Getting serious about a slider, used one years ago. Problem is I am running four Unisaws, one with an add on sliding table, and a PM66. The Unisaws get daily use but only ran the 66 twice in the last five years. Should I sell all of them or keep just one and buy the slider? I use both sheet goods and solid lumber.
DJK
Replies
If you are running 4 Unisaw's daily, I can't imagine you could replace them all with one slider. Nonetheless, I don't think this is a question where you can get much help from a forum since the answers depend heavily on the volume and nature of the particular cuts you make for your specific production requirements. Stop and figure out which of the current Unisaw tasks are better (or more safely) handled on the slider, and which the Unisaw can continue to accomplish as easily. It may breakdown to how much of your work involves panels and how much solid lumber.
Personally, I've never liked sliders. I'd replace a saw with a vertical panel saw-cuts efficiently and takes up less space.
I had a Unisaw for years and expected to sell it after I got my slider. But I set the two saws back to back. They make great complimentary outfeed tables for long work. Continue to use the Unisaw for dados, thin rips and slotting etc. Love em both.
Get the slider. You'll wonder why you waited so long. As far as I'm concerned a cabinet saw is only half a saw. You might keep one of the cabinet saws for dado work. There's lots of great sliders to choose from. Paolini, Felder, Hammer, Minimax. There's some great used ones out there. Someone in NY had a Griggio for $1,800. http://www.exfactory.com
Edited 1/3/2007 3:40 pm ET by RickL
Sell the unisaws.
I hereby offer $50 for one. Where should I come to pick it up?
Unless you're the lead dog, the view just never changes.
Why not sell all but one of them and purchase a CNC unit? From the sound of things, you have the necessary real estate in your shop...
Planeround
Thanks for the input guys. I'm going to check out a vertical panel saw, not one of the cheap ones, the saws with a scoring blade
You will have to spend a lot more to get a decent vertical panel saw than a slider. Besides you will be freeing up space by selling some of your saws. The slider is more versatile as you can work solids as well. An 8' or 10' slider can straighten edges and some can even use a dado.
http://www.woodweb.com/knowledge_base/Whats_the_Best_Tool_for_Cutting_Panels.html
http://www.csaw.com/striebig/striebigindex.html
Thanks Rick. Been talking to the rep at Colonial Saw.
DJK
Colonial sells Striebigs......killer machines! Even their compact is awesome. Have fun
Congratulations.
Vertical panel saws make sense for many reasons, as my earlier post referred to. I am sure you'll be askin' yourself, how did I get by without this before?
By all means, get a good slider. A panel saw will not help you with solid stock, but a slider will do both jobs beautifully. The bigger the better: if you're ripping 10' boards, it's good to have 10' of slide. Some sliders, like the Altendorf, can handle dado blades. Many of the European ones cannot. So consider leaving one Unisaw just for dado work. If you have a heavy work load and want one slider to replace the Unisaws, spring for a saw with a computer. The Altendorf (no I'm not a factory rep) moves the fence, blade height, blade angle, and scoring width from the digital control, to an accuracy of 0.1 mm and remembers previous settings. It sounds like bells and whistles but it speeds things up a lot. Oh yeah, you still have to push the carriage by hand.
David Ring
http://www.touchwood.co.il/?id=1&lang=e
Thanks Dave, thought about an Altendorf but need to justify the cost. I'll look for used. Funny that know one says to keep the PM66.DJK
One fact about big sliding table saws that no-one has mentioned, and I'm very familiar with, is that the tables, extensions and the trunking like cabinet that carry the rail mechanism to the left side of the blade can sometimes make it anything from somewhat awkward, to bloody nigh impossible to rip solid wood easily.
This applies particularly to the big machines with a 21' or 22' sliding table footprint for dimensioning 10' long panels. These tables and their mechanisms can rather force you to stand in awkward places and/or have to reach a long way to push solid wood through. It's less than ideal, and can potentially be dangerous too.
So, if you do get a big slider seriously consider hanging on to one of your existing US style cabinet saws and dedicate it as a rip saw only. Being there in the US (I presume) you'll find it handy to continue using with a dado blade too. Slainte.Richard Jones Furniture
Rich ol' chap, I recently gave away about 10 years of Wood Shop News and the only issue I kept is the one with your piece on " How to tame a slider ". So what would it cost me for a Wadkin like yours?DJK
DJK, I don't think that Wadkin pattern is still available in the US. I don't think it's available here in the UK either, although on that I may be wrong. Wadkin are near enough out of business today-- barely limping along. That machine cost me a bit shy of $10,000 back in '95.
It had a 6' stroke which meant it could cut the short way across a panel on the sliding table. With that length of stroke it was about at the limit that it could really be used for mixed work, i.e., ripping and cross cutting solid wood, and for the processing of panel products. With only a 6' stroke it meant that I had to use other means to ensure a long edge was true-- basically a straight edge and a buzz saw, or a router. Once I knew that long edge was straight I could process the panel with confidence from that edge.
The advantage of a longer stroke, e.g., 11' or 12' is that you can straighten the edge of 10' panels using the sliding table. You can just about handle a 12' X 6' panel with that big a stroke, and they're a pretty rare panel size, with 8' X 4', 10' X 4' and 10' X 5' being the most likely you'll come across.
I'd take a serious look at Felder, SCMI, or Casolin which are all good mid-price sliding table saw types that I'm fairly sure are available there. Powermatic and Grizzly are now doing big sliders and would be worth a look at.
I'd buy a sliding table saw in preference to one of the vertical panel handling saws any day assuming I had the money available. Couple a slider with one the tilting, foot pump actuated lifting panel handling carts you can get from people like Häfele (and at least one other company that makes them) and you're in business. Those panel handling carts make handling 10' X 5' MDF or, heaven forbid, HDF panels a doddle.
I'd still hang on to one of your US style cabinet saws, 3- 5 HP ideally for heavy work as a dedicated rip saw if space allows-- and also for your dado work if you use a dado blade. I'd kit out your old cabinet saw with one of those cloned European style rip fences too, like the Delta Unifence. In my experience they're significantly safer for ripping than the long Biesemeyer type fences which are a bit poor for that kind of work.
Of course you could keep your Biesemeyer style fence and emulate the Euro style fence with a short sub-fence that's attached to the long one just for ripping jobs. The short style modification would be removed for running stuff over one of those hand munching dado blades, ha, ha. Slainte.Richard Jones Furniture
Thanks Rich. All five saws have a Unifence and three are five HP. Maybe I'll keep the PM66, for the left tilt nonsense, and a Unisaw.
DJK
If you go to the gov. auctions, there's a preety big 14" slider up for bid starting at $50. But you have to go to alaska to get it.
What auction site is that?
Just type in government liquidation on your search engine
Im sorry i meant government liquidation woodworking machinery.
Thanks, I'll hook up the trailer.DJK
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