_lembark

St Louis, MO, US
member


Recent comments


Re: Is the Radial Arm Saw on its Last Legs?

Ask this question in Fine Homebuilding and the answer will be some form of "NO!" Rough lumber shops also depend on large-blade units for cutting really large pieces.

Radial Arm ("RA") saws are about dealing with boards too large to move easily during cutting. For example, try slicing a nice, clean dado in a 4m piece of wood -- other than balsa. Even if you're strong enough to do it, the work won't be safe and you've got really good odds of botching the thing due to the board catching.

Routers have improved to the point where most people use them for dados today.

The price of wood and availability of shorter pieces also leaves more of us dealing with table-saw-sized pieces anyway.

But for trimming the end of a 4x8, RA saws are still the best way to go.

posted: 1:50 pm on July 13th