I've done a lot of woodworking. Made furniture, all the cabinetry in my
house. Made all the molding out of rough sawn lumber and the house is
covered with raised panel wainscoting and chair rail.
Did it all with what I would consider to be junk tools. Home made
shaper, sears 10" table saw and 6" jointer, Bellsaw thickness planner.
Taiwan Delta clone band saw.
After having been through it, my advice would be to get a 12" table saw
of almost any brand and then get a good ($$$) fence to with it. I
spent most of my time adjusting the fence.
I would also spend some money on tools to align the blade with the
table's miter groove. Perhaps some of the good table saws have
adjustment capability on the blade/arbor mount to align the blade with
the groove. Blades are usually not completely flat, so alignment can
become a chore.
I would get a 12" table saw because of resawing. After jointing one side
of the board you will need to resaw it to the correct thickness. You can
run it through a planer, if you have one, but it takes a long time and
makes a ton of shavings. With a 10" table saw you only get about a 3"
deep cut, so you can only resaw 6" boards (two passes). With a 12" you
can get more -- hopefully enough for an 8" board. Be sure to check the
max cut depth. I found resawing with a band saw to be too slow. Maybe my
blades were not very good.
Get an 8" jointer. The beds are longer, and it will go with the 12"
table saw.
Get a thickness planer with a fixed height table and moveable cutter
blades rather than fixed height cutter blades and moveable table. If the
table is fixed height, you can make extensions for the outfeed table.
Buy good quality blades -- carbide.
Don Malling
GA Carnut wrote:
>
> Amateur norm-wannabe, looking to get into some woodworking/furniture
> making (shelves, tables, etc.).
>
> I need a table saw, and was looking at Lowes the other day - Delta has a
> $99 table, a $179 table, and up.
>
> Would the $99 table fit my immediate needs, or do I need to look into
> something fancier (and/or used, etc.)??
>
> I'm going to surf over to the Harbor Freight sight and check stuff
> out... ;-)
>
> I'm of the buy it cheap, if I like it/use it, buy another more expensive
> model later - although I generally keep my old cheap tools for years...
> sorta like cheap furniture - that stuff never seems to go away...
>
> Thanks
>
> Chip
>
> Chip Mautz
>
> '88 BMW 528e
> '65 Austin Healey Sprite
> '03 Chevy Suburban
>
> I don't know. I'm making this up as I go - Indiana Jones
>
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