Blades come in various types and sizes. There are rip blades for cutting along the wood grains, hollow ground blades ideal for various materials, crosscut blades suitable for smooth and precise cuts, and combination blades for that double up as blades for crosscutting and ripping. Depending on what you do the most, it’s necessary to choose the right blade type and size that will get the job done with the most ease.
From there, the rest of the saws created a top tier of cutting power that wasn’t mind-blowingly better, but definitely noticeable. It took many cuts back and forth between saws to determine which came out ahead of other because they are so close to each other. Bosch’s REAXX took third place overall with SawStop ever so slightly ahead. Part of that simply came down to the fact that SawStop was a little bit smoother cutting. Coming out on top was Ridgid. There was noticeable vibration compared to Bosch and SawStop here, but it was able to muscle through each cut a little bit better than the other two.
There’s no doubt that the DeWalt DWE7480 is a favorite among woodworkers. It is a 10-inch compact job site table saw with the DeWalt Site-Pro Modular Guarding System. This exclusive feature allows you to make quick and accurate cuts. This model is redesigned with improved cutting capacity compared to its predecessors. It also has a dust collection port, a convenient metal roll cage, and telescoping fence rails to make adjustments faster and more accurate.
The body of the blade is made from hardened steel, helping to extend the lifespan and keep up with the tooth quality. The kerf is a crazy-thin 0.098 inch—narrow to keep the cuts fast by reducing the amount of material that needs to be removed. Like most Diablo blades, you’ll pay a bit of a premium up front, but the blade lasts so much longer than others on the market that the cost per cut is much lower.
If you’re looking for a machine with high capacity, the SKIL 3410-02 has a 3.5-inch cut height with the ability to cut through four times the material on each pass. The consensus among reviewers is that, for such a low price, you end up compromising on miter gauge and saw blade quality. Luckily both of those things can be replaced if you so choose.
A table saw can be classified in many ways, and I’ve come across terms like contractor, folding, featherboard, hobby, induction, sliding and zero clearance. However, I will conform to the most basic and clear classification and range the tables accordingly. That means I’ll order them by benchtop table saws, jobsite table saws, cabinet saws and hybrid table saws.
Customers have happily overlooked the few shortcomings of this table saw such as the low quality miter gauge and slight tweaking required after assembly. The Dewalt DWE7491RS 10-inch table saw with a 32-½ inch rip capacity is one of the greatest options available on the market. It offers plenty of unique features to work with, allowing a variety of users—let it be a deck builder, cabinet installer, re-modeler, hardwood floor installer, or hobbyist woodworker—to gain the best results possible from a table saw.
There were really two major performance considerations we wanted to look at to help determine the best portable jobsite table saw: cutting power and dust collection. Power is an obvious choice. We want to make clean, straight cuts, but we don’t want to spend all day making them. Any saw can be calibrated to be straight and accurate, but some have to be babied more than others to get professional results.
Customers have happily overlooked the few shortcomings of this table saw such as the low quality miter gauge and slight tweaking required after assembly. The Dewalt DWE7491RS 10-inch table saw with a 32-½ inch rip capacity is one of the greatest options available on the market. It offers plenty of unique features to work with, allowing a variety of users—let it be a deck builder, cabinet installer, re-modeler, hardwood floor installer, or hobbyist woodworker—to gain the best results possible from a table saw.
You can’t talk about the best portable jobsite table saw without talking about portability. Portability boils down to a couple of important features. First and foremost, weight has a huge impact on how easily you can transport the saw, especially if it has to go into the bed of a truck rather than a trailer. If you’ve got a trailer, then a wheeled stand becomes your best friend. We looked at both.
Bosch’s REAXX and SawStop were neck and neck with near perfect cleanup at the collection point and only a slight amount of dust coming out toward the user. What did make it out was even less coarse than the other Pro level saws. Both saws have narrower throat openings for the blade that reduce the amount and size of material that can make it out. In the end, SawStop produced less top dust than Bosch did to earn the win.
If height adjustments were standardized, we could expect each saw to make them nearly identically. Taking a look under the hood, we discovered several different methods—each with their own effect. Most of the saws employ a bevel gear system that provides smooth and reliable performance. We noticed that many used solid metal gearing, but Bosch used plastic for both the 4100 and the REAXX.
After a productive day of working on your woodworking project, the amount of dust that accumulates around the work space is something that no one looks forward to. But with the Dewalt table saw, you get a 2-½ inch dust port collector at the back end of the unit, as well as a 1-½ inch dust port collector off the top of the blade. This means you can collect all the dust formulated above and below the blade—leaving your work space completely spotless, and saving on clean-up time.
From there, it’s all about flesh detection. The REAXX wins out over SawStop in this category thanks to quicker recovery, a two-shot activation mechanism ($99 per cartridge, $49.50 per shot), and keeping the blade from damage. The initial saws to go out also come with a code to get an extra cartridge for free when you register the REAXX. Like I mentioned earlier, the unknown is still the actual reaction time compared to SawStop.
Contractor saws weigh quite a bit more than portable saws, averaging between 150 and 350 pounds, but are still somewhat portable. They have a heavier, cast iron table top, and a motor that is usually more powerful than a jobsite saw. Even so, they’re within prices affordable for more committed hobbyists. Contractor saws can range between $800 and $2,000. They’re good for basic cutting tasks, as well as making home furniture and cabinetry work.
