I recently bought a sawstop, and ordered the (small) slider table as well. I’m curious if others have found this accessory useful/worth the $? So far I have not. It takes up a lot of space, has a fair bit of slop at the ends of its travel, and in general yields inferior results to a well-made cross-cut sled. Thoughts?
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Sorry, but I didn't buy the slider with mine. I just don't have enough space. I'm curious to see opinions though. But for what it's worth, I know 2 people with the slider, and they like it a lot.
I've been considering one, so I always like to hear opinions. Anybody have similar experiences as the OP? Any ways to address it?
I have a 'proper' slider from Hammer so can't comment on the sawstop from experience, however I find the slider indispensable and would not like to manage without one.
CONS:
Space - needs a LOT of space in front of and behind the blade for the run of the slider.
Cost - price is about double a top of a mid range sawstop with sliding attachment.
Sacrificial fence needed on crosscut bar for clean cuts.
PROS:
Allows very, very easy truing of edges on large pieces. Anything under 1.2m square can be squared in a flash. Perfect every time.
Like having a crosscut sled always on the saw (I have to remove the mitre/crosscut guide but it's a snip to replace)
Great for tenon shoulders on massive pieces.
Specific to a Euro Slider - you can joint normal boards on it too and fix jigs to the slider rather than running them along the fence. As a bolt-on the Sawstop slider can only be used to do this with wider boards.
The SS Sliding Crosscut Table (as opposed to the weird framework panel saw add on) is close to the design of a Euro machine and offers most of the functionality of a Euro slider at a lower price - Total for an SS Pro and the Sliding Table is about 20% less than a Hammer machine up front. That having been said, the SS is a noticeably smaller saw with less room before and after the blade and with 3 inch max cut rather than 4.
My 2c - if you already have a SawStop and want the extra functionality, slides are brilliant. If you don't have a SawStop and want that functionality, consider the Hammer K3 - you don't realise how much difference that 4 inch depth of cut makes until you have it....
Hi Rob, I agree with all your comments on the K3. I came to Europe a few years ago from Canada where I grew up with the usual range of North American table saws and equipment. When I bought the K3 in 2018 I stepped into a whole new way of thinking on how to use a TS. Example: I now buy all my lumber rough cut and live edge. I can true an edge on a 3 meter long board, safely and quickly without needing to visit the jointer or planer first. I had an old Delta tenoning jig that I was able to adapt quite easily to fit on the slider. Amazing. Cross-cutting is a dream for both long stock and sheet goods. I also discovered the Fritz and Franz jig from a few woodworkers on YouTube. It increases the options considerably, especially with very small pieces. Now, unless you think I’ve just totally drank the ‘kool-aid’ the saw is not perfect. It has a few things I miss or just find annoying but not to the point where I am ever inclined to get a different saw. I find the lack of a good zero clearance throat plate frustrating and the blade guard/dust collection could be better designed. Although you can get a mobility kit that allows you to move the saw it really is best with a permanent home; not all that easy to do for those of us with smaller shops. And, I forgot to order the blade arbor that accepts the North American dado set. They don’t like the NA dado set in Europe. I think they consider it unsafe.
I have had a K3 slider for a few years now, which replaced a 3 hp contractor saw I had and used for about 25 years. Before I purchased it, the aim was to upgrade the saw, and the choice was the SawStop-with-slider or the K3 (49" long slider).
The old contractor saw had a slider attachment similar to (but better than) the SS. At the start I saw the SS as a better version of the contractor saw. After running them alongside one another, it became evident that the K3 was a different kind of saw, and that it held the promise of a whole new world of working with a table saw. The SS slider is not a true slider. It is a crosscut sled. It is a useful addition to the SS however, compared with the K3 true slider, it is very limited in what it can do.
In the end I went for the 4 hp/12" blade K3, and I have never had a moment of post purchase regret.
I also began with the Fritz and Franz jig, however I have replaced it now with something much better (!), which is a parallel guide. This works brilliantly for ripping and for tapering legs. Accurate and repeatable cuts ...
http://www.inthewoodshop.com/Powered%20Tools%20and%20Machinery/ParallelGuideForK3Slider.html
Incidentally, I have written a number of articles on my website for Hammer machines, including the K3 slider, N4400 bandsaw (I also have a A3-31 J/P), amongst others ....
http://www.inthewoodshop.com/Powered%20Tools%20and%20Machinery/index.html
Regards from Perth
Derek
Very nice - I am due to make a taper jig for the next but one project so I'm going to steal your idea!
Out of interest, I see you have the hammer planer - I've had my eye on that for a while, but no $$ yet - do you think it is worth twice the price of a cheaper but similar spec Hafco planer?
Rob, the A3-31 is in a different league altogether to the Hafco.
I've had mine for about 7 or 8 years now, and it has not missed a beat. Plus, backup service from Felder has been superb. That is important to me.
Regards from Perth
Derek
I assume you are talking about the sliding crosscut table and not the large sliding table. I have the sliding crosscut table for my SS. I mostly use it for sizing and squaring large panels. My main gripe with the crosscut table is that the miter gauge part of it has to be removed frequently to get it out of the way for other tasks, and while it is easy to remove and replace, it must be recalibrated to square each time because of the slop in the mounting blocks. I have a large square of plywood that I made very accurately square using the 5 cut method, and I use that to square the fence on the sliding table, but I still find I use my regular sled for anything that will fit in it.
You also have to add a sacrificial extension to the slider to prevent tearout on the trailing edges.
I use the sliding table enough that I'm glad I bought it, but for folks that don't work with large panels much, it probably isn't worth it.
I don't notice any issue with slop in the actual slide mechanism that the OP mentioned.
I looked at the slider and gave a lot of thought but the one I looked at had an obvious slope to the left and pushed hard. One of the people at store said it got hit by a fork lift when they were changing machines on the floor; I also wasn't sure it would make a 60" cut. I use some 5'x5' Baltic and would love to have an EZ way to square it. I follow Andy Rawls and he made a comment on his SS slider slopping to the side and not working very well after a year or two. I needed to replace my jointer as well as table saw and gave a lot of thought to a used Hammer multi machine but didn't think it would fit in my shop. I bought the SS saw and I'm fairly happy with it but the more I hear about the slider the happier I am that I didn't go ahead and get it.
I was in a flea market years ago and under a table saw what i believed was a Delta cross cut attachment .Sure enough and after haggling I purchased it.In those days I had the room and was making a lot of furniture and had a large load of wide cherry.As the table folds down it does noy take room to the side but the slide bar sticks out the back of the saw.Needless to say it proved to be a godsend in a lot of cases.Current shop too small and I usually dont handle that big stuff these days.See the result at carolynprue.com
I have a 3 HP ICS with the small slider, which I find to be very useful. I gave up fighting the "return to a positive 90 degrees" with it and purchased another miter bar for the slider and an INCRA 1000 SE miter gauge and 36” telescoping fence. Not trusting my measuring skills and not wanting to buy any more seldom utilized taps, I brought the bar and the miter gauge head to the local machine shop to drill and tap the bar to accommodate the INCRA miter gauge head. This alteration cured the problems I experienced.
The small sliding table is a very useful add-on. It wish that SawStop would re-design it to overcome “the return to 90” issue that many users experience and include a positive 90 degree stop.
its interesting to see other peoples opinion in this.
I gave a close look at the Jessem miter gauge but my sled was working exceptionally well when I got my SS up and running and the Jessem had a $300 price tag so I decided to see how long the sled did the job.
I have the older version of the SS sliding table (the miter gauge without detents) and have found it particularly frustrating to use. As has been said, it gets in the way of rip cuts on longer boards, and has to be recalibrated every time I reinstall it. It does a decent job on panels and cuts them pretty close to square, but has a lot of slop and doesn't really make repeatable square cuts. I've contact SS several times about this wondering if I'm doing something wrong. One of their tech support guys candidly told me it wasn't designed for precision repeatable cuts. Kind of frustrating to hear that after spending (back in 2015) almost $1K for the table. I'm looking to sell mine now....
all good comments, thanks all. lfparker, that has been my experience as well - frustrating, sloppy, and just not very useful. hopefully this thread will give future ss buyers some real-world exp to help them with their purchase decision.
It's sad to hear the poor experience so many people have had. This is supposed to be a high quality tool company. You would think they would make it work or discontinue it. Now there isn't any question as to whether I should buy the SS slider or not. Harvey makes an impressive looking table saw with a slider attachment but they don't have any dealers in the mid-west and I'm not interested in paying that much money for something I can't put my hands on before I buy it. alanmcginnis I and I'm sure a lot of others thank you for starting this conversation.
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