On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 19:51:21 -0700,
wrote:

Now that 12" CMS are everywhere, what are the pros/cons of the CMS vs
SCMS?

I have the 8.5" Hitachi SCMS that was the rave back then. It cuts 2x
up to 12" 90 deg. Other than that, I cannot think of an advantage of
it over the current 12" CMS. The one disadvantage that I see is it
consumes about 32" of front to back space, while a CMS would only take
24" or less.

Other than the obvious cutting capacity, when would at SCMS be
preferred over a CMS. (the 12" CMS cuts about 8" wide 2x at 90 deg.)

I'd also haved to believe the SCMS has more "play", thus less
accurate.

I do not have a RAS - dont plan to get one. I do have a TS and
crosscut sled.

Well, to me, being able to cut almost 12" versus less than 8" is a big
deal.

Also, one thing that's easy to do with a SCMS is to make a quick
scoring pass when you're cutting melamine or nice ply, followed by a
full slide cut (as opposed to chopping down, like a CMS has to do). I
just do the score cut by hand without using the depth stop on my PC
SCMS, although you can set a depth stop if you really want to. The
end result of combining these techniques is a much improved
cut quality for materials prone to splintering. I do this all the
time, but I've never heard anybody else mention it.

One last thing - you really don't need a 12" SCMS, a 10" SCMS has
about the same capacity except for the ability to stand up large crown
molding. I personally don't like working around a 12" CMS located up
on a bench, because of the amount of blade that's exposed (I have the
12" Makita CMS, it's particularly bad about this). There's just
something about that monster blade being close to my chest that really
bugs me. When I use my 12" CMS, I usually have it down on the floor
where it doesn's seem so initimidating. In general, the 10" SCMS is
much more relaxing to work around.



Tim Carver