My dad bought a brand-new 12" DeWalt RAS which was eventually offered
to me when he passed and I turned it down. It was too big for my
needs, and frankly I was always tentative with that animal. Can any
of you guys remember when DeWalts were painted a speckled mint green,
had a metal stand and had handles for lugging it around? That's the
baby. We had it semi-permanently located with fixed 8' benches on
either side of it, each bench obviously having a "fence" that matched
the DW and there was a garage door at one end and about 6' of dead
space to the back wall at the other end. Great cross-cut tool, but I
never liked ripping with that blade where it was. I think the saw was
about 36" wide itself.

I have a 10" TS (Sears) and a 8½" SCMS (Hitachi) that can cut 12" if I
need it. I love the Hitachi because it works so well, is soooo
portable, and stores easily. I can honestly say that if I hit the
jackpot and wanted to re-equip, I'd never by a RAS. But that's just
me, plenty of others here love'em. BTW, most times I'm either bearing
down, or pushing the SCMS into the cut... rather than pulling it thru
like I did with the DW.

As many here have said, his decision will be based on a lot of
variables including space, money, quality, type of work, safety, and
more. Whatever floats his boat.

Mike


On 10 Feb 2005 07:46:38 -0800, "Chris Nail"
wrote:

I've got a friend that is contemplating the purchase of a radial arm
saw vs. a sliding compound miter saw. Most of the work will be around
his home as he's doing "home improvement" type work. I don't have a
clue about a radial arm saw but have used a sliding compound miter saw
some. Could you all please give some advantages/disadvantages or
compare the two?

Thanks,

Chris Nail