Miter Saw Reviews

In the beginning, there was the chopsaw. Fitted with a 10 inch blade, this sucker was (and still is) a workhorse on the job... From cutting wall studs to length, to fitting miters for door casing, every carpenter had one banging around in the back of his F-150...And life was good.

As cool as this tool was, it had it's limitations: What if you need a little backcut to close up a funky miter? You could sneak up the front edge of the workpiece with a paper shim to do it, but this was dangerous and dicey at best, and there was no way to duplicate the cut.

So a clever engineer put a bevel axis on the tool, and the compound miter box was born. Now a carpenter could dial in a miter and a bevel angle at the same time...and this changed EVERYTHING.

This tool was a money-maker as well: You could cut accurate copes for crown molding by laying it flat on the saw.

And life got just a little bit better for the average woodpecker on the job.

But the coumpound miter box had some drawbacks as well...For instance, your depth of cut was limited by the size of the blade itself. Therefore, even with a 12" blade, you couldn't cut a miter on a wide piece of baseboard, or square up a piece of 1 x 12 without flopping it over and lining up the kerf.

So along came Hitachi with the first sliding compound miter saw. Fitted with a regular skilsaw blade and equipped with a pair of sliding rails, this little tool had it all: the convienience of a compound miter saw with the innovation of a sliding blade that moved back and forth. Now you could make a continuous cut on a board up to 12 inches wide...and even "cheat" a wider board in a single pass by tilting it up at the end of the cut.

What's more, you could beat the snot out of this little saw, and it would still zero out dead nuts every time! Haul it up and down an extension ladder, let it fall off the back of a set of horses (the center of gravity was different with the slide!) and throw it in a steel box and the end of the day...no worries!

And life was very good indeed.

Today, sliding compound miter saws are available with an amazing variety of bells and whistles included...some that will make you money every day, and some that are just plain junk. You can spend alwmost $1000 for a tricked-out tool, but how many of these machines are worth any more than the original Hitachi workhorse from 25 years ago?

The purpose of this lens is to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of the modern sliding compound miter saw. New tools with amazing technolgy are being introduced all the time...This is great, but it's not easy sorting through all these different features when it's time to buy your next slider.

We'll talk about all these things and more on this lens, and I look forward to your input as well...What's YOUR favorite axe? What features are actually worth it? Is the best saw to set up on the job the same tool that you want in your shop? Which tool is the best value for a handy homeowner? Do you only buy green machines? Yellow? Blue? Let's break it all down and name names...We might even butt heads once in a while.

This tool is an absolute beast, and it looks like one too...I can't decide whether it looks more like a 68 pound BMX decal, or the slime-green Seahawks jerseys. Anyway, someone at Hitachi thought this Predator-styling was cool, and I don't mind as long as they keep making 'em like this one...In the interest of full disclosure, I have always been a big fan of Hitachi saws, and this one doesn't disappoint.

You can expect a saw this size to have power to spare. This model boasts a 15 amp belt driven motor with a soft start and smooth operation, with no blade wobble. I hated the blade that came with a saw, but once I switched it for a 12" Forrest Chopmaster the cut was glass-smooth (for half the price of the Forrest blade, I think the Ridgid titanium blades available at the Depot do a nice job).

The new feature on this model is the LCD dispay screen mounted on a flexible arm above the blade, which gives you a digital readout of the miter and bevel settings. I guess this is a nice feature, but I don't think I will use it as much as the laser guide, which is super-accurate once you dial it in. Hitachi was the first manufacturer to put these on all their saws, and for my money this one is the easiest to adjust and to see in daylight. Just remember that the laser lines up with the left side of the blade if you're cutting off to the right.

Another cool feature is the a micro-adjustment wheels for both the miter and bevel settings, which allow you to literally "dial in" a half a degree without moving the saw.

But the feature that sets this tool apart apart from the rest is the zero-clearance dual rail system. This lets you set the saw up flush against a wall, without banging the back of the rails into the wall to finish the cut.

This isn't the easiest tool to haul out of your truck and up a ladder...At 68 pounds, I think it's even heavier than the Bosch 12" slider. For this reason, this saw would be right at home set up in a cabinet shop. However, I would sure miss it on the job installing those cabinets, and would have to bring it along.

Watch out...this tool might spoil you for any other saw in it's class.

I downloaded these pdf files from the Fine Woodworking website, so you know they're the goods. I'll update this list as soon as I find some more. You will be a hero if you build any of these projects for the Mrs...except for maybe the router table.

Shaker Tall Clock
Shaker Bed
Platform Bed
Vinyard Table
Router Table
Kitchen Work Station
Keepsake Box
Cutting Board
Oak Bookcase
Workbench
Craftsman Wall Cabinet
Storage Bench