Tool review: 3-HP Tablesaws

 

Delta's miter gauge has a spring-loaded
lever with a pin that slips into nine detent
notches to accurately set common angles.

 

Besides having five miter detents,
Powermatic's miter gauge features
a rack-and-pinion microadjuster for
fine-tuning.

Some miter gauges stand out

Here we saw real differences. A couple saws come with old-school, ho-hum miter gauges with three miter stops and no frills. Four others add width adjusters on the bars to remedy a sloppy fit in the miter slot. The remaining saws include upgraded miter gauges with extra detent stops (top photo), additional adjustments (center photo), and large, comfortable handles.

 

SawStop's blade guard hooks up to a
small dust hose that effectively sucks
up all the debris that normally would
spew out the top.

•Cut quality. An expensive saw won't make a bad blade cut better, so it makes sense to outfit the saw with a high-quality blade. Four machines come with a blade, but only one made furniture-quality cuts in our tests. When we outfitted the others with a new, premium blade, we saw improvement with each one.
•Dust collection. These saws fall into three categories for gathering dust: those with only a dust port at the bottom of the cabinet; those with a blade shroud that connects directly to the dust port; and those with a blade shroud and a blade-guard mounted dust port (bottom photo). Generally, saws with blade shrouds outperformed those without; guard-mounted ports proved a mixed bag.