As a follow-up to my other post on this subject, I'm looking for some advice on which size Hammer K3 to get. I'm looking at both the 48x48 and 79x48. Obviously I would love to have the longer slider, but the space that it will take up even in the locked position has me concerned.

I've attached a rough drawing of my shop as it is now; each box is 1 square foot. It's a basement shop, so there are no doors to open to increase the room. I have to share space with litter boxes for our cats, but thankfully those are mostly out of my way. The equipment on the left side is mobile, none of them can be used without moving them, and I will often move the router table and bandsaw into the space between the TS and the cabinets at the top when using them. The cart that's in that section is mobile, and it's what I use for assembly and outfeed support. The DC on the right side is mounted to the wall, and space below it is taken up by the dust bin and a shop-vac. Space below the lumber rack is currently taken up by TS blade storage and a few other things, but all of them can be moved if necessary. That "Junk / Lumber" area in the lower left is for oversized pieces that can't fit on the lumber rack, and also includes a half-height IT Computer Rack that I've had for years but plan to get rid of since I never really used it for anything.

The TS infeed is on the bottom in the drawing, meaning I push material toward that mobile cart. It's a contractor-style saw, but since it has a side table and small built-in outfeed it still takes up a decent amount of room. In fact, a Hammer K3 chassis will take up almost the same overall footprint, only encroaching toward the DC slightly. The main difference of course will be the slider, the left side of which will basically line up with the left edge of my current saw. That change however means my body position will change when cutting, as for most cuts I will be standing to the left of the saw. A slider also means that I might have to start from back near that "Junk" area, depending on the size of the material and size of the slider. I think that arrangement can work without much difficulty, regardless of the slider size, since I don't work with full plywood sheets all that often but do occasionally rip long pieces of material.

What I'm concerned mostly about is the amount of space the slider will take up, especially when I'm not actively using the saw. This is especially important for when I'm working in that assembly area behind the saw, since the outfeed portion of the slider will take up some of that space (I think it's like 8-9" for the 48" version, and possibly up to 24" for the 79" version). That's space that I generally use / need. Even if I push the slider all the way to the infeed, the track it rides on sticks out toward the outfeed some in the 79" version. I'm sure I could move the saw to some other location to make room (e.g. toward the litter boxes and toward the DC), but that will encroach on my infeed limits / space.

So, does anyone have any suggestions on which saw I should get? I really do want the 79" slider, but I want to hear what others think about its impact on my shop usage.

Thanks,
Steve

shop.jpg