Another newbie here...

[Gavin Hadley]

Hello gentlemen. I am a hobbyist at best, recently retired with plans to start equipping a one-car detached garage as a workshop. I have no plans to build furniture or anything quite that elaborate but rather shelving, a bench here and there perhaps and the occasional bird house. First order of business will be to build a nice workbench, the savings on said bench to justify purchase of a table saw. I have a nice Ridgid power miter and several hand tools but am starting from scratch with the shop power eqpt. I have read lots of posts here, specifically the thread regarding the Grizzly equipment and am beginning to feel like a hacker stepping onto a PGA golf course. That aside, first question would be should I be looking at table saws or maybe a good radial arm saw? I really don't have the room for a large TS/RAS with a big cast iron table. I really need something to use then wheel aside. It would be nice if it had the capability of cutting plywood sheets with relative ease. I have seen some very nice, very expensive equipment that I would dearly love to own but I simply cannot justify the outlay. So, I am looking for the absolute biggest bang for the buck for equipment that will only be used sporadically.

I apologize to bring you guys down to the level of this post and if I am barking up the wrong tree please just say so and I will slither away never to be heard from again. Thanks for your attention and patience.

Gavin Hadley

[Lee Koepke]

Welcome Gavin.

Congrats on the retirement, I wish I was there (work is overrated !! )

There are plenty of "contractors saws" that are plenty mobile and utilitarian for occasional use. I dont remeber the models, but the Rigids seemed to be well recieved. The key thing on a TS would be a good solid fence. Without that, its hard to make things work correctly or safely.

My dad just built his "retirement shop" and his bench is 2x SYP. As simple as it gets and it serves his purpose quite well. Benches can be very personal, and your needs may change. If so, you can never have too much flat area in your shop, you just build yourself a better bench.

I think if you stick around here a bit you can garner tons of info. I have used the SEARCH function at the top, sometimes randomly typing in something I am thinking about and read the posts returned.

Have fun !!!

[Ben Cadotte]

Sounds like your a perfect candidate for a hybrid saw. Good power and features and easy to move on a mobile stand (or some cases on built in stand). Since you already have a miter saw. I would say table saw over radial arm saw. I have both, but the table saw came years before the radial arm saw arrived.

Congrats on no longer having to work for pay. Now you get to work for free. :D:D

[Greg Hines, MD]

Welcome to the Creek.

A single car garage, is pretty small. I would agree with a Hybrid saw, if you are going to be doing a lot of woodworking. But for the occasional breakdown of plywood, I use a circular saw to break down the 4x8 sheets, then tune up the pieces on a Shopsmith, which might be a good choice for a small shop.

They can be found used in most areas used very reasonably, and you can then use it as a drill press, lathe, or sander.

Doc

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Gavin,

Welcome to the Creek! Wade right in the water's fine! From beginners to pros .....they are all here to exchange information in civil manner!

[Gary Keedwell]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v196/evsac/Video/ranchwelcome.gif
Wade right in...the water is fine....

Gary

[David Parker]

Hi Gavin,

I'm also a beginner newbie starting to put together my small 12x15 basement shop. My first purchase was a full-sized lathe due to my catching "turning fever" at a beginner course I took last fall. Having stumbled upon this forum and realizing that I've always had a hankering for woodworking, I took a couple of beginning woodworking courses at my local Woodcraft store. The gravity well just keeps pulling me in deeper. Now I have a DeWalt DW735 planer and Jet AFS 1000B air cleaner sitting in their boxes, waiting for me to finish clearing out my future shop space, epoxy paint the floor, and install an electrical sub panel with 240V and additional 120V circuits. I have a Rikon 10-325 bandsaw on backorder and plan on getting the Rikon 6" jointer currently on sale. (I know everyone says get an 8", but I'm willing to upgrade later if I feel the need.) In addition, I plan to buy the Delta 50-760 dust collector locally and I will build a router table for my recently acquired Triton MOF001 router (which joins my DeWalt DW618 that I picked up recently for $99).

I had originally planned on making my tiny shop bandsaw-based and go without a table saw to save space. After playing around with various layouts in SketchUp, I think I just might be able to squeeze in a table saw. I had at first considered getting the new Bosch 4100-9, which looks like a really nice portable saw with a great guard and riving knife. However, for about the same price I can get the Jet ProShop, which seems like a lot more saw. I just wish it came with a riving knife instead of a splitter.

I just can't believe all the toys I'm buying. So much to learn! I want to thank all the Sawmill Creek members for being such a valuable resource. I know I'll be enjoying this hobby for years to come.

[Richard Daly]

I have a shopsmith for about 20 yrs ..I mainly use it for sanding and the drill press,,I have a very limited space in my basement..If you have nothing ...I sure would not be worry about getting one,,keep your eye (the good one) out on craigslist or in sawmill they can be had if you keep looking ..I paid 900.00 and got all the tools and a bandsaw with it.

keep you fingers out of joiners....Stubby

[gary Zimmel]

Gavin

Welcome to the Creek, and congrads on your retirement.

You are going to find all the answers to all of your questions here.

[J. Z. Guest]

I'm set up in half of my one car garage. (the other half has motorcycles in it) I therefore had the same thoughts with regards to the table saw. After a Makita jobsite saw and a Jet contractor saw, I finally wound up with a Ridgid 2400. It is just perfect. Have a good look at it next time you're in Home Depot.

To start with, you won't need a jointer or planer. You can get by with dimensional lumber. I got my workbench plans from plansnow.com. It's made of 2x4s, plywood, and hardboard. Not pretty to many folks, but to an engineer, it is a thing of beauty.

The router table and planer fit right underneath the bench.

In the background of the saw pic, notice the Black & Decker Workmate. If you don't have one of these, it will be your best friend while you build a bench. Afterwards, it is the perfect outfeed support for your table saw.

Good luck, and welcome to Sawmill Creek!

[Gavin Hadley]

Thanks to each of you for such a nice response. My one car garage is part of a new house we just built and the garage is attached to the house's 2 car garage via breezeway. It is fully insulated and has 120/240V fed from a 400A service in the basement. It is lit via fluorescent fixtures to about 75 fcs so good visibility. The floor is epoxy coated and ready for sawdust. I have installed 12 feet of OH cabinets along the back wall and will place my new workbench under them. I will be installing a 240V wall-mtd. unit heater in the near future.

I stopped by Home Depot yesterday and saw they had 4 or 5 RECONDITIONED Ridgid contractor saws (the 2400 Jeremy mentioned) for something like $347, a pretty decent savings but I never buy the reconditioned stuff. Opinions would be much appreciated.

The Amish gentleman who built our cabinets (and quite well I might add) exclusively uses Makita tools. For this reason I have been doing some research around their offerings and found this saw on the web: http://www.toolbarn.com/product/makita/2703X1/

The price is right but it seems fairly lightweight. I must admit it looks tempting. Comparing new for new, would it compete favorably with the Ridgid 2400?
With a promotion Makita is presently running this saw sells for $305....VERY tempting.


I know very little about the Shopsmith so will do some surfing to see what info is out there. I will at some point want a drill press and probably a band saw. The last time I spent any significant time cutting wood was when I trimmed my first house back in 1972 with a miter box and backsaw so this venture is akin to a caveman sitting down at a pc. Wish me luck.

Gavin Hadley

[Gavin Hadley]

OK I did it! Here's what I ended up buying:

http://www.amazon.com/Makita-2704X1-Contractors-10-Inch-Benchtop/dp/B000FVYA82/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=hi&qid=1204906617&sr=8-1

Great price w/free shipping and well reviewed by users.

[Gordy Anderson]

OK I did it! Here's what I ended up buying:

http://www.amazon.com/Makita-2704X1-Contractors-10-Inch-Benchtop/dp/B000FVYA82/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=hi&qid=1204906617&sr=8-1

Great price w/free shipping and well reviewed by users.

Good Call. I have the Ridgid 2400 myself, but I believe they're both in the same league. Your gonna love it. Now you need clamps, dust collection, a new sander with dust collection built in, more clamps, tons of books and magazines and hour upon hour on the web. I'm working on my first project yet, which is turning into a $1500.00 jewelry armoire :D. But I got lots of cool tools for my next project. Gordy

[J. Z. Guest]

Gavin: That is the exact Makita I had. Avoid it like the plague. The fence is pure garbage. The miter gauge doesn't fit the slot tightly enough. It is noisy and not particularly smooth. Basically, it was designed for carpenters, not woodworkers. Specifically, I found it impossible to keep the rip fence parallel to the blade & miter slots; it was always drifting out. I fought with it for a day or two before returning it. From where you sit, it may look the same as the Ridgid 2400, but it isn't.

The fence on the Ridgid is beefier, and locks solid. It locks front and rear, and locks the same way every time. It has an electronic soft-start motor circuit that will never trip your breaker on start-up. It is quieter than the Makita. The miter gauge fits the slot with no slop. The dust collection is very good; you can hook up your shop vac to the back of it with a simple adapter. Or, if you have a dust collector, you can hook it directly up. There is hardly any runout of the blade, even though it is a direct-coupled design. It comes with a break down tool stand, which can even be rolled around without collapsing it every time. It is really an outstanding design. The icing on the cake is that alignment was 98% done out of the box. I checked everything, to be sure, but the only thing that needed the slightest tweak was the 90° stop on the miter gauge.

The Shopsmith is an multi-machine, the original. (since the early 1950s, I beleive) I had one, and it was a great machine. There were only three things I didn't like about it:
a) New price of over $3k.
b) The standard rip fence was not great (not horrible either) They do offer an upgraded one.
c) since the table height adjusts, rather than the blade, cutting thinner material, such as 3/4" puts the table at chest level, which can leave one reaching over the blade sometimes.

However, the drill press, horizontal boring machine, disc sander are all fantastic. Do a search on www.youtube.com (http://www.youtube.com) for 'Shopsmith' and watch the videos there. You'll get a good idea of what it is. Shopsmiths frequently are sold used for $500 or less. Oftentimes, the older Mk. Vs are better than the newer ones.

Look into Shopsmith before you make your decision. If I didn't want to make larger furniture that make the table saw feature seem a bit clumsy, I would have kept it.

[Jerome Hanby]

If one of those "wheelbarrow" style portable table saws will work for you, our Costco had the Bosch model marked down. I don't know anything specifically about that saw, but if it's the same quality as other Bosch tools, it may be a great addition for you. While I'm not a big fan of the Shopsmith as table saw, I do think it's a great tool for packing a lot of capability into a small area. To be honest the only major gripe I have with the table saw it the fact that you tilt the table for a compound miter cut instead of the arbor tilting. If you are mainly working on small projects, then it's table saw mode may be no hindrance to you at all. I got mine with all the normal goodies plus the jointer attachment for $700. You can keep an eye on the Craigslist entries for anywhere in your area that you are willing to drive and can get some good deals.

[J. Z. Guest]

Well, that particular model looks like an improved model of the one you linked to previously. I hope it works out well for you.

Once you get it all aligned, do a couple rip cuts on bigger pieces of plywood and make sure the fence stays where you locked it. If not, send it back right quick. as the Ridgid 2400 doesn't have this problem.

I'm glad to see they finally gave it a rolling stand. ;)

[Jerome Hanby]

That looks like a winner. I've seen lots of Table Saw workstation plans tailor made for that type of saw if you decide you want it more stable that the portable base. I think Norm Abrams even NYWS episode show on building one...

Whatever you end up doing if you can plan it out so that your workbench is the same height as your saw table top, it'll come in really handy for cutting sheet goods. I know this because I've read it in these forums about a billion times :D


OK I did it! Here's what I ended up buying:

http://www.amazon.com/Makita-2704X1-Contractors-10-Inch-Benchtop/dp/B000FVYA82/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=hi&qid=1204906617&sr=8-1

Great price w/free shipping and well reviewed by users.

[Danny Thompson]

Won't it will be next to impossible to manage large plywood sheets on any portable table saw? Wouldn't a good guide rail and circular saw work better for such cuts?

[Jim Kirkpatrick]

Welcome Gavin! If I had a small shop as yours, I would look instead at outfitting my shop with all Festool handtools. No table saw or radial saw is needed. Pricey, but high quality and super precise. Very intuitive and user friendly. There's a lot of posts here RE: Festool most good but alot of criticism on price, another friendlier Festool forum is Festool Owners Group (http://festoolownersgroup.com/index.php), And Jerry Work's articles (http://jerrywork.com/)are well written and quite informative. Click on the "Manuals" page while there. Take a very hard look at Festool before you go with stationary tools.

[Jerome Hanby]

I have agree with you. I have the Portable Panel Saw from PSI and I use a couple of old bi-fold doors on saw horses to hold sheets of MDF while I use that rig to slice them up. Still, having something to support the end during a cross cut or catch the finished end on a long rip is nice if you are working by yourself. A table like surface works better for me than setting up roller stands.

A couple of folks on the creek have some really nice tables that they've added to their saws. If you've got the room, you might want to look at their pictures for some ideas.


Won't it will be next to impossible to manage large plywood sheets on any portable table saw? Wouldn't a good guide rail and circular saw work better for such cuts?