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Combination saw

If you mean what I call a ‘Chop-Saw’, I bought one – a smallish DeWalt - almost 20 years ago when I had a great stack of oak doors to make and a huge cutting list. I say smallish, it has a 220 mm dia. blade and will cross-cut a 9-inch board.

It is one of the three staic power tools that I have remaining, other than the lathe.

I subsequently added a set of extended legs when I abandoned the ultra-big 10 foot bench in a house-move. So, a set of legs is necessary for the basic item – unless you work on the floor!

I use it for cutting boards to dimension only; next stop is the band-saw and thicknesser.
The saw is still in use from time to time.

It came with a basic rough blade, so I swapped that for one that provides a fine cut. Good quality blade, expensive, worth it……. Otherwise there is a tendency to split out as the blade exits the wood if you use a rough blade.
Mostly I use decent Oak, but be prepared to pre-score splintery stuff if you get split-outs.


Next, I found that it was necessary to go over and adjust the factory angle-settings with an accurate digital angle finder. Time consuming but worth it. The factory settings on the DeWalt were 'good enough for site work', but were improved with some tuning. I don't expect others to be different.
Other than a quick check and minor adjustments, I have always had accurate cuts since

The only criticism is that it is a dust generator in use. It comes with a standard vacuum spout, but when coupled to a high-speed vacuum, (low-velocity doesn’t work with this) I noticed static giving me an unwelcome tingle, so I stopped that and only use it outdoors.

That’s as objective as I can be within the scope of my work. All up, it’s a good machine that has lasted with infrequent, but extensive use.
But, its is a basic plank-chopper...... I always adjust by hand for accuracy afterwards.

Hope that helps.
 
Thanks for replying. It always helps to hear people’s experiences of their tools! I’m looking for opinions on the pros and cons of machines that combine table saw functionality (you pass wood over a spinning blade) and mitre saw or chop saw functionality (you pass the spinning blade over the wood). Here’s an example of the kind of machine that prompted my question:

https://www.bosch-professional.com/gb/en/products/gtm-12-jl-0601B15071
 
I have an Elektra Beckum KGT500 flip saw. It works pretty well as a table saw, except it's hard to adjust the blade angle with no "winder". The fence is rock solid, and the table is cast aluminium. The big problem for me is that the mitre slots are dovetail section - not so good for sleds. Flip it over and it's a poor chop saw, not to bad for vertical cuts, but not good for angles. Dust collection is appalling. I generally wear a mask these days. It is a really solid piece of kit though, which is probably why I still have it.
A friend had the Elu flip saw, and I think the two are fairly similar.
 
I carpenter friend has the Bosch one, I had this one from virutex https://www.virutex.es/productos/?actio ... oria&id=24
In my opinion the virutex was better quality than the Bosch
I sold mine as I stopped doing site work
They are both good saws, and ideal for site work.
Here in Spain they are a very popular type of saw.

Sent from my Redmi Note 9S using Tapatalk
 
When I started woodworking as a retirement hobby, my first machine was a Ryobi combination saw, bought on the recommendation of the salesman as I only wanted a mitre saw (should have known better).

https://www.homegardencyprus.com/en/cat ... 0-g-detail

I found the top table saw to be almost useless for any wood longer than a foot because it was impossible to balance on the small table. It only cut 90 degree in both planes. Adjusting the depth of cut means moving the table up thereby making it angled away from you for shallow cuts. The fence was only about 8" long.

I got so fed up with the table saw part I removed it all. I made an enclosed guard for the top blade and have used it ever since as just a mitre saw. Its a reasonable mitre saw, but being made as a contractors saw it has more slop and play than a "woodworker" would be happy with.
Its 9 years old now and is top of my "to be replaced" list, as soon as I can save enough money for a Bosch axial glide (might never happen).
Overall, its a good site saw, but its a terrible workshop table saw. :eusa-hand:

I finally managed to get a dewalt 745 table saw (lack of space and money stops me having a grown up table saw). I am very pleased with this saw, it punches well above its advertised weight :eusa-clap:
 
First of all say that I have never seen one of those where you cut across the top like that, Ok at a pinch but I think it would be a bit limiting as to what you could put across it, as was said okay for light site use.
Bob I know what you mean about the Dewalt it’s a pretty good machine really, I built a bench for my Pam's daughter and sank one of those in, it took a bit of fettling but works pretty well. Difficult to see but the saws fence extends across the ply top, took a lot of measuring to get that right first time.

CB2BE4D9-FAB5-49C3-BA8C-3A24682A4198.jpeg

She does love DeWalt, if it isn’t black and yellow she doesn’t want it, me I can think of better.
 
I would love to build that, but my entire space is a 3 metres x 5 metres garage, and I cant even block one end as it has to be accessible through each end. I have the saw on a home made trolley so I can push it against the wall when not in use.

The last place I worked supplied de walt battery drills to me. they were poor in terms of ease of use and terrible on battery life.

I bought the table saw after almost a year of trying to find and install a normal sized table saw, and this site saw was a compromise for me. But very soon i realised its very, very good for its footprint, and that fence is a world beater. :eusa-clap: :eusa-clap:
 
To me flip saws and the non-flip combinations both hold out the promise of being a flexible, compact saw, but I’m not seeing combis where the mitre saw slides, so I think it’d mean using the table saw more frequently than I initially thought. Probably a sliding mitre saw might be a better option for me (backed up with a track saw and hand saw for longer cuts). But I didn’t know this category of combination saws existed until yesterday so I could be wrong.
 
By definition, a combination saw cannot slide because the top table is fixed.
Go for the Bosch axial glide 12" sliding mitre saw and if you dont have room for a table saw, then its a track saw and track.
 
The 12” would be nice, but a bit beyond my price point. I’ve gone for a Bosch GCM 8 SJL. It bevels in only one direction, but cuts 70mm x 312mm at 90° so that’ll be OK. £330, but I’ve just seen I could have paid £290 on the Bosch site for a “warehouse product” (new, but damaged box).
 
I would put one on my xmas wish list, if only I still believed in santa claus :eusa-doh:
 
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