As readers of this blog in past weeks may have noticed, I purchased a new sliding compound chop saw at the end of May. It has mostly sat in my shop since then, as I was waiting to obtain a support stand before setting the saw up for use. I bought this saw having had satisfactory results from a Dewalt 12″ non-sliding chop saw I had used a few times, along with advice from a couple of other woodworkers who said their Dewalt ‘worked great’.
I received the stand yesterday, a Bosch Gravity rise stand, which I obtained from Amazon for a pretty good price of $229.00, with free shipping. The best local price I could find on the stand was $329.00, so it wasn’t even close. I would have preferred to support the local company, but $100 is a bit too much of a differential.
An hour of assembly later and I had the saw and table all set up ready to go:
The stand went together well and folds/unfolds without drama. Then I ran a couple of test cuts on the saw, and I discovered that out of the box, the Dewalt 780 doesn’t cut 90˚ vertically or horizontally. And why should it? After all, isn’t close enough going to be good enough? Why, from 10 feet away no one would notice that the horizontal alignment is 3˚ out. I hope my humor, a bit sarcastic as it is, translates. Perhaps you’ll understand where my sarcasm comes from by the time you read through this entry.
I twiddled a few nuts and bolts and managed to get the saw to cut 90˚ both vertically and horizontally with minimal fuss. So, even though the saw didn’t come from the factory set up square to cut, at least it could be made square to cut – or was I kidding myself? Turns out, I really was hallucinating, and not in a good sort of way.
While looking at a piece of wood sitting on the saw table, I noticed some gappage where there ought not to be any gappage: on the top surface of the table, and at the fence. This photo probably gives little hint as to how bad things were:
I’ll start with that photo since I think it best to go easy on the tender eyes of my viewing audience, lest they develop the same nausea I suffered. Nearer the middle of the turn table the gap at the aluminum is bad enough, and I’ll leave off mentioning the even greater gap above the through insert plate:
Hmm, well, my old eyes can be easily deceived even with the sun shining brightly, so I got out a straightedge and the feeler gauges, hoping that the cold hard numbers would be reassuring somehow:
Well, on the left side of the table, with the saw set for a 90˚ cut, the total space is a canyon-like 0.009″:
On the right side of the table, again with setting for 90˚, the gap is a more reasonable, but still unacceptable, at 0.004″:
Now, not only was the table low, but it was canted to the left. I rotated the table to extremes left and right and not much changed.
The problem with a gap like that is twofold:
- a stick which is long and spans the entire work surface will be partly suspended in the air when the cut is made, and will likely dive slightly down when the wood is cut through, potentially marring the cut line or binding the blade a little
- since the table leans, to where exactly does one relate the 90˚ fence?
While the saw could be set up to cut well in a certain condition, change anything – like trying to cut a short piece for instance – and the geometry changes, unfavorably.
As for the fence, it wasn’t square to the table or the base:
Again, that may look minor enough – let’s zoom in a little shall we?:
I imagine the gap here was on the order of 0.009″~0.012″ or so. I declined to find out a definite number. It was sufficiently non-square for me to cut the examination short. The fence on the other side of the table was okay, but of course I won’t be doing all my cutting from that one side. I discovered later that the fences on both sides of the turntable were in fact co-planar to one another, however the tilted turntable made it impossible to get squareness all the way across.
With either fence though, there was no provision for making adjustments to get it square, other than by abrasive grinding. Ditto for the turntable – it cannot be adjusted or shimmed.
I called Dewalt to double check my conclusion, in case there might be some perfectly simple, rational way out of this problem where everything is fixed with the twist of a Torx screw. I ended up speaking to a woman at Customer Service, who, like any reasonable person who doesn’t work with tools and never tries to do accurate work with tools (that’s my presumption anyhow), I’m sure thought that I was some sort of nut bar for my talk of nine thousandths out! and such. She duly jotted down every word I said, then talked with her supervisor who then said just what I thought: there is no way to adjust the saw that way, so I needed to return it to the store where I purchased it.
And that store was the big Orange Box. Back I went to that box on this sunny Tuesday, this time with straightedge, feeler gauges, and try square in hand. I cannot recommend this strongly enough to someone in the market for a sliding chopsaw, especially if you want to have that appalled, shipwrecked sort of feeling, where despair takes over and the hope of a simple 90˚ cut result is but a faded dream….
I checked the Dewalt on the display and it also had a non-square fence and a table that was tilted and lower than the surrounding base platforms. It was not quite as bad as the one I had bought, but still pretty bad.
And let me say this: I’m not expecting the base and table to be within 0.0001″ alignment here folks, I’d be okay if they were out by 0.001~0.002″. At least then one could shim the table top with some tape, put in a sub-table, etc, and get on with things. I imagine those who do not seek precision in their cross cutting work would also be fine with a chopsaw with such poor tolerances of fit. Not me. Call me crazy, but if I cut two sticks off squarely on their ends, according to the machine’s settings, I expect that I can butt those two pieces together endwise and they will be aligned in a straight line. I’m just not that into kinky things you see.
And let me say this, too: if a machine is supposed to cut a square-section stick at a particular angle accurately, then it needs to have a flat table and a fence which is 90˚ to the table. Period. That is the ‘normal’ operating parameter for a device like that.
Back to the adventure at the box store. I then checked the other brands of chopsaw on display. They all suffered from the same problems of tables low (though 1 had a table that was too high) and fences un-square to one extent or another regardless of brand, Makita, Ridgid, and Dewalt alike. I did find one Dewalt non-sliding chopsaw that was actually pretty flat across the tops, and this gave me some hope that I might find another Dewalt 780 which by stroke of luck, act of god, etc., had decent alignment of parts.
I dragged out one of the enormous Dewalt boxes and was midway into tearing the plastic wrap off when the tool department guy suddenly appeared. An older fella, older than me anyway. He asked me what I was up to in a friendly voice and I explained the issue I had with the 780 saw and that another sales ‘associate’ had given me the green light to open the other boxes to do any checks I pleased.
“Well, I can tell you right now there’s no point in doing that as you’ll find they’re all like that,” he said matter-of-factly. He was remarkably candid as he went on and told me that the new Dewalt products, since Stanley/Black and Decker (a.k.a. the Death Star) bought them out, were basically junk. I quote him verbatim: ‘junk’.
Oh, I thought, and I had concluded only their portable planers were junk – I clearly needed to revise my low estimations of post-buyout Dewalt.
The tool ‘associate’ then suggested I find the newly obsolete Ridgid 12″ sliding chop saw, as he had had good results with it (and had personally done some cabinetmaking, so he actually used tools, not just sold them or ‘serviced’ customers). Now, why he was working in Home Desperation instead of his own cabinet shop is a question I decided to take up at some later juncture….
I realized that although the Ridgid 12″ saw was now discontinued, I knew of someone else who thought highly of it and also that another Home Depravation near my house (a half-size one) actually had one left on display, if my memory served me correctly.
Leaving the Home Deposit, I decided to visit their neighbor Lowes a mile down the strip to see what they had on offer. Again, I went in armed with straightedge, feeler gauges, and try square. This time I checked the Bosch 12″ Glide saw (result: table low and both fences unsquare to base) and the Hitachi ski boot-esque 12″ sliding saw (also non-flat, non-square, and absolutely ugly). A short visit, and an unimpressive one.
At the end of the day I drove home and stopped, last ditch effort here folks, at that mini-me orange box store and yes, as I had remembered they had the 12″ saw on display, one just like this:
I looked the saw over and checked a few things. First, since there is only a turntable and no flanking base decking, the only issue with the table would be whether it was flat. Checking with the straightedge, visually things looked good. Then I inspected the two fences for squareness – one was fine, the other not so much, but could probably be filed square. The saw had no blade and I noticed the box was not anywhere to be seen, a box containing the blade, manual, hold-down clamp, wrench, dust bag etc. None of that was critical but I thought it would be worth seeing if it could be turned up somewhere. I managed to find a sales ‘associate’ and he said he had no idea where the box was, so the saw would have to be sold without the blade, wrench, etc. Then I noticed the fence was loose, and one of the plastic pieces which is for storing the electrical cord was broken. It clearly had been on display a long time, and as this model had been discontinued, this saw was the last one they were ever going to have. I decided to ask if the price might be negotiable, considering the various issues. The clerk said that the best he could do personally was 10%, which brought the price down to $450.00. I thought they should be able to do better than this so I went off to locate the manager or assistant manager.
At the ‘service’ counter, the young lady behind the desk phoned the assistant manager for me. While they were speaking, she suddenly turned to me and asked, “what is this specifically about?“. I explained the situation and she repeated my words more or less verbatim to the manager. Then she said, “Can you show me the machine in question?.” I took her over to the tool section and explained the situation. She decided quickly that the discount was 10%. I gather that must be company policy, even if the machine had been dropped off a truck or urinated upon, you get 10% and no more. I gathered she came over to see it as the assistant manager couldn’t be bothered with such matters. I said that 10% off was not attractive enough to persuade me to buy and made my way to the exit, keeping a couple of paces back of the young woman who had come over to look with me. As we approached the ‘service’ desk again, I suddenly notice an older employee with ‘Gary’ written on his apron – the very same name as the assistant manager. Hmm. Guess he was too busy to give me his time.
That my friends is how I make my very last trip into that particular Orange box. Sayonara. If the assistant manager can’t give me two minutes of his free time on a slow shopping day, with a discontinued piece of merchandise, worn from years on display, well, they don’t deserve any further business from me. It’s the small things that make the difference in perceptions at times. It’s actual customer service, not a friggin’ smiley face badge on your apron.
So, I now have a shiny Bosch miter saw stand, and a new Forrest chopmaster 12″ blade, and not quite sure which way to go saw-wise. The only two saws I have yet to look at are the Makita 12″ (reviews on amazon are not promising), and then I would be looking at 10″ saws, like the Festool Kapex, which also appears to have some undesirable characteristics from what I have read – like a $1300 price point. This is a drag.
The conclusion I draw from this, and please slap me for being so late to figure this out, is that these large tool companies couldn’t give a crap if their products actually worked well, only that they look flashy, look tough, look like something you could show off even, but as far as the basic operations they are supposed to carry out, well, who cares about stuff like that? It gets in the way of shareholder returns. Cut the costs, cut them down, way down to the bone, outsource it to the cheapest place and add some tits and ass to the adverts if you can and flog these junky pieces of equipment as fast as you can. And when the machine wears out and becomes so hopelessly inaccurate that even the most ham-handed begin to notice – ideally just a week or two after the warranty expires – come out with a ‘new and improved’ model with exciting new ‘features’. You see, what sells are ‘features’, and ‘perceived benefits’, not quality of build, accuracy of work execution, or reliably solid construction. That my friends is hopelessly outmoded it would appear. Or, if you really want that, you need to spend thousands of dollars to acquire it and it usually comes from Germany. Silly me for even imagining otherwise.
I can take a least some satisfaction for having vented. Thank you for your attention. For a follow up, check the post “Dewalt Default: Postscript“
This explains a lot. I was quietly flabbergasted when you mentioned the Dewalt in a previous post. It seemed very unlike you. No miter saw on the market is designed for precision work. In fact, surprisingly, I recently took a close look at the Festool saw at Lee Valley. I really wasn't impressed. Nevermind the $1500 price tag. (Plus $900 for Mobile base and extensions.) Even if you manage to get the fence and base at 90 degrees, there is still going to be a certain amount of deflection in the arm, especially in larger pieces of hardwood. I think the Bosch is as close to decent as I've seen, but that's relative to other saws. I recently acquired an old Millers Falls mitre saw and am enjoying the heck of that. But it doesn't do compound angles.
Adam,
yes I occasionally do things which in hindsight look rather ill-advised. Next time you need to share your 'flabber' and your 'ghasting' with me right away so I can snap out of it sooner. I'm beginning the slow process of recovery….
Thanks for your comment!
~C
And that pretty much sums up all of manufacturing currently done for purchase in the American market. Dumb it down, make it cheap, move 'em out. Don't worry about quality, we can just go back and buy another one in a couple of years.
I feel your pain…..
I have the same gripes about my 12 inch Dewalt Miter saw. The back fence on it was warped and got worse over the years. So I decided to buy a new fence for it. Nice, at last a straight 90 degree cut. But a couple of months later it too had warped.
There is no hope for their miter saws ever to being close to decent. The best I can do with them is put boards on top and shim them to square and level to use as the fence and base.
That saw is on my list of things to sell as I downsize my workshop space this year. All it is good for is rough cutting pieces to be short enough to trim on my table saw's sliding miter table.
It is just as easy to get out a circular saw and wack off a board or two when needed instead of dedicating shop space to a DeWalt Miter saw.
Tim,
your comment about the manufacturing quality for the American market is one which spans more than recent history I'm afraid. I would suggest a look, if you haven't already, at the work of John Richards from 1872, “A Treatise on the Construction and Operation of Woodworking Machines”, which spends some time comparing American and Continental European practices and standards for woodworking equipment. From page 52, we have the following observation:
“In America…the high price of labour makes labour saving the first and primary consideration; cheap construction, bad taste in design, rough fitting, are all lost sight of; it is the quantity of stuff that can be 'got through' in a given time that decides the merits of a machine.”
That is just one factor of many. In general, labor in the US was costly, skilled hands few, and the cost of borrowing capital high. Companies invested in equipment and grew fast, anticipating buying newer and bigger equipment just a few years down the road. In general, the drive was towards cheap equipment that would be worn out and replaced often. In England those conditions were much the opposite, and the types of equipment made quite different as well.
Richard's book is well worth the read and available online to read too.
Thanks for your comment!
~C
Chris,
I would not have high expectations for the kind of crosscut accuracy you are seeking in a sliding compound saw. A table saw with a crosscut sled will provide it. Tough to haul one around on a job site, but, if they manufactured a sliding compound saw beefy enough to be really accurate and dependable, it would weigh a lot, too.
99% of carpenters can live with the inaccuracies you've outlined. You are the 1%, my talented friend!
Your post has me re-thinking whether I should build the new miter saw station I have in the planning stage. I have a somewhat old DeWalt miter saw and I long ago stopped expecting it to cut accurately. I wonder why go to all the trouble of a nice cabinet style stand if the saw is crap?
I'll probably build it anyway since I use the saw mostly for rough cutting and transforming scrap lumber into something that will fit into my garbage can.
Good luck with it all. At least know that your frustration meant an enjoyable blog post for me.
Jeff
Tico,
good to hear from you. I guess my expectations are high, but only in a certain way. I tend to presume that such things as sliding chop saws are made on assembly lines and the parts cut by enormous industrial CNC machines, etc. I really don't see why a saw couldn't be designed in such a way that it came together with square, straight and flat parts. And if that is not possible by way of design or manufacture, then the machines should, I think, be made such that they can be adjusted square, straight and flat. With the Dewalt I end up considering the idea of completely disassembling the saw and having a local CNC machining outfit re-cut the parts, which of course is a ridiculous idea considering the cost of doing so relative to the cost of the machine.
And I think that portability need not mean inaccuracy. Take jobsite circular saws as an example. Most of them are a bit junky and only roughly accurate. I do however have a Japanese Hitachi finishing saw, which didn't cost a lot more, and which is highly accurate. It even comes with adjustments for correcting for wear in the pivots and to get the saw shoe dead aligned to the blade. It's not something you want to drop of the scaffolding and beat back into straightness with a sledge of course….
In part I am frustrated by the tool, thinking that, for $600, they should be able to get the basics right. I would gladly trade 'features' like the lasers and shadow light, yada yada, for a saw the cuts straight and true. The other part of my frustration is due to the manner in which the saws cannot be adjusted, and are not made to last, the whole pre-planned obsolescence thing, and the final nail on it is that there is no means for talking to the companies in a meaningful way about their products. You get the service departments who just replace stuff, and the customer service departments who often lack the technical expertise to address your question properly and just tell you to send it back. Finally, it is the false advertising by Dewalt, who lead you to believe that their saw is capable of more than rough cutting:
“The DEWALT DWS780 12-inch double bevel sliding compound miter saw expertly walks the line between the rugged durability and fine precision that professionals need on the job site. From delicate woodworking to heavy-duty framing and deck building, the DWS780 provides the accuracy, capacity, and portability that cabinetmakers, trim carpenters, framers, installers, and contractors need.”
That is taken from the Amazon listing for the saw. “Accuracy”, “precision”, “delicate woodworking”, hmmmm.
Jeff,
I think if your expectation is for rough cutting, transforming lumber to fit into your garbage can, etc., then any of the saws out there will be just fine for that. That is perhaps what they are meant to do best. Thanks for your comment, and glad you found the post enjoyable. It gave me a chuckle too!
~C
From my experience working as a general carpenter the last couple of years, I would say that most carpenters measure only to the 8th in many cases, some not even that much. For these people, the saw above would be incredibly “accurate and precise”, but not so much for you or I daresay even myself. It's all about your threshold of accuracy.
When buying a cheap Ryobi tabletop tablesaw, I also took my straight edge and square with me to home despot, and got a saw that is accurate enough for what I'm using it for (carpentry work, and dimensioning stock to be finished to size with planes), though I'm sure it would never pass your tests of accuracy. I would have happily spent twice as much for a much more accurate and better built saw, but in this case size was a very high priority, and they don't make high quality saws in that size.
I read your blog with great interest because I too had problems with sliding miters. You remember the the small Hitachi (8″ or so) that started the whole craze — it was so highly rated and priced so I never had one. Finally after many years and two cheaper models I decided to bite the bullet and buy the top of the line Hitachi with a laser to boot! I had to wait for their 25th. anniversary model which was still in production. To make a long story short, it was being manufactured in China rather than Japan to save costs, I guess they even out source in Japan to make a buck. After some fiddling around like you described finally got square cuts but then the brake stopped braking. Authorized shop replaced motor, switch, and some other stuff. Repair lasted a few months, same problem — same fix. Then again so I demanded and received a complete replacement from Hitachi. Within a month the same problems came back so Craigslist was the final answer. Everything seems to be disposable these days but not my pension!!
John,
I appreciate your comment and sharing your experiences with the Hitachi slider. I also had the Hitachi with the laser a few years back, the 10FSH model or something like that. The beef I have with that saw is the two piece fence. Anytime you have a piece of wood move while cutting and binding the blade you can get a little kickback, and any kickback would immediately knock the Hitachi fence out of alignment, necessitating 20~30 minutes of readjusting fences and blade angle. Sold it and would never buy another one. The Hitachi design also has a very small table surface, which I don't care for too much.
The Japanese companies are outsourcing to China more and more. I just picked up a stand for my Makita planer and noticed it was made in China.
What I wonder about is whether the Japanese domestic market, where there are relatively few hobby woodworkers, has Chinese made products for sale in the hardware store. I'll have to ask about that. It used to be a wonderful experience to go in a Japanese hardware store as pretty much everything for sale is made in Japan or Europe. I hope that hasn't changed.
~C
Nothing new about the lack of quality in DeWalt. Even thirty years ago, before the thought of woodworking equipment made in China was even a bad dream, amongst a certain genre of woodworker, the DeWalt stuff was considered pretty junky. Based on what you found there, Chris, it seems that though they might have improved the caliber of skills writing their ad copy, the company still doesn't much find quality as a priority. Sorry to read of your frustration.
The ideal is to return to a time where making high caliber equipment that really lasted, is what ensured the success and longevity for the manufacturing company. Sadly, so much of that matter of fact wisdom has been forgotten, and especially so tragic in places like the US and Japan, where the skills and spirit to do the better approach is really inherent within the culture, and is what has fueled so much in the way of success in the past You are really a victim of the times.
Dennis,
you know, I often say I am living in the wrong time and place. Not in all respect of course, but in quite a few that matter a great deal to me. Thanks for your comment!
~C
Chris,
After I read your post it gave ammunition to use when I went to a local real hardware supply/ small tool repair store . I need to replace a Porter Cable drill driver that the batteries refuse to hold a charge. The side repair part is where the gentleman repairs and sells small tools, was giving some needed orders for stock to a Dewalt sales rep. I wanted to find out about drill drivers but the opertinity presented itself about what you had encountered about his product and he started to excuse the one bad saw as a fluke which I was able to tell him that you had gone back and opened several saws with the same inaccuries. What really came out of this discussion from him was that this saw model dominates the sales market and that Dewalt has done like so many other major mfgs. Is the have bought out their competition. I owned a real Dewalt radial arm saw that was purchased in the mid ' 50 and I purchased it in the early ' 60s. The rep wasn't even aware that Dewalt was a stand alone mfgr. Sad is all of those good companys have gone by the way of corporate raiders or leveraged buyouts.
Jack Ervin
Hi Jack,
nice to hear from you and thanks for relating your account of the meeting with the Dewalt sales rep. You can add Porter Cable to the list of companies bought out by the Death Star (Stanley/B&D). I would suggest keeping your distance from that companies products from here on out too. Sad that the sales rep wasn't aware that Dewalt was once a stand alone company.
~C
I work in a cabinet shop, and we have a 15″ Hitachi. We fit it with a sub-fence made of 3/4″ material, an L-shaped fence. We then set the depth of cut to that the blade just gets into the fence across the width of the cut. No sliding needed, we can cut crown sprung to the fence upside down. It's great, but I think they havn't manufactured one for years. It might be worth looking into… I believe the model number is C15FB.
Dave,
thanks for your comment. Funny you mention the C15FB saw – I have used one before and was looking at them online last night when mulling over various options. It would be great if they had a soft-start feature, that's for sure, but great for cutting larger timbers especially and made in Japan AKAIK.
~C
Hi Chris and everyone.
I suppose you know about Mafell. I think It is worth mentioning this german company, they make good quality tools. I don t think they have a sliding compound chop saw. But they do have a small push pull table saw. I had the opportunity to use It and was quite satisfied.
I know that you already found what you were looking for, but I think It is worth a check.
Sorry If someone already talked about this but I didn t check all the comments.
Salutations.
Simon ZARADZKI
Hi Simon,
very pleased to receive your comment. It's too bad that Mafell doesn't make a sliding chop saw, as I'm sure it would be decent – – but I'm also sure it would be at a price point which would make for few sales in N. America, given the price and features of their jigsaw and routers currently on the market. We we having a discussion about this on the study group forum a few days ago.
~C
I just read your article Chris and couldn't agree more. I just sent back a Milwaukee 12” saw that was very nice except for the same table alignment problem you had with the Dewalt. I have been using the Makita 7 ½” slider for the past 12 years and it is a great saw if you can work with the capacity limits. I am now looking to get a Hitachi CB15 to complement the small Makita for cutting large base and crown.
Thanks for the good info you provided.
Bob
Bob,
good to know that the above information was useful to you. I think all of these consumer grade saws have some sort of limitation, based on the price points they are trying to meet. It's good to have realistic expectations on the one hand, and it's good to come across machines that can be adjusted into desired precision as well.
~C
Anonymous,
your comment (received 3/15/14) was rejected because it was without your name attached. Otherwise I would have posted it and been more than happy to address the content.
Your comment contributed little to the discussion, and amounted to nothing more than cowardly internet trolling. Gotta wonder why someone would lash out over a review of a consumer product. Perhaps one day you'll develop the courage to put your name behind your words, but I'm not holding my breath. Hide in the shadows and growl – you're impressing no one.
~C
You can check this http://routertablereviews.com/dewalt-dwe7480xa-10-inch-compact-job-site-table-saw/
I bought Dewalt DW175 miter saw. I have problem with cutting board 90 degree. Do you think I use table miter saw improve cutting boar? I want to décor crib for my daughter
Generally speaking, a table saw with sled, properly set up, can be used to make precise cuts. It does depend upon whether the table is flat, and the saw trunnion properly aligned. The trunnion is adjustable on all but the cheapest table saws. You might have better luck going in that direction.
~C
Hey Chris, nice instructions.
I am building a set of 6 drawers set in a cabinet/frame how do I go about accurately fitting the drawer fronts, so they line up and are square, there are no cross members between the drawers
Richard,
thanks for your comment however it doesn't fit in so well with the blog topic. If you shoot me an email I'd be happy to engage with your further.
~C
Informative and interesting which we share with you so i think so it is very useful and knowledgeable. I would like to thank you for the efforts. I am tiring the same best work from me in the future as well.
Jose,
thanks for the comment and may you have continued success in your efforts.
~C
My husband has a dewalt table saw and he is having problems with the slider, it won't slide out all the way on one side, can anyone help with a solution?
Bethany,
you would probably be best posting that question on the power tool section of a woodworking forum somewhere. This post is from 4 years back so it doesn't get regular daily views from readers.
Good luck!
~C
Unfortunately I hadn't found these comments before purchasing my DWS780. I had seen these complaints for other saws, including the Bosch but not for DeWalt. Most reviews seem to be very positive and reassuring! I checked the display model at the big box store before buying but I am now on my third saw with the same problem. I even called factory service and was told that I should not be finding this problem with these saws! I am now returning the saw (and stand) for a refund. Since you originally posted this 4 years ago, do you have any recommendations for a brand and model which provides the kind of accuracy we want and for which we pay?
Rick,
sorry to hear of your troubles with these saws. For a follow up, please see the post again, down at the bottom, where I have added a link to a Postscript. I bought the Kapex – the only one with the basics of flat table and 90˚ fence. If I had the money, I would buy a Graule, and it remains on my shopping list.
~C
This information was very helpful for me. Very nice blog having lot information about Dewalt De Fault. Thanks for sharing this post.