Sliding Table vs Panel Saw vs other?

[Wayne Cannon]

I would appreciate your thoughts for breaking down full plywood sheets. What has worked best for you?

About six years ago, I installed Jet's sliding table on my cabinet saw. It's nice to be able to crosscut a full sheet of plywood by myself; however, the protrusion of its rail in front of the saw is annoyingly in the way, and its fence is often in the way when ripping moderately wide stock.

I'm considering returning to the original cast-iron extension wing with crosscut sled and adding a home-made panel saw (from Popular Woodworking/Rockler plans) -- or even a simple cutting frame on sawhorses.

I would appreciate your thoughts for breaking down plywood sheets and ideas that have worked well for you, before I invest the time and money making the change. Can you think of any reason I would regret the change?

I'm also looking for good ideas for keeping a panel saw out of the way when not in use (such as hinging it from the ceiling) so it's not equally in the way. Have you seen any good ideas?

[jason lambert]

I use a festool guide and 55 saw, works wonders and takes no room. This way I don't need to struggle with moving the materal just moving the saw throught it. Also much safer, and close to 100% dust collection.

[David DeCristoforo]

"... however, the protrusion of its rail in front of the saw is annoyingly in the way..."

This is a characteristic of all sliders and is one of their "down sides". When you are using the sliding table, you are "outboard" and everything is fine. But when you are not using it (ripping solid stock for example) it is in exactly the wrong position. This is one of the main reasons I kept my Uni when I got my slider.

DD

[Paul Johnstone]

I have the Jessem master slide and I love it. The fence is easily removed and replaced. Not in the way at all when doing ripping. I'll never go back to using a crosscut sled again.

The limitation is that you can't do full sheet crosscuts.. The limit is something like 30" or 32", but that is more than adequate for 99% of the time.

The few times I have to crosscut the full 4' of a sheet of plywood, I pull out the circular saw. Really, after using a sliding table, pulling out the circular saw is very annoying. Sometimes I wish I had bought a full sized sliding table, but I was concerned it would get in the way as you and others have mentioned.

[Shawn Honeychurch]

2 Home made cutting guides made from Hardboard and a nice piece of 1x4, one of them 4 feet long and one of them 8 feet long.

Hang them on a wall when not in use. One side cut down with the circular saw, and one side cut down with the router, 2 tools guides in one. Works great, cost virtually nothing, and is basically fool proof, which is a must for me. :D

[Jerome Hanby]

I started out with shopmade saw boards, but my stock wasn't perfectly straight on the longer one. I purchased PSI's Portable Panel saw and it works perfectly! My Hitachi circular saw hasn't been removed from it's carriage since I bought it! Add some hardboard so that you never have to make additional measurements to be sure where the cut line will be and it's perfect!

[jim oakes]

I had a Safety Speedcut panel saw for years. It is the easiest and most accurate method to cut panels for one person.You don't scrape the faces of the expensive plwood. It takes up little floor area.

Years later I retired and got a "hobby"shop and cut(balanced) 4x8 sheets on a table saw.I used a portable saw and straight edge a few times, but you can't use a repeatable stop,so I wasted time measuring , squaring and double checking.
Boy the panel saw spoiled me!
I made a vertical panel saw from wood,aluminum and a portable saw. It cuts perfectly! Problem is I'm spoiled again.

[Eric DeSilva]

I'm w/Jason--Festool TS55 and a couple guide rails. Shockingly straight cuts. I used to provide a healthy allowance to cut down at the TS to final dimensions, but the allowance is getting narrower and narrower...

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

I used to just "break sheet stock down" and the result always needed squaring and truing.

I never built one of those "Islands" of table space with my table saw in the middle supporting sheet stock for acres and acres. That might work you'll have to get input from some who have done it. I never had the space to try.


Now, I throw it on my slider, take a skim cut to make a "real" square edge and obtain a "real" straight line (the factory cuts are crappy) and then I don't break it down I cut exactly and precisely what I want.

It is so much better on a good slider.


As for a panel saw: Unless you are getting a Streibig or some such you'll still have inaccuracies that you'll have to sort out on a finer piece of equipment.

[Peter Quinn]

For cross cutting full sheets its a skill saw, a couple of saw horses, two flat 2X4's and two sheets of 2" polyurathane foam insulation for me. Add in a 50" aluminum straight edge and it works fine. I'd love a proper slider but don't have the space or the budget presently. I have yet to see an add on slider for a left tilt cabinet saw I felt would handle full sheets without presenting serious compromises in terms of space and flexibility.

For cross cutting half width sheets I use either a panel sled or my Dewalt long arm (24" cross cut ) 14" RAS, but not everyone has one of those sitting around. Whenever pratical I rip full sheets to rough width, cross cut to lenght on the RAS, then rip off the factory edge on TS once the material is in smaller pieces.

I made an extension table for ripping full sheets using 3/4" X 10" X 9' MDF melamine with a 6/4 poplar subframe screwed from below. This rides on the TS rail on one end and is supported by a roller stand with the roller removed on the other. I position it in the center of a sheet when ripping to hold the weight so I can focus on guiding the material through the blade. It along with its twin doubles as infeed/outfeed for the side board mounted router lift when running longer moldings. This inexpensive set up has served me well.

[David DeCristoforo]

"...break sheet stock down...It is so much better on a good slider."

That's what sliders "do best". If you don't use a lot of sheet stock, the incentive for investing in a slider is not nearly as great. But the slider is one of those machines that, once you have one, you will find uses for it that you never anticipated. At least that was the case with me. Four or five times a year (or more), I end up bolting some weird looking contraption onto my sliding table to make a cut that would have been, if not impossible, at least extremely difficult without the sliding table.

[Karl Brogger]

Alot of people love sliding tablesaws. I've never used one I was impressed with though. Which is only a handful of saws. My personal prefference is a panel saw. Although I haven't used a Holz-Her I've seen them in numerous other shops. Striebig's are the cat's ass. The one I've used you could stack up three sheats on it at once and rip or crosscut them. It's on the short list of tooling purchases for me. Flip side I hate using a panel router for dado-ing. Too slow and a pain in the butt in my opinion.

The BEST way is a beam saw. Not too many can justify the $60k investment.

[Wayne Cannon]

For anyone considering a slider, I didn't want to leave the wrong impression.

I have the Jet slider for my left-tilt Jet JTAS-10XL. It handles crosscutting a full 4'x8' sheet with ease and is quite accurate. It has a tiny bit of play, but probably less movement than the rear of my Beismeyer-style T-square fence for the same force. It is fully supported by a very smooth operating, pivoting, heavy steel, triangular arm off of the cabinet base (i.e., no legs). I'm frequently breaking down full sheets by myself, and have been very happy with it. It just seems to be in the way more frequently than it helps which is the only reason I'm considering changing.

[Joe Chritz]

There is a big difference between a sliding table attachment and a sliding tablesaw.

I don't think I will even pony up the bills for an actual sliding saw. So, I use a TS55 when breaking down sheets. I try to make some cross cuts rough then rip one edge good. That leaves just one rip on the table saw before cross cutting with a sled.

If I was bigger into case goods a slider would be on a very short list or a really good panel saw.

Joe

[Wayne Cannon]

I guess I remember hearing about a sliding tablesaw somewhere in the cobwebs and fog of my memory, but it was the furthest thing from my mind when writing this posting. Mine is about a 30" square cast aluminum table that slides on ball-bearing rollers.
http://www.amazon.com/Jet-708110K-Swing-Sliding-Table/dp/B00005A3GU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=hi&qid=1207806703&sr=1-1

Ouch! When grabbing the above link, I see the price has certainly risen since I got mine.

[Kevin Groenke]

I really think you would regret getting rid of the sliding table.

We have the largest Excalibur/Exaktor sliding tables on two cabinet saws. We had a Jet slider on a saw for a couple years, and the Ex sliders are a far superior unit. One of ours has been in use for over 13 years, it has required nothing more than routine adjustment and occasional bearing replacement (I wish the same could be said of me). Nearly EVERY 4'x8' sheet of stock that has gone through our shop in 13 years (maybe 10K) has been wrenched, twisted and dropped onto that table and it's still going strong. The fence goes on/off in about 10secs. I really can't imagine how we would operate without them.

Panel saws are fine, but a cabinet saw with a big sliding table does all that and more: can you cut angles with a panel saw? compound miters? dados? (at an angle)? use a moulding head? etc? Festool and other guiderail systems are great, but you'll have a hard time convincing me that they're as convenient, versatile and accurate as a well designed and tuned sliding system.

Though the reduced footprint of the Jet slider is appealing, it just doesn't shine a light on the Ex. The casting of the pivot point on ours had worn at least 1/16" in ~ 2 years because there was no bushing or bearing between it and the steel pivot pin. The leveling adjustment relied upon bolts pushing against the saw cabinet which did not provide the rigidity to maintain the position. Dropping a heavy piece of stock on the table would cause the bolt to dent the cabinet knocking the whole thing out of level/square. The guide rail on the Jet is in the way, all the time. The fence was not as easy or accurate to install/remove as the t-track system on the Ex.

We've set the tables on the Ex's so that the inner rail is flush with the front edge of rip fence rail, the outer rail still extends in front of the table but it's 30" to the left of the saw so it's not in the way as much as the rail on the Jet design. By placing the inner rail in this location we've limited the capacity that we can handle with the x-cut fence on the front of the table to ~36", but it's worth not having the rail in the way: 60" cuts can still be made with the fence mounted to the back of the table.

Though we rarely do it, the entire sliding table can be removed in ~ 5 minutes by loosening just 2 knobs. It goes back on in exactly the same place via a mounting a mounting rail which has almost no slop.

http://www.exaktortools.com/index2.htm

Of course if you determine that you want/need a real sliding saw, you're talking about a whole different animal.

In our situation safety is a primary consideration, so until somebody makes a slider that stops, I'll stick to SawStops and Ex sliding tables.

g'luck

-kg