On 10/16/12 6:33 AM, dadiOH wrote:
-MIKE- wrote:
I think very few people rip with it. I've ripped with mine and it was
no more dangerous than the table saw.
I ripped a lot with mine. There are two sort of "gotchas" that one needs to
consider...
1. The motor unit is always more or less in the way
2. More importantly, unlike a table saw, the blade is above the workpiece.
If it rises for any reason - chip on the table, tilt, whatever - the blade
can and will easily catch it and that can create considerable havoc if the
kickback pawls are not properly set. Particularly true with thin stock.
1st... as I wrote in my first post in this thread... there is always,
with any tool, the caveat of being "properly set."
2nd... I agree that it's not the tool for ripping. It's also not the
tool for sanding, or drilling, and grinding, etc., even though it can do
all those things.
I agree with those calling it a cut-off saw. It should be treated that
way. Even thought it can do those other things, it's not the best, or
even 2nd best, tool for those jobs.
For me, it's in the same category as a shopsmith. A shopsmith can do all
the things it does, but not nearly as well as individual tools. It may
actually do one thing very well (like a RAS), but the other things
suffer. It takes longer to convert the thing to another task than it
would to move to a different tool. From the prices I've seen for new
shopsmiths, one could get individual tools for separate tasks.
For 11 years I worked in the same building that houses a public
broadcasting station. The studio's set master had a shopsmith. I would
go up there and watch him take forever to get lumber and sheet goods
from rough sizes, through the cut-list, into finished pieces, ready for
assembly.
Every year, after the new budgets rolled around, I would go up to his
shop and see another power tool. First a CMS, then a table saw, then a
jointer, then a drill press, then a router, etc, etc, etc. At the end of
my 11 years, the shopsmith was collecting dust and he had a shop full of
individual tools. I think he still used to the shopsmith as a lathe for
occasional turning.
--
-MIKE-
"Playing is not something I do at night, it's my function in life"
--Elvin Jones (1927-2004)
--
http://mikedrums.com
---remove "DOT" ^^^^ to reply