On Thu, 07 Oct 2004 07:12:04 -0400, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

snip
Ripping is actually the main purpose for getting the saw... well, that
and it was $50 at a garage sale...

Not meaning to rain you your parade but if you mainly are going to be
ripping you'd have done better with a table saw of some sort. While a
radial arm saw will rip just fine as long as you're careful and pay
attention to what you're doing, you work a lot harder at it than you do
with a table saw. On the other hand, for crosscut the radial arm saw
rules.

well, it got down to price and floor/garage space... right now, I have
about 2/3 of a 2 car garage for a working and storage area..

the RAS was cheap and my goal was to quit using my trusty old
shopsmith as a saw, and leave it in the drilling/routing position..

Agreed, you might work harder at rips with a RAS, but it beats the
hell out of my old method, which was putting a sheet of plywood on
sawhorses and using a metal guide and skill saw.. lol

We're still looking at houses with rv parking and a place to put up a
workshop.. if we find one, I'll be looking into a full-size table saw,
for sure..


Mac