If I ever get a new Table Saw it will be like the ones

[Derek Cohen]

Interesting. Thanks Dave. It may be in the set up. The Hammer panel saws I have viewed have been very reliable. I have other Hammer machines (N4400 bandsaw and A3-31 jointer-planer) and they are exceptionally solid. So we shall see.

Incidentally, there are zero clearance inserts available for these saws (I have ordered a couple). 

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Dave Diaman]

Arlin,  a really good customer and friend of mine was also a avid woodworker. Not very talented but he loved working in the shop and got a lot of enjoyment out of it. He was also very wealthy and his shop reflected it. He passed away about 10 years ago and left a large portion of his shop to me. One of the things he left me was a Felder sliding tablesaw. At the time I had a Steel City industrial cabinet saw that I really liked. I didn't have room for two saws so I sold the Steel City cabinet saw because I figured the Felder would be much nicer. The dado head for the Felder alone was $1000 from Felder. After a year of struggling with the saw I decided to sell it and bought a SawStop. For sheet goods it was great. The problem was I almost never use sheet goods. For the type of woodworking I do the saw was more of a henderance than an asset. I figured I would get used to it and adapt but it never happened. I nice cabinet saw and a well made crosscut sled is a much better option for me.

Derek, at the time I had the saw I sued to visit the Felder/Hammer distributer here regularly. When I asked about a zero clearance throat plate for the slider they looked at me like I had two heads. They may have never been asked the question before and just assumed that there was no such animal though. I honestly can't remember what the area above the blade looked like but I seem to remember adding a zero clearance insert would have been really tough. I ended up laying a sheet of Masonite on top of the saw and raising the blade through it to make my zero clearance insert. The saw was an exceptionally well built machine. It simply wasn't suited to the type of work I do.

[BloomingtonMike]

The 700 is a night and day different nicer saw than the nicest hammer. Also about 2x the cost and double the weight.

[Dave Diaman]

Mike, that saw was a beast and unbelievably heavy. If I remember correctly it was a little over 1000 lbs. There was a range in weight in the manual and mine had the 4hp motor and not a whole lot of the power options for lifting and tilting the blade so I guessed it was at the lower end of the weight scale. If you get the thing loaded I think it ends up being About 1300lbs. It also takes up a ton of room with the sliding table and the outrigger. At the time I was still in my small shop so it was tight at times depending on what I was doing. Once again though if you are working with sheet goods the saw was great. It went to a cabinet shop and all it does now is cut plywood. The shop uses a standard cabinet saw for cutting all their hardwood which makes sense to me. I do remember ripping on the slider using the fence was uncomfortable. The sled is where you would normally stand and it was pretty awkward to rip hardwood on the one I had. With a smaller one it may not be that bad but mine was pretty small as far as sliders go. Actually now that I think about it I have never been in a commercial shop that used a slider for hardwood. I would guess they just kept the saws set up with scoring blades and didn't want to run hardwood on them.

[bcw]

The large slider isn't the best fit for a 1 tablesaw shop, IMO.  I have a SCMI 300N (10 footer), a Sawstop Industrial, and a Delta Uni.  I use the slider for chopping up ply, making crosscuts (hardwood and ply), and making a straight edge on hardwood that is less than 10' long.  I sometimes feel silly firing up a 14hp phase converter and a 10hp slider to crosscut a couple pieces of wood, but that's what I do.  For ripping lumber on it, nope. I am very uncomfortable ripping solid lumber on the slider, so I use the SStop.  I can't get my body in the correct position, the slider table is in the way...just don't have the room to fit my fat butt in the space allowed or I'm leaning over the sliding table.  Plus, the sliding tabler sits a couple thousands higher than the cast iron tabletop, making rip cut on material that covers both iron table and sliding table even more difficult.  I asked the SMCI tech who set my saw up about this, it's on purpose.  So......for ripping SStop it is.  Plus SStop is way safer than the slider, all the slider has is the guard over the blade.

I set the Uni up as a dedicated dado or thin ripping with a powerfeed.  I don't get my hands too close the the blades on any of my machines, running dadoes w/powerfeed is awesome and very safe. Same for ripping narrow pieces, plus the cut quality is so much better than hand feeding.

If I could only have 1, I'd be the SStop with the SStop sliding attachment or an Excalibur sliding table (General bought it out, not sure).  I had an Excalibur slider on the Delta way back, but bought the SCMI because I couldn't build frame-less cabs accurately enough with that Excalibur.  Not sure which would table would be more accurate over time, I seen the SawStop sliding table, seems pretty solid, just a little short for breaking up plywood.

If I could have only 2, I would have a 8' minimum stroke length slider w/scoring and a SStop.  Not getting scoring on the slider makes that machine much less useful.

I bet most people who have a little time to spare could get by with a Festool (or like) tracksaw, a very accurate and large square to allow tracksaw crosscuts with/in plywood, and a tablesaw with or without a small slider table.

Just my opinion, your results may vary.

[Derek Cohen]

Hi David

I don't work with panels, plywood or MDF. Only hardwood. The video example I linked to earlier was about building a desk in solid walnut. I do find it interesting that this thread is the first I have come across that contains any negatives about ripping with a slider. I can only put that down to differences in work methods, or difficulties in making the slider work for ripping (of course, the K3 - and other sliders - may be used like a contractor saw as well).

The Fritz and Franz jig (or similar) is important when ripping. Without this, ripping on a slider is not the simple task it can become ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqzVglze9Nk

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Dave Diaman]

Derek, that video just reinforces my point. If you need to add a new jig or set up every time you switch between ripping and crosscutting that would be a big problem for me. those set ups all take time and when I look at the number of times I switch between the two operations while building a piece of furniture that would really add up for me. I didn't see hi ripping anything longer than probably 36". I wonder what he does for that. As BCW stated the cast iron surface sets a little lower than the sliders surface which made ripping boards the sit on the slider and Ci surface problematic as well. As I said having a slider as the only saw in my shop was a real problem for me but time is money when you are selling your work. If set up time isn't an issue then no need to worry.

[Dave Diaman]

Derek, have you been using a slider or are you waiting to get your first? If you haven't spent a significant amount of time on one I will be interested to hear your thoughts after 6-8 months. I know I had myself convinced that the slider was the best thing since sliced bread until I spent a few months on it. Also keep in mind that my tablesaw is the most used machine in my shop and I'm in the shop 60-80 hours a week. As far as quality goes the euro machines are second to none. I have an Italian made Laguna jointer and bandsaw as well as a big Italian MiniMax bandsaw and they are the nicest machines I own. If you don't mind the set up time to reconfigure the saw for different operations then the benefits you gain may far outweigh the negatives. For me set up time is a really big deal. This is the reason I have a dedicated dado cabinet saw and a bandsaw dedicated to scroll work and another for resaw work. At any rate the Hammer machines are great machines and should last you a lifetime.

[Derek Cohen]

David, the K3 will be my first slider, however I have used a couple. After 25+ years using contractor and cabinet table saws as well as one with a slider attachment, I do understand the differences.

Nevertheless, it is evident to me that we are coming at this from different directions. I am an amateur, albeit a serious amateur, spending about 20 hours per week in the shop (with a day job that takes up 60 hours each week). I do not have the deadlines you have, and no need for three table saws each set up for a different task (as per bcw). My reply was to Arlin, the OP, another amateur. 

In my shop I have fewer machines than most, and prefer it that way. I have a bandsaw, a combo jointer-planer, and (soon to be new) table saw. Once the boards are prepared I work with hand tools. One of the advantages I have enjoyed over the 20 years of my last saw (with the slider attachment) has been that it also replaced a compound mitre saw. I see the K3 not only doing a better job here, but extending the range of saw cuts in a number of ways. As I mentioned before, the Sawstop was a consideration, but in the end really did not add functionality over what I had (safety issues aside).

Regards from Perth

Derek

[ez-duzit]

Another here who has multiple table saws: a Unisaw with 10" carbide rip blade, a Unisaw with 10" carbide combination blade, a contractors saw with 8" dado, and an ancient Sears tilt-table saw with 4" thin kerf carbide blade for model building. The rip and dado saws are built together on a mobile base. The combination saw is built with a cast iron router table on a stationary base; this saw has a crosscut sled plus a Laguna sliding table. Virtually all lumber crosscutting is done on a radial arm saw which remains set at 90 degrees. Mitering is accomplished using a chop saw, a simple miter box or the TS miter gage. Sheet goods are cut using a vertical panel saw and a Festool track saw plus the TS.

This is what has evolved over more than 40 years of yacht quality woodworking.