stands between me and the blade is that 12" wide slider ....I guess you stand behind your crosscut table?

The beer sure sounds nice....hey can you email me one. Were you watching German league soccer ? or dare I say the Italian league?;)

OK here is another question for both you and Ian.....how many of your friends use a full combo machine or partial (j/p or saw/shaper) in their shops?

[Ian Barley]

Paul

I know of one pro who has a full combo machine but he dislikes it and intends to dispose of it, He basically uses it as a saw.

J/P is so common that most UK woodworkers wouldn't even think of it as a combo. It is only in bigger shops where they get seperate machines OR like mine where I use a thicknesser(planer) but don't bother with the Jointer (which, confusingly, we would call a planer).

Saw/Shaper is less common. Most people looker for a shaper (spindle moulder) will get a dedicated machine.

[Bernhard Kühnen]

Paul

you got the weak point of this Metabo. I have to stand right behind the blade as the two tubes take too much space to stand behind the crosscut table and I prefer to have a good sight on the blade and cutting line. (But sometimes of course this hurts when a piece of wood is thrown against you - I tell you this is a very special area where it hits).

I am afraid all my friends us single machines (besides the very popular jointer/thicknesser - you hardly can buy other). One of my friends is now interested to get rid of his Metabo table saw and Hammer shaper and he intends to buy the 700 er Saw Shaper from Felder. But this is simply due to space in his shop.

You should not send us the link of your shop. Now I am really jealous but I do not know because of your equipment or space :-))))

Saturday evening it is the German Soccer league.

Bernhard

[Bernhard Kühnen]

Paul

I know of one pro who has a full combo machine but he dislikes it and intends to dispose of it, He basically uses it as a saw.

J/P is so common that most UK woodworkers wouldn't even think of it as a combo. It is only in bigger shops where they get seperate machines OR like mine where I use a thicknesser(planer) but don't bother with the Jointer (which, confusingly, we would call a planer).

Saw/Shaper is less common. Most people looker for a shaper (spindle moulder) will get a dedicated machine.

In fact Ian I learned only at the Creek that J/P is a combo before I wouldn´t even think of anything else. Only the very high end machines are single ones.

Bernhard

[Paul B. Cresti]

Ian & Bernhard,
Thanks for all the responses....it is interesting to see how you guys over there use machines differently than us here. What other machines/techniques have you read about here on SMC that seem very foreign to you guys? (just a a couple of majors ones)

Being that solid wood, at least seems to be, much more abundant over here (correct me if I am wrong) what do most people there make furniture out of? Is the majority solid wood or veneered substrate? Here is another myth type question....are most cabinets there frameless with what we call euro cup hinges?

[Ian Barley]

Paul

Take these answers as representing part of the Euro experience only. The UK has always followed a slightly (sometimes markedly) different path to much of mainland Europe.

Generally, woodworking seems less popular over here as a hobby. Probably partly because of space demands but I am sure that there are other cultural factors. I think the techniques gap is smaller than it was a few years ago. The main one that stands out is dadoes. I know of basically nobody who does now or ever has cut dadoes on a TS. They are sometimes cut on RAS but most are cut with the router.

I suspect that you are correct about the use of solid wood. There has been some change in the last few years but labour cost is everything here. Solid wood furniture has come back a bit because of the entry of eastern european countries into the EU has released appropriately skilled labour at a more realistic cost. I have seen more solid oak furniture in the last three years than probably in the ten years before it. Solid wood kitchen cabinetry is very very expensive. I suspect that the US has many more local scale cabinet shops, which are very rare in the UK. Yes most cabinets are made from particle board, melamine or foil coated and almost none have face frames. The standard hinge is indeed what you would call a cup hinge.

The reality is that the world has become a smaller place in the last 10 years. Brands that were once only seen on an imported episode of This Old House are widely available in shops. 5 years ago a "lunchbox" planer was a very unusual tool. If you felt the need to thickness lumber you would have had a big shop with a J/P in it. My first lunchbox cost me nearly £500. Now it would cost about £200. My first table saw (a delta "contractors" saw) cost me about £300. I saw the same machine in a DIY store last week (not delta branded) for less than £100. I think of this as the "Norm" effect. I don't know whether the US went through the same thing but much earlier but in the UK the spread of cable/sattelite TV has/is bringing about a change and more people are buying more tools - I just not sure how many of them are really using them.

[Bernhard Kühnen]

Paul,

Ian is right - labour cost is everything and that is why most furnitures are made of melamine and other "bad stuff". Even if you buy a kitchen and the front is of "real" wood the cupboards behind are of melamine.

These type of "furnitures" are produced very cheaply in Poland and other Eastern European countries.

On top of this it is still difficult to become a furniture maker. You need official apprentachip etc. to get your license in order to set up your own shop. Trust that this is much easier in the US.

Vice versa to Ian I cut most of the dadoes with my table saw.

In Germany woodworking as a hobby is still not very popular. One reason might be that you are considered as a poor guy who has to build your own furniture i/o buying it.

But majority of hobbiest trust in real wood and they use oak, beech, cherry, marple, mahagoni.

I prefer local wood as well. Here are some examples

Built of oak

36584

built of beech

36583

And I got attracted with the help of SMC by handplanes and saws

36582

36581

Bernhard

[Lee DeRaud]

...[In the UK] more people are buying more tools - I just not sure how many of them are really using them.I suspect there's a lot of that going on here, too. It may be too that the prices have come down to the point that people buy things that they used to rent, and then only use them once a year or so at most. (Don't get me started on the related phenomenon of the proliferation of self-storage units.:eek: )

[Ian Barley]

(Don't get me started on the related phenomenon of the proliferation of self-storage units.:eek: )

An increasing trend over her too - hohum! Lets not get each other started on it:) :)

[rick fulton]

Thanks Bernhard, Ian, and Paul!
Interesting and insightful.
Just what I needed, more ways to cut a board in half.
rick