On 8/8/2011 3:46 PM, Steve Turner wrote:
On 08/08/2011 03:32 PM, Leon wrote:
On 8/8/2011 3:05 PM, Steve Turner wrote:
On 08/08/2011 02:43 PM, dpb wrote:
On 8/8/2011 2:25 PM, J. Clarke wrote:
In , says...

On 8/8/2011 9:38 AM, J. Clarke wrote:
...

While an RAS, perfectly aligned, is a wonderful tool, bump it in the
wrong place and you have to go through the whole process again. I
just
don't get the same repeatability out of the RAS that I do out of a
crosscut sled on the table saw.
...

If a simple bump can do that, it's the POS in "POS RAS" that's the
problem, not that it was a RAS...

It's inherent in the design. Bump the end of the arm from the side and
something's going to give. It's called "leverage".
...

It'd take a hell of a bump to move the arm on my RAS16; you'll regret
you hit it and learn
not to do that again if you were to do so...

In the roughly 35 years I've not had it be an issue _ever_ so my
conclusion is either
there's something wrong in a shop that one would get hit so hard and
often or it's simply
too flimsy if a casual bump can knock it out of line.

I've seem the small DeWalts (Dad had one for 'round the farm) and I've
also seen several
various Craftsmans of similar lightweight construction; them I'll
grant aren't much of a
tool as far as sturdiness goes altho I used the one Dad had for the
kitchen cabinets rather
than drag mine from VA to KS and it was serviceable. I'd label it in
the POS class, though,
simply because it was so lightweight. It was also seriously
under-powered for anything other
than softwoods or at most 4-quarter hardwoods

Not so w/ the 16RAS; it weighs nearly 400 lb; I doubt the DeWalt
weighed 100.

I have a Craftsman 10" RAS that I use for 90-degree crosscuts ONLY, and
I never adjust it away from that position. I could see how it could get
knocked out of adjustment if got a good wack, and I do check it
periodically but it never seems to do that of its own accord, so I'm
happy with it. I would like to have a *serious* big-daddy RAS to replace
it, but I'm slightly space constrained and I see no immediate reason to
seek one out. If a professional quality RAS is as useless as a lot of
people here would have us believe, I'd like to see what every home
center and lumber yard would do if you tried to take theirs away.


Not all of them are crap, if you have one built like a tank and
typically don't use it to
its potential on a daily basis it is going to hold up.

Concerning the home center and or lumber yard monsters, if they were
any less of a machine
they would not hold up given the amount of idiot people using it. And
FWIW I would never
want to use the cut produced by one of those saws, every one I have
seen has been used
simply to cut lumber to rough length and square is not a goal nor is
it achieved.

True; those saws are not typically set up for accuracy and the abuse
they take is not conducive to accurate cuts, but I don't think such cuts
are impossible. I'm sure with the proper care and feeding you could get
near perfect results out of those saws.



Absolutely, as with most any piece of equipment.