Jobsite Tablesaw Failings at Furniture

[Mike Cutler]

At the end of the day, the real question is what do want a tool/machine to do.
Yes there are folks that have very minimalist equipment that can turn out fantastic pieces, but that will usually come at a price somewhere else in the process.
In my opinion, forget about the fence and the table top for a moment. Those can be rectified one way or the other. What you need is stability if you plan to make furniture, and that only comes with size and weight.
Do you need a 5HP, 1200lb. behemoth with a 14" blade? Probably not. Yeah it's nice to be able to rip 8/4 hardwoods with no effort, but how much 8/4 material is a person in home/garage shop ripping? Not much. Your 95% material is going to be 4/4, semi hard, domestic, hardwoods and plywoods, but some of those pieces of material can be wide, and long. They'll have weight, and the weight of the material needs to be supported and controlled. A bigger, heavier, machine, will provide more stability. Yes, you can come up with all sorts of outfeed tables and roller stands to overcome the limitation, but starting out with 500lbs. of support, sure does go a long way.
I tipped over a 6" Jet jointer with an 11' long, 14" wide, 4/4 piece of Brazilian Cherry, and during that same project, a different board, but just as heavy, almost tipped over my 300lb. General 50-220C Hybrid saw.
The Sawstop debate will go on, but if it is truly furniture and cabinets that you know you want to make, then start out with a 3HP cabinet saw. Give yourself the stability and mass from the very beginning.
Just my opinion.

To be fair though, some of those jobsite saws are really nice, and will produce a dimensioned piece of material every bit the equal in quality to a larger saw. The difference is that you will exceed what should reasonably asked of a jobsite saw rather quickly.

PS
To fix the weight limitations of my General Hybrid saw, it now has a Delta shaper for an outfeed table. Both machines combined are 650+lbs. with a 26"x 72" footprint, is very stable.

[Wes Grass]

I had a DeWalt portable 20 years ago. It had its issues. It was too small, dust collection (didn't) sucked. The table wasn't flat, which was an issue with smaller pieces trying to keep things square.

I hate to admit this, but I think I did more with that little saw than I have with my Felder. Maybe ... surely ... didnt enjoy it as much, but ...

Currently standing in front of a pretty nice bench, IMO of course, that I made with it and a borrowed 4" Craftsman jointer.

Clear fir, the legs are rabetted into 'L's', stretchers are lap jointed, no exposed fasteners. I look at it now and think 'how the ... did I do all that.

[Ron Citerone]

Clearly higher end saws and other equipment is going to be better, especially if you are making bigger pieces. With that said, I built most of the furniture in my house as a young man with a Sears contractor type saw with a 4" jointer attached and a 1/4" router. I surely would have liked bigger better but didn't have 2 cents to rub together. Presently I have access to a shop with bigger better equipment and never want to go back. I do have a Dewalt Contractor saw for my remodeling work and have to say I am impressed with it considering the price.

Learn to use what you have. I do believe some of the hassles involved using the low end stuff taught me some problem solving skills that made me a better woodworker.

[Rick Potter]

IF you are thinking of a low cost saw for furniture making, I would suggest there are LOTS of cast iron Craftsman saws on Craig List for Under $150, and a really nice one can be gotten for $300, usually with some blades and accessories.

They don't take up much more space than a portable with stand, and are much more useable. If space is really tight, take off one or both wings.

Lots of nice furniture has been made on these. They are oft maligned, but a definite improvement over any new $300 portable.

[Bob Johnson2]

FWIW... I've been putting in some time with my Dewalt, something that just came up is when running a thin kerf blade the blade moves during the cut. Did a few cross cuts and I can see the blade move and also see the wobble on the cut itself. Don't know that it would be an issue, being as how it's only moving a smidge, but for now I'll go back to the full kerf till I run into an issue. If I go slow I can eliminate the wobble.

[Mike Henderson]

When I started woodworking, a friend gave me a Craftsman Contractor's saw without a motor. I got a motor and did a lot of "tuning" on the saw and produced some good furniture. But I prefer the cabinet saw I have now.

One big place where a tool is a lot faster than hand work is preparing stock. When i started woodworking, I didn't have a jointer so all my stock was prepared by hand. Once I got a jointer, stock preparation was a LOT faster and more accurate. Jointing an edge to glue two pieces of wood together is nothing when you have a power jointer. By hand it takes time and it's hard to get two really good edges.

Mike

[Jim Dwight]

I think my first table saw was made by AMT. It had a tiny cast iron top but I made a plywood extra top so it had enough space to do something. When the blade tilted the motor did not. So it threw the belt. But for 90 degree cuts it worked. But I also had to make a better fence than it came with and it still wasn't that good.

Then I built a "Gil built" at least that's what I think the name was. It was better but it was all plywood with some metal parts. With an old heavy 1hp motor, it cut pretty well. But the table wasn't flat, fence needed checked etc.

The third saw as a Ryobi BT3100. It was kind of like a jobsite saw. It had a small aluminum top and a sliding table that didn't work very well. But the rip fence was great, short but great. Locked square every time. The top it has was flat. But it had a design weakness. The height adjustment depended on a steel threaded rod going through an aluminum casting. The casting eventually wore out. I had a heli coil to fix it but I decided to just buy a PCS instead.

I rigged the BT3100 with extended rails in a big mobile base and had about 60 inches rip capacity. But after several years of use I tried a track saw. That eliminated the need for the extension rails. My shop is small - both current and former. A track saw with a smaller capacity table saw is a good combination IMHO.

So I am happier with my PCS than I ever was with my other saws. All these changes occurred over about 50 years. I always could make furniture we considered nice despite whatever tools I did or did not have but it is definitely easier now with better tools. My PCS also saved me from a more significant injury last year when I got stupid for the first time on a table saw. They are expensive but they are also good saws. They make a jobsite version that is less expensive. But definitely they are more than other otherwise quite usable saws.

If I decided I could not afford the PCS I would probably have gotten a Grizzly hybrid.

My PCS has the 1.75hp motor and a 36 inch fence. I am good with both but I had to switch to thin kerf blades. Full kerf worked fine with 1 inch material but rips on thicker material, even softwood, were sometimes problematic. But not with a thin kerf blade. I am currently using a Freud Fusion and it gives me good cuts in hardwood, softwood and sheet goods. I've ripped 3 inch softwood with it but I don't think I've done anything over 2 inches in hardwood. But I also have a thin kerf rip blade if I need it.

[Wes Grass]

Yeah, the fence on the DeWalt was great too, just really short. Rack and pinion drive at both ends, always locked up straight. In that respect, better than some larger saws I've used.

I thought about trying to flatten the table. Pulling it all apart to machine it wasn't a reasonable option. But I thought about roughing it up, slathering it with Devcon, and turning it upside down on something flat. With mold release of course ;-)

[Eric Schmid]

I run full kerf blades on job site saws; table & miter. One of my saws, a Dewalt compact, has been in service for about 7 years. It’s never had a thin kerf blade on it. I gave another away last year that is 14 years old. No issues with either saw.

I learned this some years ago when trying to rip some 4x4 hickory posts at 22.5 angle. The thin kerf blade would deflect over 1 degree in the cut. This deflection actually makes the motor work harder than the extra blade width.

Using the correct blade for the work being done helps a lot too.

[Harvey Miller]

I was watching Phil Lowe's 'Build a Basic Workbench with Built-in Storage' on youtube recently (highly recommended just to see how he worked along with his '[COLOR=var(--ytd-video-primary-info-renderer-title-color, var(--yt-spec-text-primary))]The Art of Woodworking' youtube series[/COLOR]). One thing that I noticed is he never cut to a line; he always cut 1/16 wide of the mark and hand trimmed to the mark. I think he could have used almost any tablesaw.