Deciding which saw is best suited to a given home workshop, furniture production factory, or building site is an important decision and merits careful consideration.
No carpentry shop or professional construction site is complete without a table saw. None of that, however, can touch the brilliant innovation behind the SawStop Professional, which can cause a blade to completely stop and retract into the table three to five millisecond after it touches human skin.Ī table saw is a powerful tool that makes short work of even large pieces of lumber, allowing you to make rip cuts down the grain of boards, beams, and even entire sheets of plywood.
In the interest of preventing accidents like this, most models have some selection of safety features, like blade guards or anti-kickback pawls. Safety: As fantastic as they are for ripping lumber, table saws have an ugly reputation for cutting off fingers. If you need something closer to the former, for your own ergonomic sake, pick an option that includes a stand, or budget to purchase one separately.
Portability: Some of the options in this category – like the Skilsaw 3410-02 and the Rockwell RK7241S – can fold right up and fit into the trunk of your Honda Civic, but others – like the Shop Fox W1819 and the Powermatic PM2000 – are large, heavy offerings that require considerable assembly, and are intended strictly for permanent use in a workshop. In the case of direct-drive table saws, the no-load RPM rating and arbor speed should be unified. Since belt-driven options (like most job-site models you’ll come across) will have a certain amount of slip, the real number you’re looking for is arbor speed. However, this really isn’t the best metric when it comes to comparing apples to apples in this respect. To get a sense of how hard these saws can go to work, some companies will advertise the no-load speed of their saw’s motor. You want a tool that can tear through whatever you feed it (at a safe pace, of course) in quick fashion. Power: Nothing’s worse than a saw that can’t keep up with your workflow.
We also added the Rockwell RK7241S – a portable option with a laser guide, and the Metabo HPT C10RJ – a powerful model equipped with soft-start functionality.Ī few things to keep in mind for this category: And finally, we ended up eliminating the Rockwell RK7241S, due to availability issues, and used that vacancy to rank the Delta 36-6023 - a portable, 10-inch unit with a smart, collapsible stand and a 3-1/2-inch cut depth that’ll make quick work of 4x4 posts.ĭuring this round of updates, we eliminated the Jet Deluxe – due to availability issues, and replaced the Bosch 4100-09 with its recent predecessor – the Bosch 4100-10. We also exchanged the Shop Fox W1819 for the Shop Fox W1820 - a similar, heavy-duty, cabinet-style option that stands out with its 50-inch cut width.
However, two obvious upgrades included with the 4100XC-10 seem to be a new, oversized kill switch with built-in, low-voltage protection, and an increased cut capacity of 30 inches - a significant jump from the 4100-10’s 25 inches.
We also reached out to Bosch to try to clear up what differentiators separate the new Bosch 4100XC-10 from the previous Bosch 4100-10, but a representative was unable to provide immediate answers, and an email response wasn’t received within 24 hours, in time for this update to be published. The discontinued Metabo HPT C10RJ was also replaced by the Metabo HPT C10RJS, although a side-by-side comparison of their features, through the company’s website, made it difficult to determine what improvements this new model is offering. For DeWalt fans who have their sights set on a larger model, it’s worth noting that the 10-inch DeWalt DWE7491RS did manage to maintain its spot on our list. We switched out the discontinued DeWalt DWE7480, a portable 10-inch model, for the new DeWalt DWE7485 - an 8-1/4-inch option that, despite having a smaller maximum cut depth than the DWE7480, features a slightly better bevel capacity and a no-load speed of 5,800 RPM, compared to the DWE7480’s 4,800.
A series of upgraded models released over the past year made for a fairly busy round of updates, with half of our previous selections being replaced.