Hello Everyone,
My shop is in need of a stationary table saw. I started my business carving foam with a CNC router but the bulk of my business has become more woodworking than anything else. Some cuts demand a saw and not the router. My folding Ryobi saw, while good, isn’t big enough or precise enough.
I’m looking at 2+hp motors and min 50″ fence. I keep seeing this left or right tilting option and I don’t know the pros/cons of either. I guess my Ryobi tilts left and I’m used to that but would like to know more about the right tilt before I make a choice.
There’s a Woodworking show in 2 weeks in Cloverdale BC ( Surrey ) and will probably buy one there BUT if anyone in BC or WA has such a saw for sale, I’m in the market!!..Please feel free to contact me.
Cheers,
Gerald
Replies
Right-tilt or left-tilt is primarily a religious question. They both cut wood equally well.
Great quote !
Who is Aldo Leopold?Brookfield Woodworking
Cushing, Maine
Aldo Leopold was a early environmentalist, probaly the first person to seriously write and speak on the ethical use of land and wildlife. His book, "A Sand County Almanac", should be required reading for everyone.Here's a little more on him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldo_LeopoldJim
"There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other is that heat comes from the furnace." - Aldo Leopold
Jim,
I love this quote. As someone who lives on a small farm, and frequently gets breakfast from the chicken coop, I'm of the opinion that alot of the craziest ideas one sees today (e.g., "animal rights" activists with vegan cats) are due to an overly-urbanized society that's completely clueless about the nartural world.
Re: short fences - can't you turn any fence, a Biesemeyer included, into a "euro" fence by attaching a short length of stock to the lonfer fence. Doesn'tb Biesemeyer even sell a fancy, over-priced 1 inch thick auxiliary fence for just this type of thing?
Doesn't Biesemeyer even sell a fancy, over-priced 1 inch thick auxiliary fence for just this type of thing?
Yep they do. I bought one and use it. If you make one yourself, it's awfully convenient if you do what Biesemeyer did and make it exactly 1" thick, then the measuring tape math is easy.My goal is for my work to outlast me. Expect my joinery to get simpler as time goes by.
Hey BarryO-you've already been referred to the previous discussion- and warned to read it at your own risk
I remember the discussion and also remember one excellent post (in my opinion)
I reproduce it here without dgreen's permission-
can't say it is all "correct" just makes good sense.dtraversihis quote belowSome things other than safety to consider.Are you right handed?
Get the left tilt.
1. Left tilt has the bevel wheel on the right side and is easily turned
with your Right hand.
2. Left tilt can rip a narrow bevel with out having to move the fence to
the left side of the blade.
3. Left tilt allows the blade arbor nut to be removed with your right hand.
4. Left tilt allows your to remove the arbor nut and turn it in the
direction that you would expect.
5. RIGHT tilt if you are left handed. The bevel wheel is on the left side
of the saw.
6. RIGHT tilt if you "must" use the fence distance indicator when using ####stacked dado blade set. The blades stack left, away from the fence. The
indicator remains accurate. On the left tilt, the blades stack towards the
fence and makes the indicator inaccurate. In this case use a tape measure
to set the fence distance.
7. RIGHT tilt allows you to remove the arbor nut with your left hand but
the nut must be turned clockwise to loosen. Bassackwards to normalcy.If considering a cabinet saw, with wide 50" rip capacity.The Left tilt will most often afford you the most storage room under the
right table extension. The RIGHT tilt has an access door in that location
that will demand room to open. The left tilt allows you to have access to
the motor and or the insides of the cabinet from the more open left side of
the saw with out having to crawl under the right extension table. Very nice
if you ever happen to drop the arbor nut inside the cabinet.
The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
-- Herbert Spencer (1891)
I guess my feelings as a amateur trying to be professional woodworker are, the mechanics of kickback are more related to operation of the saw, rather than wether it tilts left or right. I am lefthanded, and use a left tilting saw. I don't have many problems with kickback because I pay lots of attention to how the wood is feeding. I would suggest that proper infeed-outfeed tables/rollers setup have more to do with kickback than tilt. Tilt would compound any slight misalignment in the height of your infeed/outfeed setup, and tend to make your wood climb the blade, either on the front or the back, both having different reactions .
As a left hander, do you stand to the left of the blade -- so you can use your left hand to push through the piece of you're cutting? Before the safety police sweep down upon us here, let me say I assume you always use a push stick for the above operation.********************************************************
"It is what we learn after we think we know it all, that counts."
John Wooden 1910-
Edited 11/22/2006 2:26 pm by nikkiwood
I do stand on the left side, and use my left hand, and almost always the right stick!
But the fence is still positioned to the right of the blade?********************************************************
"It is what we learn after we think we know it all, that counts."
John Wooden 1910-
The fence is in its normal position, on the right of the blade.When I bought this saw(General Contractors), I had the option of either tilt, and chose left tilt because it was what I had before, and since then I have had no reason to wish I had bought the other. I can't figure out any significant difference between them. I think in certain applications, and I can't think of any, a right tilt may be better, but I don't know.
I don't know why you directed your response toward me; my only contribution to this thread has been pointed out that Biesemeyer has a 1" thick auxiliary fence.
Left.........................cool website.
John
"cool website" Probably 20 seconds to download that "thing" with DSL. Overdesigned. Grrrrrrrrr.
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Edited 10/13/2006 11:36 am by forestgirl
Dear FG,
Wow! I didn't know that you had such strong feelings about websites!Best,JohnPS. I have cable............................and a Mac........... ;-)
My first TSs had left tilting arbors with extra table width on the right. That allowed miter cuts with waste going under the blade, which gave better cuts & safety. Using a rip fence when mitering was especially safer that way. If one has afforded an expensive sliding miter or crosscut table which is usually mounted to the left, the blade must tilt to the right to give the same quality miters & safety. If one owns a sliding crosscut table, using a rip fence for miter cuts is probably unnecessary. If a sliding table is not in your future, left tilt probably makes better sense. It does to me.
Cadiddlehopper
Thanks everyone.That's what I needed to hear. I'll stick with the left handers.
Oh and thanks on the website thumbs upCheers
Gerald
That's one of the neatest web sites I've seen -- especially the music. If you expect to do any ripping at an angle with your new TS, the left blade tilting saws are a lot safer.********************************************************
"It is what we learn after we think we know it all, that counts."
John Wooden 1910-
"If you expect to do any ripping at an angle with your new TS, the left blade tilting saws are a lot safer."
If you adopt a European style short rip fence then that is safe with a right tilter. To my mind right tilt saws were introduced to overcome the glaring design deficiencies in the Biesmeyer-type long through rip fence. If your saw has a sliding carraige such as an Excalibur then a right tilter will be safer when making angled crosscuts as there is no chance of work becoming trapped by the blade. I'm on my second Altendorf panel saw and have used right tilts with short rip fences since the 1970s and they really do work well. This type of saw has a draw-back rip fence plate which allows you to use a long through fence when necessary.
Scrit
Good point.The Atendorfer is way out of the league for most home shop people here, but I have never understood why there aren't more aftermarket European style fences available for the saws that are in common use in the US.However, it sounds like the OP will use this saw in a commercial setting, so I hope he at least considers the saws in this category.********************************************************
"It is what we learn after we think we know it all, that counts."
John Wooden 1910-
"The Altendorf is way out of the league for most home shop people here, but I have never understood why there aren't more aftermarket European style fences available for the saws that are in common use in the US."
I agree, but I was trying to give an example which would possibly be a bit more familiar than some of our funny Euro machines. Maybe I should have said Felder (which uses a similar system). Actually, don't Delta offer an aftermarket/add-on fence, the Unifence http://media.ptg-online.com/media/dm/Products/Tools/ExtraLarge/20050117113142_36-716_72dpi_400.jpg, which works in the same way?
Scrit
Yes, as far as I know the Unifence (from Delta) is the only one that can be used as a European style rip fence. However, while it does have its advantages, it is an odd shape, which makes it difficult to attach auxillary jigs. And I would guess that is what limits its popularity in this country.********************************************************
"It is what we learn after we think we know it all, that counts."
John Wooden 1910-
Thanks for bringing up the Unifence. I have often wondered why it does not enjoy wider popularity. My first “real” tablesaw (right-tilt Unisaw) in the early ’80,s came with one. The fence does take a little getting used to, but its ability to adjust to the blade in both x and y planes give you extremely handy setup options both ripping and crosscutting. Using auxiliary jigs do require some minor engineering, but nothing out of the ballpark. I recently bought a new right-tilt saw (w/ Unifence) for my new basement shop and feel right at home with it.
I've been using an Excalibur fence for over 15 years on my right-tilt Unisaw and have yet to find it be a disadvantage. Perhaps after using it for so many years I've gotten used to it?!
Notwithstanding, I have mounted a Jess-Em Mast-R-Slide sliding mitre gague assembly to the left of the blade and it's much safer having a right-tilt saw with that in use. The sliding assembly is not nearly as efficient as the Excalibur sliding carriage (they also mount on the left-hand side, of course) when it comes to large panel work, however I've made a few kitchens with the Jess-Em assembly, with nary a problem.
Cheers,
Marty S.
So when you're making a beveled rip on your saw, how do you do it? Move the fence to the left of the blade?********************************************************
"It is what we learn after we think we know it all, that counts."
John Wooden 1910-
I don't know why some individuals think a right-tilt arbour is such a difficult thing to contend with. Here's how I do it:
I tilt the sawblade to the required angle, then make the cut. Period. (Now, that wasn't so difficult was it?!) On those very few occasions ( perhaps once a month or so... and I spend more than 30 hours per week in my shop) when the board to be bevelled is too narrow to accomplish the cut without the sawblade striking the fence, I simply attach the sacrificial fence I have kicking around the shop, to the left side of my Excalibur fence, readjust the fence to the proper position for the cut, raise the rotating blade so it embeds itself into the sacrificial fence and make the cut. I use fingerboards both ahead and behind the blade to stabliize the board.
I'd like to close this by saying that I usually plan ahead and rip the bevel from wide stock, then rip the strip to its final width. In fact, ripping narrow stock is never a good idea, regardless of which way ones' arbor tilts.
Hope that I've explained my process without leaving anyone with the impression that I'm against left-tilting arbor tablesaws, because I'm not. As explained previously, I have a very small shop and because of that, I needed to have a sliding table assembly that didn't take up much space. I eventually settled on the Jess-Em unit called the Mast-R-Slide, which, like most other sliding table units that mount to the left side of the saw, doesn't allow the fence rail assembly to be placed very far to the left of the blade. Hence, the reason I don't run iwth the fence on the left side fo the blade. In a perfect world, I would have sold my right-tilting arbor Unisaw when the left-tilting units came out, but I couldn't afford to do so. Ahh, such are the challenges of living in a world of compromises!
Hope the above is clear enough.
Marty S.
I'm not one of the safety preachers around here; if it works for you, I'm all for it.Back in the days when I had a TS with a right tilt blade, I would shift the Excalibur fence I had to the left side of the blade. But I understand you can't do that.So, stay vigilant.........********************************************************
"It is what we learn after we think we know it all, that counts."
John Wooden 1910-
Nikkiwood: "So when you're making a beveled rip on your saw, how do you do it? Move the fence to the left of the blade?"So does this mean that you have fallen under the myth that right tilt saws will kickback more than left tilt? Maybe you could educate this poor engineer as to the physics that cause this, or are you just repeating what you have heard others say?Trapping a small workpiece under the blade is not going to cause a kickback to any greater degree than it would with no bevel setting. As a matter of fact, it is quite the opposite. With the workpiece trapped against the plate of the blade, it cannot engage in the rising teeth at the back of the blade. You are actually more likely to experience a kickback from having a small workpiece resting on the top side of a blade than the bottom side.The exception would be a piece of wood that was warped upward, but then again, you would be foolish to bevel this type of wood on any saw.
"The exception would be a piece of wood that was warped upward, but then again, you would be foolish to bevel this type of wood on any saw."
Yes, but if you are sawing a piece of reaction timber it is sometimes difficult to know where it is going to go - probably why I favour the bandsaw for sawing burrs, highly figured pieces, etc. Otherwise I'm in agreement that the argument as to left or right side tilt/trapping is a bit of a red herring - in fact I feel a left tilter is more dangerous if used in conjunction with a sliding table or left side mitre fence of any description as the blade is leaning over nearer to the operators hands on bevel cuts. If you look at the dynamics of it a right tilter used with the short rip fence simply can't trap material and is safer still.
Scrit
<<The exception would be a piece of wood that was warped upward, but then again, you would be foolish to bevel this type of wood on any saw>>And that's exactly the problem; it doesn't take much of a warp, sometimes almost imperceptible, and you're off to the races.All I'm saying is that doing such rips with a right blade saw is probably the most inherently dangerous cut you can make with a TS, and you'd best keep your wits about you.********************************************************
"It is what we learn after we think we know it all, that counts."
John Wooden 1910-
That has to be the most ridiculously overblown statement I have read on this topic, and it tells me that you do not have the power tool knowledge that you imply. A minor warp is not going to engage the teeth of the blade sufficiently to kickback. By warped, I was referring to wood that has sufficient force to deflect the blade. This would be the same caliber of wood that will bind on the blade during normal ripping.Before the workpiece can kickback, it needs to engage the rear teeth with sufficient force to deflect the blade, because if the blade does not deflect, there will be no kickback. The right tilt blade actually prevents most of these kickbacks from occurring, because the workpiece cannot ride up across the top edge of the blade. Only the most severe binding is going to kickback, and I assure you, that will happen regardless what saw you are using.With a pinching situation during a bevel rip, the workpiece will actually kickback sooner on a left-tilt saw because it is easier for the workpiece to reach the forward moving teeth. Once the wood begins to move away from the fence, the operator has less chance of preventing the skew from propagating, because the more he presses down, the more the workpiece will want to engage the teeth, and the farther skewed the piece will become.Don't get me wrong. I could care less about the whole right versus left argument. I wish I could have both (and I did for a while) because they both have their limitations. What I don't like is misinformation and myth driving a buyer's decision. Regardless what saw a woodworker chooses, that decision should be based on proper fact and their personal needs, not on unsubstantiated misinformation.
Edited 10/16/2006 5:53 pm ET by RickChristopherson
Maybe we're not talking about the same thing here. If you have a right tilt saw, and you're doing a 45 degree bevel cut, and the fence is positioned to the right of the blade, you're capturing the rip between the tilted blade and the fence.That, to my way of thinking, is, as I said earlier, "probably the most inherently dangerous cut you can make with a TS, and you'd best keep your wits about you" -- particularly if the captured piece is narrow.I can't see what's to be gained by lashing out over this issue. I think most of us at Knots sit here and call them the way we see them, based on whatever knowledge and experience we can bring to the topic. If you disagree with my point of view, I'm okay with that. If you have some felt need to bring out your brickbats to hit me upside the head, Im okay with that too. The problem is, doing so diminishes the level of discourse around here, and inhibits the free exchange of ideas (and experiences). None of us, including you, have a corner on the truth.........********************************************************
"It is what we learn after we think we know it all, that counts."
John Wooden 1910-
Some things other than safety to consider.Are you right handed?
Get the left tilt.
1. Left tilt has the bevel wheel on the right side and is easily turned
with your Right hand.
2. Left tilt can rip a narrow bevel with out having to move the fence to
the left side of the blade.
3. Left tilt allows the blade arbor nut to be removed with your right hand.
4. Left tilt allows your to remove the arbor nut and turn it in the
direction that you would expect.
5. RIGHT tilt if you are left handed. The bevel wheel is on the left side
of the saw.
6. RIGHT tilt if you "must" use the fence distance indicator when using ####stacked dado blade set. The blades stack left, away from the fence. The
indicator remains accurate. On the left tilt, the blades stack towards the
fence and makes the indicator inaccurate. In this case use a tape measure
to set the fence distance.
7. RIGHT tilt allows you to remove the arbor nut with your left hand but
the nut must be turned clockwise to loosen. Bassackwards to normalcy.
If considering a cabinet saw, with wide 50" rip capacity.
The Left tilt will most often afford you the most storage room under the
right table extension. The RIGHT tilt has an access door in that location
that will demand room to open. The left tilt allows you to have access to
the motor and or the insides of the cabinet from the more open left side of
the saw with out having to crawl under the right extension table. Very nice
if you ever happen to drop the arbor nut inside the cabinet. The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. -- Herbert Spencer (1891)
Note that some left-tilt saws, like the Craftsman (Orion) "zip code" saws, have the motor cover on the right and the tilt wheel on the left.
NikkiWood,
The reason why you are taking my postings as offensive to you is because you are stating things as though they were factual, but you have not provided any foundation to your assertions. You are asking people to take your word on faith without substantiating the information. This is a very old myth, but the problem is that the people that keep repeating it can't substatiate it. I have spent a great deal of my time researching the causes of kickback, including many of the myths. And yes, I do get paid to know tools.You have taken an all-or-none position on this and stated emphatically that right-tilt saws will kickback more than left-tilt saws during bevel rips, and this is just not true.If you could present your reasons for stating that a right-tilt saw will kickback more, then I believe we could have a useful dialog on the topic.
You need to open your eyes and read what I said. If you have a left tilt saw, and the fence is on the left side of the blade, you'll have the same inherently dangerous situation. So this is not about the relative safety of right vs. left tilt saws.********************************************************
"It is what we learn after we think we know it all, that counts."
John Wooden 1910-
Rick I'm a little confused by your description. The common suggestion is to not have the bevel toward the fence (that is left tilt saw, fence on right; right tilt, fence on left). The idea being that this will prevent the pice from binding between the blade and the fence.
This has always made sense to me from a logical point of view. If your tilt is toward the fence and the wood engages the rear teeth the wood will be pinched between the fence and the blade. This of course because the rotation of the rear teeth is toward the fence. Of course if the fence doesn't move the blade will deflect and off we go.
Anyway, reminds me a I recently saw a reno show with a guy freehanding a circle on the table saw...
Yes Buster, that is the whole point of my discussion. All you have ever heard is that trapping the wood will cause it to kickback, but in reality, this is not true. This is the basis of the myth that I speak of. I thought this myth was dying out because it is not as prevalent on other forums, but apparently it is quite strong here on this forum. The fact that both the blade and the fence constrain the workpiece prevents it from skewing with respect to the blade, and this actually prevents (or at least reduces the chance) for a kickback from occurring--not causing it. A fully constrained workpiece does not kickback! A kickback is caused when a workpiece becomes out of control.Most entry-level woodworkers believe that kickbacks are inevitable and cannot be prevented because they do not understand the mechanics of the various types of kickback. Understanding why a kickback occurs is the first step in preventing it. A kickback is not a mysterious event that just happens without cause. I can examine a piece of wood from the aftereffects of a kickback and tell you exactly why the kickback occurred just from the markings on the wood. (I have been hired as an expert witness in legal cases, and no, you do not want to see my bill in your mailbox.) The workpiece cannot sufficiently engage the rear teeth of the blade because the plate of the blade prevents it from skewing. Because the plate of the blade prevents the workpiece from skewing by more than a fraction of an inch (the difference between plate thickness and tooth width) there is not enough engagement with the teeth to overcome the rigidity of the plate. Most entry-level woodworkers associate a binding workpiece with a kickback, so let’s examine this situation. (Note that this is just one of many types of kickback.) If the workpiece started to bind on the blade during a bevel-rip (or any type of rip), the natural propensity of the workpiece is to follow the path of the blade back toward the operator. When the blade is tilted toward the fence, the workpiece cannot move in this direction because the fence would prevent it. Since the workpiece cannot follow the path of the teeth, it will not kickback. Instead, if the binding is severe enough, the motor will just stall.If a binding occurred on a bevel that was away from the fence, the friction of the blade would just pull the workpiece away from the fence, and it would easily follow the path of the teeth. This would result in a high-speed kickback, and would be difficult to prevent by the operator. Once this type of kickback started, the only way to prevent it from propagating is to apply a lateral-downward force to the workpiece, which cannot be safely done in a kickback situation without risk of slipping into the blade area. I could go on for pages like this, but I don’t have the time, nor do I feel everyone is willing to read it. If you have a specific situation where you feel a bevel toward the fence is more dangerous than a bevel away from the fence, just mention it and I will provide an analysis.
Edited 10/19/2006 2:29 am ET by RickChristopherson
The discussion is interesting to me. I've never had a kickback, nor do I feel that kickback is inevitable. I try to work as safely as I can, and this seems to be one instance where a woodworker has analyzed the kickback and is suggesting a practice against the "commonly suggested method".
I think part of the problem to point is that the knots community has discussed kickback one thing, and has not really split different types of kickback apart. Taking this into account along with your post: While it is not immpossible to have a binding kickback (between the blade and the fence) the real danger is is an 'ejection type' kickback in which the wood rides up he blade.
Final question: What about the cuttoff? If it were small enough (say beveling the edge of the board) would the cutoff not drop onto the blade rather than below?
Wow...I didn't realize I asked such a loaded question.
I think it is easiest to say , Anyone not paying attention can cut off necessary living organic material whether the saw is left or right tilt.
I'll stick with what I know and get a left tilt and hopefully a good fence like a unifence or a beismeyer.Cheers everyone,Gerald
Good choice. That is the set-up I have and it works great.Ray
Yes, I did read some of the discussion about kickback recently, but I felt it was better to remain out of the discussion. I agree that most woodworkers don't realize that there are many different types of kickback. I wrote an article on the topic years ago for a competing magazine.You are correct that the offcut will drop onto the blade, and for this reason, I would not stand behind the path of the blade. However, simply droping onto the plate of the blade is generally not sufficient to engage the blade and propel it backward with any velocity. The piece may move backward slightly, but if the offcut is small, there is not enough lateral (diagonal) force to engage the blade. That's not to say that it can't happen, just that it doesn't typically happen. In my experience, the offcut typically slides to the side of the blade, but this may be different depending on the size of the offcut.
Rick,Please keep posting what you see as the real technical details. I find your posts very interesting since I have always tried to understand the physics of some of the "do's & don't's" of woodworking/carpentry instead of just relying on "conventional wisdom". I currently own a left-tilting Unisaw & a right-tilting PM Model 64, but I don't have the time on them that many of the posters here do. But, I have suffered ####kickback or two & binding in operation. I do accept many of the points you made in your posts about how kickback occurs, but a few, I have trouble with.Would you please clarify any assumptions you made regarding the operating procedures, e.g., "industry standard practice" of no splitter, no blade guard on saw in question?On a right tilt saw w/ the fence on the right, with the blade emerging only minimally above the workpiece, as many people do for safety, and with shallow bevel cuts, say, 5 to 20 deg, I would find it hard to accept your argument that the piece could be trapped sufficiently to stall even a 1 1/2 hp contractor's saw. Much less a 3 to 5 hp cabinet saw. Perhaps even at greater bevel angles depending on the species of wood being cut. I have had seemingly straight grained, quality boards generate cutoffs that curved enough in the length of the blade to produce sever binding. Once the bottom edge of the cutoff produces sufficient friction w/ the surface of the blade or engages a rising tooth, it will lift off of the table and create an ever worsening situation. It would seem to me that whether that piece binds, gets gouged by the blade, gets kicked-back or stalls the saw would depend on many factors that you did not state in your argument.I have a few other questions, that I hope to have time to discuss with you later. Otherwise, must get to work.Thanks for the input.
Either the motor is going to stall, or I will finish the cut. That’s because I am not about to loosen my grip on the workpiece when I hear it begin to bind. I have never had a binding board propagate into a kickback because I won’t allow the saw to take control of the workpiece. I have had a few bindings that were so severe that I couldn’t move the board forward any longer, but they didn’t kick back, and I just shut the saw down.A binding is not a sudden event, it builds gradually, and it gives you plenty of notice that it is happening. There is no reason why an operator allows the workpiece to kickback, except for fear. When the operator needs to be holding on the hardest, they actually loosen their grip because they are afraid of what might happen. They actually cause the kickback that they were so afraid of!Going back to your example, the tilt of the blade wouldn’t be the cause of the kickback, so it wouldn’t matter which way the blade was tilted. But on the other hand, if the blade is tilted toward the fence, the fence will help you maintain control over your workpiece. If you allow the workpiece to lift off the table, it will kickback, and it will probably be more severe on the right-tilt because the only way the workpiece can ride over the blade is to bend the blade sideways. But remember why I came into this discussion. It wasn’t to convince anyone that one was better than the other. The reason why I entered this discussion was because of the myth that right-tilt CAUSES kickbacks.
I believe that I would disagree with your conclusion in certain cases. However, my intention is not to start an argument over the issue. It was you who initially mentioned the physics of the situation & I thought that you might be willing to share your insights. Obviously, you've had a few too many discussions on this issue and don't want to revisit it.I would suggest, though, that stating your creditials and opinion without being willing to discuss how you arrived at your conclusions doesn't lead to much enlightenment, esp. when that opinion goes against the "conventional wisdom" of the commuity.
I am sorry. It appears that you misunderstood the intent of my closing paragraph. This wasn’t supposed to sound like a defensive statement. I was merely reminding you (and others) that it was not my intention to levy an argument regarding which type of saw is better. I do not feel that one type of saw is better than the other. They both have their merits and deficiencies. I won’t engage in an discussion of one is better than the other, and I realized that the last discussion was coming close to a left versus right discussion. That is not why I originally entered the discussion.I am willing to discuss any misinformation regarding right versus left, but when most of the postings are already biased toward left, it makes me sound like I am favoring the right, when all I am doing is providing a balanced answer.
"A fully constrained workpiece does not kickback! A kickback is caused when a workpiece becomes out of control." I do not pretend to understand all the physics behind this discussion, but how "fully constrained" a workpiece is would seem to be dependent on the power of the motor as compared with the strength of blade (deflection-wise) and how solidly the fence anchors itself. I greatly prefer not to depend on these factors to "constrain" the wood and prevent it from kicking back. forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
I have a left tilt Delta with a 50" table. I like the fact that the saw tilt away from the fence and I feel I can have better control of my material when making an angle cut. Other wise it is pretty much a users personal choice.
Ray
PS
To make it simple, what one needs to remember, is not to trap the fall-off between the fence and the blade. Using the splitter in this operation would also help to keep the material from closing on the backside of the blade.
Edited 10/19/2006 3:34 pm ET by Railyn
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