Official Luthiers Forum!

I have not verified this. But we may be on the front end of this one. I'm going in the morning to check. But if true, some of you might want a shot at it. I'm pretty sure I would.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/DEWALT-15-Am ... /206541015

This saw is normally $599, currently showing $399 on line. Word is it's going for $245 in store.

Dewalt slider dual bevel, 12".

Mike

I'm sure things haven't changed...

DeWalt uses the biggest POS bearings around...I have one of those saws...in about 2 years of not even daily work there are pieces of bearing shards (bearings, races, whatever) all over the insides of it...

so go ahead, get one...then get real smart and get all of the bearings pressed out, find some with matching specs made in Germany, and replace em...

sadly, I can make no real recommendation as to just what to buy these days...I'm still using my Makita LS 1211 that I got on closeout in '99.

current production Makitas have issues with blade wobble, and on a 12" blade you can trust me when I say it's a very bad thing...

finally, I don't think a luthier has any use for a 12" saw...if one ever seriously uses them then one needs to acquire a blade like Freud's ultimate cutoff blade with a plate thickness of about .105 and kerf of .125...thin kerf blades flex when making adjustment cuts of 1/64"...

No need for 12" saw? You never built a harp guitar? You need 12" of everything to build one of them hogs.

Point taken. Will do some research.

well, I guess if you need a large vertical capacity, then a 12" saw it is...I've found that modern day 10" saws have the same vertical capacity as my old Makita (4.5") and when you factor in the sliding aspect most things can be cut...

sure, my current dream saw would be a Makita LS1216...16" slide capacity and some obscene vertical capacity (over 6" IIRC)...if I could be guaranteed a properly working one I'd jump at it...I do have a decent option on it possibly...I've known a local small time Makita dealer for over 20 years, and if he would guarantee that he would make it right, I'd pay his high price for one...at this point I still enjoy the old one...only saw to EVER miter both directions to 60*, and I have the bevel adjustment maxed out and can get 60* if needed...

either way, I stand by me evaluation of DeWalt saws and their really junk bearings...while I love their rack and pinion fence on their table saws, I've gone through 5 rebuilds over the last 12 years with them...and yeah, next one I'll follow my own advice above and make it last

Having had a good 10" Makita sliding compound bevel saw for years, all I can say is that it is delight to have a larger saw the last few years. My 12" Hitachi sliding compound bevel saw gets used everyday in the shop. It can be said a luthier probably does not need more than a 10" saw, or in fact need one at all, but if you have the room get that larger saw.I don't know about that DeWalt, never have really liked yellow tools, but my Hitachi is a great saw. Sometimes it gets used steady for hours at a time because besides building guitars & ukes I sell sets, pen blanks, mill wood for people, among other things. It's had a couple of years of steady use and it will still cut a perfect scarf joint on a headstock. Good enough for me.--Bob

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“ The meaning of life is to find your gift and the purpose of life is to give it away” Pablo Picasso

I have the newer version of this saw the dws 780 with the xps system and I haven't experienced any issues with it. I have heard and only heard this online about issues with the smoothness of the slide but mine works fine. This may have been taken care of with the newer model. I gotta say having a larger crosscut capacity is great compared to my basic 10" that I had. Not just for guitar stuff for woodworking in general.

Sent from my HTC Desire 626s using Tapatalk

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Another day, another dollar.

I don't need 12". 10" would be fine. There have been times I wished I had a slider. I'm just terribly surprised a Dewalt tool would have crappy bearings. And, I use my Hitachi bevel way more than my table saw.

well, I've experienced it first hand repeatedly, and have since heard a lot of bad things said about them from ppl. in the industry I trust...

funny, I have a (buried) memory of about 20 years ago...a co-worker had to replace bearings on his dewalt saw 2 years in a row, and he got lucky and the repair guy told him that the Black and Decker bearings (basically same saw with a different name) were of better quality, so he got those and from then until he left the crew (about 3 years later) he didn't have any issues...

I wish that memory was in the forefront when I got my 12" DeWalt slider...

no great regrets on the table saws though...just gotta love that fence system!...still, annoying to have to rebuild so often...eh, will shortly be given either a SawStop or one of the new Bosch REAXX saws by my employer and will have to deal with the typical T fence system.

anyway, if a 10" slider works for you then go for it...the blades are cheaper in general, you won't find it necessary to use high $ thick plate blades...

If a 10" saw works for you, don't bother buying a 12", because the bigger the blade, the more deflection, even when cutting softwoods.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

What about the Makita 10" slide?

I like my other Makita tools

lasers.......

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Pat

Yes!

Kidding aside, besides lasers, does it have led lighting?

it's the workhorse of the company I work for...

and has an unacceptable incidence of blade wobble (bad spindle bearing I assume) that Makita is apparently aware of yet chooses to ignore for all practical purposes...

one of my co-workers bought 3 of them from Hell Depot and on the fourth got a good one...ever heard the 'urban legend' that Hell Depot has inferior products? well I believe it in fullness...they demand lower wholesale prices from their suppliers, and I can very easily believe said suppliers send them seconds...I've had way too many instances of tools bought from them that just didn't stand up to snuff...and too boot my research indicates the UPC label on Hell Depot's products many times don't match the same product from another retailer!

from my viewpoint (from having been a full time wood worker for 32 years) it's all because of the weekend warrior types...their demand has lead to a price war among the manufacturers that used to be known for quality products...unless you are a heavy wood worker who does work that requires a miter saw, you probably will never really know how crappy modern day tools are in many cases...obvious result of said price wars is lower quality caused by cutting corners to shave a penny here and another there...

as far as lighting, I think Makita did away with that option...and really, the laser is only for approximations when doing really fine work, but it certainly helps

anyway, if one acquires a good example of a Makita saw I do recommend them...but blade wobble of any kind with a new saw and a new blade is unacceptable...yeah, sometimes a blade becomes warped and that causes wobble that one might think is the saw...as has already been stated, a 10" blade is better if one can accept the vertical cutting restrictions...I keep reading online about ppl saying sharpen your blades...well that's a dream from my life experience...every sharpener locally I've used is (edited)...heck, my employer once demanded that I supply him with one of my Freud Ultimate Cutoff blades to resharpen, and they ruined it completely...he has since learned I make my blades last over a year, and simply supplies me with a new one when that time comes...big secret on my part is that I religiously change out blades from good to 'bad' when cutting suspect materials...like MDF...every single cut into MDF takes a lot of life away from a good blade

Even their own stuff can be funky - it took me three tries to get one of the Ridgid oscillating spindle sanders that worked completely correctly (as far as I could tell) straight out of the box.

But my 18V cordless Makita drill seems to be just fine

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

Well, how about naming a good, quality slider saw?

I never had a chop saw until I started remodeling the house'n shop. I grabbed a used Dewalt 12 for a song and it is real fun cutting a 4x6 or a stack of 2x6's in 3 seconds. Just as messy as the table saw though so it goes in the outside shop.

It doesn't seem all that precise but I think it will come in handy for lutherie just rough cutting stuff and save the bandsaw blades.

My lutherie teacher, the late great Rob Gurdis, had a Dewalt (not sure what size), claimed it was the most precise 90° cut in the shop and used it for fret boards etc. Maybe it was older.

Maybe I'll try a 10 or get one of those expensive thick blades. How can you tell if the bearings are bad? Feel the blade wobble when pushed?

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Pat

I'll bet blade wobble leads to wide kerfs

my test for blade wobble is make a cut, let off the trigger, and as the blade spins down move the cut piece up against the still depressed blade...if no wobble/runout then the blade plate will smoothly slide against the cut, if wobble you will see the plate touch, not touch, etc...

on a 12" there are arbor adapters that go from the 5/8" arbor on the saw to the 1" hole in the blade...these do wear out over time and the slop creates wobble also...just things to be aware of when figuring out the source of the wobble and stopping it if it is something other than the saw

as I've previously stated, I can give no definitive answer to what to currently buy...also as noted, most of my crew uses the 10" makita

Finally a question I feel qualified to answer.
IMHO the milwaukee slider is the champ.It has the least deflection fully extended of any I've used, which is most of them including the festool and the bosch with double arm system. In place of a lasar they use a led system on both sides of the blade. The kerf is defined by the shadow of the blade, a great system. Blade wobble on the units I've had my hands on is not an issue. Miter and bevel adjustments are good a digital display for the miter angle had me concerned but repeated abuse testing has shown it to be both accurate and reliable. Coupled with a forest chopmaster blade the saw leaves silky smooth cuts.

Thanks Chris. Is the Milwaukee only a 12"?

only a 12"

This probably a dumb question. But, I don't have a lot of room. So my chop saw sits on a shelf below one of my work benches. I can yank it out and toss it back when I'm done. I'm realistically guessing a 10" slider will be more of a handful. Predicting a 12" will be downright difficult. Am I wrong?

Yes they are brutes, a 10" is marginally better. I use an old 12" Dewalt non slider in the shop, for long cuts or when I want as perfect as possible cuts I use a miter sled on the table saw. The sliders for me are job site saws, you can do a lot with them if furniture/cabinet quality cuts are not necessary. On a side note I gave my venerable hitachi 81/2" slider to my son last year and miss it, much smaller lighter then any other slider accurate and with some imagination most cuts are possible.