On Thu, 16 Nov 2006 07:30:40 GMT, Brian Henderson
wrote:

On Thu, 16 Nov 2006 00:53:00 GMT, Lew Hodgett
wrote:

If you buy either one, you will be disappointed within 6 months.

I doubt it'll take six months, it'll just take the first project where
the saw bogs down trying to saw through anything or you actually have
to cut something decent sized and find out that the saws are
completely worthless for just about any woodworking project.

That's not entirely true.

I had a TS200 for several years, and putting a thin-kerf blade on it
and setting up each cut carefully allowed me to do many projects- even
using 8/4 hard maple.

The downside of the shopmaster line is in the materials, IMO. After
two years of careful use, the plastic handles were stripped out, a lot
of the paint was worn off the fence, the indicator guage on the fence
was gone (the screw stripped out almost immediately, and there was no
repairing it,) and the cam lock handle on the fence bent.

It was always too light for what I was doing, and I had to make a
stand for it that had a bar along the bottom in the front so that I
could place my foot on it while cutting to keep it from tipping.

And no standard accessories fit on shopmaster tools. The tables are
odd sizes, and so are the miter guages/slots, and there is no way to
upgrade them.

The problem wasn't the amount of power it had- that was sufficient,
considering what it was. Nor was it that it was not enough saw for
the money it cost- it was.
The problem was that I outgrew it, and it was never made for the long
haul in the first place.

If a shopmaster is what a guy can afford, then it's certainly better
than no table saw at all. Saying that is useless is more than a
little harsh- those little saws have their place, and a guy can do a
lot of nice work with one. It's just good to try and upgrade out of
that line if possible, to save yourself a few headaches.