Need a miter saw

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My 10" Delta miter saw is broken. The motor turns but the blade does not like a gear is stripped.

Brand suggestions, positive, negative?

Seems laser light is a good thing? 10"? 12"? Sliding? 12" too big? Compound? I do Handyman work, I want a versatile saw, mostly for mouldings but also vinyl and laminate flooring, occasional deck repair, cutting wall studs, 2x4/6. At times I wished I had a sliding saw so I didn't have to flip the wood over but are they bulky? Unwieldy? What is a dual bevel saw? Is that a compound saw?
 
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i have the dewalt dual bevel 12" saw . it does all is need while still being reasonably portable. slider are nice, but they are a pain to lug around .
 
Get the Dewalt 12" slider, there's no point getting a non-sliding model and the 12" is nice and not just for crown. Dewalt is good enough for pro use, that's the most common chop saw on a jobsite by a mile.

Get a stand for the saw and some material stands if you can swing it. You can usually pick the saw and stand up on sale.
 
Many of the new saws out there are just excessively large and fancy.

I have a hitachi that is prety old. I like it. 10". IMO simpler but well designed is better.

I would say you DO want a sliding, compound saw. But some are just giant and overly fancy, IMO.
 
i been doing home remodeling for 40 or so years , still have my 10 inch delta but it was wearing out , being i'm about ready to retire ( yeah right ) ) I bought a 10 inch craftsman slider does all I want it to do ' some saws just have to much ginger bread that you don't need or probably would rarely use
 
If you ever say in front of your saw and had to flip the wood around a few times to match with the bevel of your particular saw. Dual bevel is convenient. That way when you are doing crown moulding and compound miter cuts, you cut one side. slide the mounding down to the other end, change the bevel then cut the other side. no need to flip the board upside down for the opposite end. Which ever is more convenient for you. Since my wall angles are all unique (90 +/- 4 degrees) I wound up touching the bevel for each cut anyway.

I got the 10" harbor freight. It has a good blade but the mechanism is a bit flemsy. If you just grab the arm and pull in down when it is on a bevel angle, the arm will deflect slightly and change the angle by a degree or so. Knowing this you need to apply force only in the direction of the bevel as much as possible to keep a true angle. My cousins dewalt does not do this to a large degree, so that is the tradeoff for HF low cost. Still a very workable saw.
 
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I've had a 10" Makita Slide compound miter saw for about fifteen years. Precise, smooth, durable.

Hitachi, Makita, Dewalt are all good saws. Slide allows more crosscut capability, and that's been very useful.

My Makita is quite portable, about 60 lbs. So, it's easy to set up and move around. Not miter box easy, but easy enough.
 
NOTE: I am not a professional framer or carpenter.

This does everything I need it to do, and quite well.

[Linked Image from hfqpdb.com]
 
I had a low end 10" saw that I just gave away to a friend, worked great, but wanted to be able to cut wider pieces. I stuck with a 10" saw to be able to share blades with my table saw. My projects rarely need anything thicker than a 4x thickness dimensional lumber, but often wider than a 6x width board. If I need to cut anything much wider than that, I go to the table saw or hand saw with a guide.

I have a pretty small "workshop" if you can even call it that, so size was a concern. I ended up getting a Hitachi C10FSHC. It needed some minor tuning to get the cuts at a perfect 90 degrees, but nothing too bad. The selling point was the compact sliding mechanism, allowing it to fit a little more snugly against the wall. It was priced reasonably well at Menards (not in store, shipping only) at $279 (plus the additional 11% mail-in rebate that was happening at the time). Also not terribly heavy at 45lbs.
 
My go to saw is an 8-1/2" Hitachi compound sliding miter, use it for most everything. Have had it for 20yrs and love it. Also have a 40yr old 10" Delta (cast iron base) which I leave mounted on a bench w/extension. The name brands are all fine so get what you want...
Tom
 
Originally Posted by Linctex
NOTE: I am not a professional framer or carpenter.

This does everything I need it to do, and quite well.

[Linked Image from hfqpdb.com]



That's the one I bought also together with a craftsman table, I am a totally useless woodworker so quality anything is wasted on me, surprisingly the thing seems to do everything it should pretty well as far as I can tell.
I need it for small jobs and figured if it died after the warranty I would just toss it, its done a lot more than that and been trouble free, I did buy a good Freud blade for it and that seems to be the trick to getting nice cuts.
 
I bought today at Home Depot a discontinued floor model for $75, Ryobi, 10" sliding compound single bevel miter saw with a 3 yr warranty.
 
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Originally Posted by JLawrence08648
I bought today at Home Depot a discontinued floor model for $75, Ryobi, 10" sliding compound single bevel miter saw with a 3 yr warranty.



Good price. Check it out real well before you get rid of the box. Make sure 45 degree cuts are really 45 and so forth.
 
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