Popular Woodworking 2007-08 № 163, страница 44

The advantage of a low fence. When ripping narrow stock, the low fence gives you lots of room to work safely.

but the miter saw is still limited in its capacity to cut wide boards. That leaves the necessity of using crosscut sleds. I had a large array for my U.S. saws.

European table saws commonly use a sliding table for crosscutting. Early U.S. table saws had this feature. A sliding table carries work of all sizes and weights. The sliding table is guided close to the saw blade resulting in increased accuracy. Additional tables and fences of all sizes can be attached to the sliding table and removed. I believe it is the most important component that is missing from U.S. table saws. The DeWalt hybrid (also made for the European market) and the Jet Supersaw are U.S. table saws that do incorporate a small sliding table as an option. Grizzly is starting to offer European-style table saws with sliding tables on some of their saws.

When ripping and crosscutting on a European sliding table saw, the user stands to the front left side of the stationary table for most cuts. This means that you are operating the saw similarly to how you would feed a workpiece on a router table. It takes a little getting used to, but once you become accustomed to this stance you will find it feels much safer and you have more control ofthe workpiece - especially after the cut. The sliding table is frequently used for ripping as well. For example a waney-edged board can be held on the sliding table for making a straight rip. There are also sliding table fence accessories that allow parallel ripping on the sliding table. A sliding table has at least one miter-type slot for other accessories such as hold-downs.

Dado Cutting

We have come to expect dado-cutting capacity on U.S. table saws, and so our saws offer arbors that can accept the standard ¹³/l6" stacked dado. Dado cutting is in reality a shaping cut

Crosscutting. European saws have an array of fences for the sliding tables in different lengths. These can be used for mitering, crosscutting and compound cutting.

Difficult cuts made easy. Ripping the wane off a board or ripping a board with a crook can be a challenge. But with the European-style shoe attached to your sliding table, you can rip difficult woods with little effort or risk.

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