I had planned to keep using my Unisaw till I move into a new home/shop where my initial thoughts were to buy one of the traditional slider type saws with a modest footprint. COVID-19 has the world upside down right now, and my building plans are on hold.
I have outgrown the capabilities of my 3hp, right tilt unisaw and thought I would add a sliding attachment to gain some precision and/or capabilities to it for the time being. Well that plan turned into a royal PITA, as I build a mobile base for saw, and the outfeed table is built into the mobile base, and is also attached to the Incra fence rails. All that will need to be heavily modified, or simply redone. It would be better to just sell this setup and start over with something new.
So the above got me thinking about buying a new cabinet saw with a slider attachment, thinking the Euro type sliders were much more costly. For some reason or other, I assumed the sliders were in the +10k range. Now I see they are in the same price range as the cabinet saw setup I'm looking at, 5K-7K.
I think one of the short stroke machines will fit in my garage and not take up more space than my current setup, especially considering the Incra fence, TS Sleds, Miter gauges, Taper jigs and all the other stuff I've build that goes away. The MinMax SC2C, Felder K500 or Hammer K3 Winner all take up the max footprint I could accommodate.
I'm only just now starting to seriously look into these machines. Frankly, I've never operated one, so this is kind of a new journey. I don't know what I don't know at this point.... Anything I should be aware of? Are there other manufactures I should be looking at?
I have a pretty random need for tools/machines. I break down sheet goods with a track saw, usually, then do a final rip on the TS. I prefer to work with hardwoods verse sheet goods, but do end up working with both.
Freight to my location will also be a big issue, and may drive my final machine choice.