Recommend a Portable Table Saw Please

[BloomingtonMike]

DeWalt has several models, one that might have the largest rip width of any portable saw.

I love sawstop brake so it would be a contender

Bosch gravity rise stands are awesome.

[iclark]

I have the Bosch portable TS that Costco sold as a package with the Bosch folding base some years ago. I do not use it often, but it has always worked well for me when I need a TS. 

The Bosch TS with the skin sensor was the TS upgrade that I wanted.

For a space-limited shop, a Shopsmith with the 510 or 520 tables might be worth considering. The TS can be a bit fiddly to dial in the table alignment to the blade, but it does work very well once aligned. The 12" disk sander can be handy and the 6" belt sander is very good. There is a maintenance schedule of every 25hrs to do a clean and lubricate on the power head, though.

[mdhills]

The first tablesaw I used was a friend's Bosch 4000.  This had the foldable stand (not the gravity-rise stand).  This is more compact to store, but more work to lug around.  None of these large-ish saws is especially light.  Dust collection was fairly good (the saw was designed with a shroud around the blade inside the cabinet), which worked okay with a shop vac.  The aluminum tables are nice in a rust-prone environment.

Main drawbacks:  smaller table area was an issue if dealing with larger workpieces;  and non-standard miter slot / fence means that normal accessories weren't easy to use.

Rigid and Makita had similar sized saws.  Dewalt saws seemed to be better when you wanted something even more compact -- again sacrificing table area.  I haven't spent much time looking at the sawstop worksite saw, but sawstop happily provides a comparison.

If you do get a portable saw, I'd also recommend a rigid flip-top stand for outfeed support when working with larger pieces.  This is a nice stand since it works pretty well and folds up compact.


Matt

[chips ahoy]

My Ridgid has a pull out side piece to the right of the blade,gives a larger work area.

Mel

[BaileyNo5]

I have had several; the cheapest Craftsman I could buy, and the Bosch with a zero gravity stand.  I have sold them both and have a Festool track saw now.  The Craftsman was as expected - not very good.  Having said that, I built some nice stuff with it, considering it cost $175.

The Bosch was a big step up.  Very accurate and precise, I could always get good cuts with it.  My only beef was with the tires on the stand.  Because they were pneumatic, the saw would rock as you pushed big items through it.  I finally propped it up off the tires every time I used it.

I sold them both to create more room in the shop.  Every now and then I could use the Bosch again.  I would buy it again if I wanted a portable table saw.  But for now I'm fine with the track saw in my small shop.

[AHill]

I had the Ridgid jobsite saw as a stopgap until I got my garage wired for 220v.  It's quite a serviceable saw.  I never really lacked for power, given I used thin kerf blades.  Everything fits into somewhere on the saw.  My only complaint was (and that's really a complaint for most jobsite saws) the table isn't very large, so if you are wanting to cut large items, outfeed or infeed support is necessary.  All jobsite saws are pretty noisy, given the motors they use.  Just wear good hearing protection.  When I got the garage all wired up, I sold the Ridgid in less than 2 hours on Craigslist.

[jcredding]

My contractor just finished a job at our house and had the SawStop contractor saw on wheels and I have to say that was a nice saw. He said his guys really like it. I know people have their issues with the prior owner of the company, but it really is a nice saw.

[KingwoodFan1989]

I've had DeWalt's 745 portable saw for over 8 years now, and overall it's fairly solid. I did need to get the arbor replaced several years ago as it was getting wobbly (quite scary when cutting, actually), but that's the only repair I've had to do. You do have to set the fence for parallel to the blade (some details on how the fence works below), and sometimes I've had to check the bevel on the blade to make sure it was at a true 90 degree angle as well (seems to slowly go out of square over long periods of time (like months or years), but it does cut accurately when it's been set into a desired angle. It cuts tenons VERY accurately, and it's to the point where you could use it for fine joinery in at least that regard. The fence also lifts off the saw if you need it out of the way, but it locks on to these two gadgets (sorry, don't know the name of them) which stay in place when the fence is taken off, so it can easily be returned to the exact place it was before. And having those two things makes it fairly easy to set the fence parallel to the blade. AFAIK it's never gone out of parallel since I set it a LONG time ago.

I only have a few complaints: For one, as at least one has mentioned here, the saw is quite loud like pretty much any jobsite saw. By extension of its design, there is a lot of plastic and not a lot of (or any) cast iron (like you'd find on a cabinet table saw). This leads to a lot more vibration than you'd get on a high end saw, which can be somewhat nerve-wracking when using it. Also, the arbor that's on there is not very long, so if you plan to do anything with dadoes wider than just the two outside blades stacked, you might want to look elsewhere (or just take several passes like I do
). Not sure what the other good jobsite saws (Bosch, Ridgid, and SawStop are the first three besides the DeWalts that I've heard/read the best things about) have to offer in terms of arbor length, but the capacity for stacking dado blades is quite lacking on the 745.

As a final mention, I will say that, with seemingly recently increasing frequency, I've experienced a lot of fuse-blowing with this saw, including when I'm plugged directly into what I'm pretty sure is a 220V outlet. I don't think my blades are dull, as they don't leave any burn marks unless I pretty much stop in the middle of a cut. In fact, my stacked dado is pretty much new, and even with just the two outside blades stacked and taking a somewhat shallow cut, I still blew the fuse. My main blade is a combo rather than a dedicated ripper, but again, it doesn't leave any burning unless I go REALLY slow, so it can't be that dull. Cutting through 2" thick red oak was enough to blow the fuse with this blade. Again, it's a fairly recent phenomenon unless I'm forgetting other instances in the more distant past, so maybe the motor is starting to wear out and overheat more easily. Hope it's not wearing out, as I'm not in the market for a new saw, and the next time I get one, I'd like it to be something like a Powermatic 2000 so I hopefully never have to buy a whole new saw again.

Also, to the poster above me, who was the prior owner of SawStop? Is that Steve Gass, the guy who demoed the cabinet model by sticking his finger in the blade in the well-known video or is it a different guy? What issues to people have with whoever it was?

[Tynyyn]

https://www.lowes.com/pd/PORTER-CABLE-15...Saw_738022

$99 ain't too bad.

[John Mihich]

I have a Craftsman, used a Delta, and Bosch.  Of the three I like the Bosch fence system the best.  The movement and such for all three are about the same.  If I were to buy another I would go Bosch.