I am in the market for a new 3hp table saw
I am finally in the market to purchase a decent table saw. I have been using freebies and hand-me-downs my entire life. This will be going in a walk out basement in a shop that is about 14×20. I am leaning towards saws that have a 50” fence. Will this be to much for that size shop?
I began me search looking at high end 110v saws. When I built the house I ran 4 2amp circuits to the basement. I was busy and didn’t consider that I may want some 220 down there. I may have an option of pulling 220 off the back up heat strip 50 amp circuit though. I just need to figure out how I am going do it.
During my 110v saw search I was pretty set on either the Steel City or the Jet Proshop. In all the similiar threads I kept seeing the grizzly 691 and the 1023 coming up. Grizzly is about 2 minutes up the road from my work, so I consider that a huge advantage over the other companies out there. I guess my question is are the 3hp saws from Jet, Delta, General, Powermatic, SawStop (ignoring the safety brake) really worth the almost double the price of the Griz? I am looking for a saw that will last me 20 years, if not the rest of my life. I will not be considering a used saw.
Replies
Can't give a definite answer to the first
But can advise: Draft a floor plan to scale make a paper cutout of the footprint of every machine, bench, cabinet, lumber rack etc to the same scale. Then you can move them around in the plan to arrange and see if everything will fit. If you have a cad program this is even easier.
As for recommended saws, get yourself an older unisaw, they are all over ebay, and are a much better value than a shiny new imported machine. I bought a rockwell branded unisaw in the mid 80's (I think it was about 20 years old when I got it) used it in a production shop for over ten years and am still using it today in my one man shop, had the motor rewound once and replaced the bearings once. Mine is 1-1/2 hp by the way, although I would not discourage more HP (like sex and money you cannot have too much of it), the old 1-1/2 motors will do anything you need to do in a small shop.
New Saw
I have a unisaw - like it a lot. For a brand new saw consider the Saw Stop - there are many ways to get hurt in the shop and a saw stop like feature isn't available on evey tool, but you'll have a better chance of being safe with their saw if something did happen unexpectedly.
SA
I have used the following cabinet saws, Jet, Unisaws, powermatic 66 and Sawstop. I still think the Sawstop is the way to go, it is a really nice saw and even though I have never (yet) hurt myself I would never buy any other saw in the future. You may save money on a used Delta or Powermatic but I think the saftey brake is a great thing.
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled