Replies

1. 
   medicinedog | Feb 25, 2009 01:26am | #1

   Hey I just figured out how to do a search and look up my own answer. If I still have questions after reading past posts I will post again.

1. 
   Dave45 | Feb 25, 2009 02:42am | #2

   Your Craftsman almost certainly has a left tilt.My personal preference is left tilt because mitered off-cuts aren't between the blade and the fence.Yeah, I know that the fence can easily be moved to the other side of the blade, but I've used the fence on the right since before Moby Dick was a minnow and that's where the Gods meant for it to be! - lolActually, either one is fine. It comes down to what you're most comfortable with.

1. 
   Shoemaker1 | Feb 25, 2009 05:04am | #3

   Got A General International , left tilt
   Left , left, left. Right!

1. 
   Metod | Feb 25, 2009 10:06pm | #4

   Dave,
   If you 'prefer' to stand to the right of the blade while sawing, then (and only then) I would recommend a right tilt, with the fence kept on the left side. This would also call for reorienting the fence rails.
   Best wishes,
   Metod

1. 
   Dave45 | Feb 26, 2009 01:46am | #5

   As a lefty with over 60 years experience living in a right handed world, I've long since adapted to "their" weirdnesses. - lol. I stand on the left side when ripping on the TS and the few times I've been on the right, it was really uncomfortable.Thank the gods that I'm ambidexterous. I always threw lefty and batted right. Right handed golf clubs, Left handed bolt action rifle. Shoot a pistol with either hand (poorly with either, actually). Scissors, shears, and lariats right handed. Hammer in the left. The list goes on. - lolOddly enough, my handwriting could pass for a right handed person. Like many lefties, I learned to write with my left hand curled over the pencil (like our new prez). I did that because I was taught that the paper had to be angled to the right. When I started 7th grade, I was writing something in class and the teacher asked me what in the world I was doing. As I stammered out an answer, she said "Turn your paper the other way". I did and - although it took most of that year to relearn how to write - my handwriting became very legible and I never got fountain pen ink on my arm again.

2. 
   Shoemaker1 | Feb 26, 2009 03:10am | #6

   Dave I feel your pain. I'm a rightly sort of Injury to left eye as a kid but still reasonable vision. Hand writing described as "that of a palsied chicken" . When I first started making shoe's english craftsman and a lefty. I didn't realize that to quick just started learning. But later reliesed his ambidexeterous nature.I later who worked for a right handed crustly old shoemaker who just couldn't understand how I did things. Gave me the gears all the time but I could do most tasks both handed.My left eye is my dominate eye but as said bit fuzzy. I shoot with right eye close the left and can do 92's quite often. and have hit running antelope at 200 yards with an old enfeild 303.I'm deslexic also, Can't spell worth #### but can imagine a cabinet in my head and build it faster than I can draw or describe.

3. 
   Metod | Feb 26, 2009 04:24am | #7

   Dave,
   Based on your 'confession', go with a left tilt saw. :-)
   I too am a lefty. I was taught to write with my right hand. In my first grade we began with two weeks of just drawing all sorts of short straight lines in our lined notebooks. A row of vertical, followed by a row of right slanted and then left slanted, and horizontal. In the second week we added curved lines. Very leisurely. Everybody took for granted that you write with your right hand. The classroom windows were on our left. I don't think that any of us (two or three) lefties even noticed and had problems as a consequence. The teachers in those days has high quality pedagogical upbringing. Oh, I grew up in Slovenia... In the third week we began assembling our lines into As. By the end of the semester we were done with the upper case alphabet. In the Spring semester it was onto the lower case and cursive.
   In high school, fountain pens were pretty much the norm. They were affordable, and not a status symbol or collectors' item. Ball points were used too, but fountain pens were more desirable on the whole. We could have them (ball points) refilled - just about nothing was disposable then and there.
   I still use fountain pens (I keep one at the office, and one at home) on a daily basis (main mode of writing). I managed to pass my love for them to my wife - a tall task, considering that she is from Wyoming...<g>. All our fountain pens are Pelikans. Writing with a nice fountain pen is like handplaning walnut. Buttery and sweet. It would be much more satisfying to write these lines with a pen than two-finger pecking them on a computer. Maybe I should write with my pen, then scan it into the computer.
   Sorry for my long post - I got excited when you mentioned fountain pens.
   Best wishes,
   Metod

4. 
   Dave45 | Feb 26, 2009 05:12pm | #8

   I'm not the one buying a new saw, but when/if I do it will be a left tilt because that's what I'm used to. (Old dogs and new tricks, right? - lol)When I started elementary school (in 1950), the teacher wanted to convert me to a righty but my Mom wouldn't let her. Mom's resistance was really unusual since - in those days - people in authority (doctors, lawyers, teachers, etc) were seldom questioned. For some reason, however, Mom stood her ground and I was "allowed" to write with my left hand.

5. 
   Metod | Feb 26, 2009 06:01pm | #11

   Dave,
   Over the years, I came to appreciate my 'conversion'. As a result I can use my right hand for several tasks that I wouldn't otherwise. I am lucky that my conversion did not leave any emotional scars (some kids are too rough handled in this respect), and I can use it to justify my (minute) weirdness.
   Best wishes,
   Metod

6. 
   Dave45 | Feb 26, 2009 09:12pm | #12

   I justify my considerable weirdness to poor self identity because of my right/left handedness.I have no idea if that's true, of course, but some people seem to buy it. - lol

7. 
   Metod | Feb 26, 2009 10:14pm | #14

   Dave,
   "considerable weirdness"
   Give me two more years (I'm '47-vintage) and I'll catch up with you.
   Take care,
   Metod

8. 
   bones | Feb 26, 2009 05:31pm | #9

   I'm a lefty as well.  Growing up I thow left and hunt with a right gun.  Myself I prefer my saw not because a left or right hand, but that I like my saw's blade to tilt away from the fence not towards it.  TM2CWGovernment's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

9. 
   Metod | Feb 26, 2009 05:49pm | #10

   Bones,
   Very nice of you to be a lefty too <g>.I've heard/read that the lefties have a more acute spacial perception. Maybe this is one of the reasons that we are attracted to woodworking - its geometrical nature.
   Best wishes,
   Metod

10. 
    bones | Feb 26, 2009 09:30pm | #13

    I had a teacher who had a great comment about lefties.  

    She let the class know that the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body.  Therefore, only lefties are in their right mind!

     

    I liked it!Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

11. 
    Metod | Feb 26, 2009 10:20pm | #15

    Bones,
    "lefties are in their right mind".
    I like it too - waaay more than my wife...when I bring it up (she'll never see it on her own).
    Take care,
    Metod