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After a hiatus of three years, I'm back to making guitars.
Getting the shop back in guitar mode has been a much bigger task than I thought it would.
But we're almost there.

The biggest thing I noticed right off the bat, was that a good table saw is about as useful as a good band saw.
You CAN make a guitar without both of the those tools, but having them saves so much time and effort.
This past summer I pulled the trigger and bought a nice table saw/contractor/cabinet saw. It's a belt driven 10" saw with a 4' table extension for ripping full sheets of material. It has a very nice rip fence and cross cut miter. I put a good thin kerf ripping blade on it.

After hand cutting about a hundred X braces by hand, I was AMAZED at the quality of the X I cut with this saw. The angle was perfect, and the fit was clean. First try. I'm sold.
But that's not the only thing I'll use the saw for. With the rip blade, I can cut stock down for binding, braces, struts, sides and just about any long thing that needs to be cut. And it does it so cleanly it rarely needs to be touched up with sand paper or a plane before gluing (the blade advertised this and I was skeptical, but their claims ring true.)

Hands down, this thing is a game changer.
And it is a bonus workbench space when not in use.

The biggest downside is that it is a finger cutter for sure. Every time the blade gets turned on, I need to be at my own mental and physical 100% best condition. Even with all safety gear in place, push sticks used, etc.. etc.. it still scares the hell out of me. As it should anyone using it. It is a spinning blade of death that should not be reckoned with. Fear it. Respect it. Know it. Understand it. If you can afford it buy a Saw Stop.

All in all, I don't know how I lived without one for so long.
If you're wondering if it's worth it, it is.
I'm not even going to get into makes, and models and prices. If it's a good (non-direct-drive box store special) table saw and you're wondering whether or not you need one for lutherie, you do. If you can't afford one, save you pennies and dream until you can get one.

Here ends my review.

Dave

The scare the hell out of me too. I simply don't have room for one. I've certainly bought tools that I could have kicked myself in the arse for not buying sooner, a drum sander is one, but I just never saw a need for a table saw the way I build guitars. But you very well may be right too. If I did ever get one I would definitely want the Saw Stop.

Welcome back to building.

I went the opposite way once I got my Laguna SUV. Now my main table saw holds a dado blade for cutting x brace laps and truss rod slots.

That said, I do have a second one that gets much use making neck and tail blocks, fretboards etc, and plan to add a few more with dedicated blades for specific tasks, but for me I only use the tablesaw for things that I can’t use the bandsaw…

I forgot the truss slot!!! That was a nightmare task turned into a dream. So quick and easy

I would not own a table saw if it's not SawStop or the SawStop technology. I have several professional carpenter gigging musician customers who lost fingers on table saws.

When I was building I bought a used saw and tricked it out and then the more I read about horrific injuries I let it sit and never used it. Then I gave it away and got it out of my life. Made the person I gave it too sign a waver holding me harmless if anything happened to them...

Many years ago there was an argument on the OLF where a very experienced woodworker was against the SawStop because he believed that this technology might one day be mandated by a government agency and that was too much big, bad government in his life for his taste.

Not trying to be argumentative but this is not about big, bad government to me it's about not getting my hotdog cut off.....

So I never used a table saw to build guitars and produced lots of them anyway and I still have all my fingers to play the new Rollings Stones tune Angry.

I bought the SawStop cabinet saw several years ago. It is a very good saw. I’m now capable of precision that I never had before with a cheaper contractor’s saw. I use it much more often than I used the older saw. I haven’t tripped the safety mechanism and I hope I never will, but if makes me feel a bit safer using the saw. The blade guard and riving knife are well designed and easy to use. You can still screw up if you don’t pay attention. I think the safety is well worth the extra money. You only have to pay for it once. If you’re considering a table saw, buy the SawStop.

Specially if ya got staff…

Great point job one for many companies is shielding the company from liability.

Ironically, I just changed the brake on my SawStop last night (I have the Contractor's saw). It fired two weeks ago during a cross-cut I made using bad technique. My fingers weren't anywhere near the blade, but I think the saw psychically knew and wanted to send me a signal.

I worked in the college shop twenty years ago making hundreds of wooden puzzles for the math department, pushing a crosscut sled for hours on end with all kinds of little hold-downs and templates to make repeat cuts. The blade grabbed a piece one day when I was pulling the sled back and threw it right past my ear about 20' back into the ceiling, where it ricocheted back down and still knocked a hole in the back wall. I only mention it to say I knew better than to be doing crosscuts the way I was doing them (not pushing to piece all the way through).

All that said, I absolutely love my saw.

Thanks for the review. Like you, when I have to use it, I don't even turn it on unless I am 100% mentally physically and emotionally. I don't even use it if I can do it on the bandsaw.

I was OK with the table saw until I joined my local wood guild and, sometime later, met an old member wearing a brace like thing on his arm. Went from his elbow to his wrist and laced up. He said he reached past/ beyond his table saw blade to retrieve a left side cut off, like he had done for 40 years. The board somehow kissed the back of the spinning blade and shot the board and his arm (from elbow to wrist) backwards across the spinning blade. He told me it was a miracle he didn't lose his forearm and hand and to NEVER reach past the blade. His tendons had been severed (yet salvaged) and he was in that brace for life. That story from that old guy made the table saw a death machine for me....

I see people do that beyond-the-blade maneuver almost daily on YouTube videos.

The only reason I even post this is to remind users that it is risky to reach beyond the blade. The likelihood of occurrence (of getting dragged across the blade) is very low but the result is catastrophic. I also always use the guard (built in riving knife) which makes it a PIA to use, but I do.

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Karl Borum

Dave,
I got my table saw back in 1977 or 78. I couldn't afford an expensive one so I bought a Craftsman. I build furniture and it was a necessity to break down lumber. It kept going out of adjustment and I asked my brother in law (he was in tool and die) for help on it. He took one look at it and said the trunion (the part the holds the blade) was not very well seated. We pulled it apart and he took it to work and milled the base flat where it meets the top. Just that turned this saw from a mid quality saw to a precision cutting machine. I still have it today and it works excellent.

I will tell you that you MUST make sure the blade is exactly parallel with the top. I check my alignment about once a year. If they are not perfectly square to each other you will have problems with pinching or wandering or worse kickbacks. That is what the trunion adjustment is for, so make sure it is perfectly aligned and it will cut true.

As for safety using a table saw you are wise to be afraid of it. I have used table saws since I was a teen and have never as much as nicked myself, but before I ever turn it on I have triple checked exactly what I am doing and what could go wrong. A healthy dose of fear is good but don't ever use it if you are afraid. Confidence and Respect is the way I use any of my tools that have spinning blades or cutters.

Since I don't make as much furniture anymore and started making guitars, my saw doesn't get used very much but it is very handy for some tasks.



I have a Laguna SUV as well and it did take over a lot of jobs my table saw use to do. I love my SUV!!

Cheers,
Bob

If you have to worry about someone other than yourself being hurt while using a table saw in your shop, a SawStop is the best choice, for sure. From a liability perspective, it is a smart way to spend money.

If you are the only person using the saw, you have to do some self-assessment and make choices. While safer, a SawStop is also limiting in terms of blade size. You can’t use it to cut fret slots, for instance. A person who maintains a healthy fear of the table saw and uses good practices 100% of the time should be able to avoid injury from a standard saw. If you know you are prone to get sloppy, then definitely buy a SawStop.

Check into the Jobsite Saw Stop model. it's about $1,500. it does almost everything a bigger saw does and takes up very little space. I'm a general contractor as well as a Luthier. I've had them all and burned thru over 25 Table saws in the 30 years I've been a builder.

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While I haven't used the top of the line SawStop, I have used the ones beneath it, and they are kind of junky all things considered. Too boot they can be very finicky in regards to the computer (e.g. it gets fried for whatever reason), can have hiccups in regards to blades used (freaks out the sensor and needs adjustment of "things")...and they cost out the butt for what you are getting in regards to pure kwality when compared to other saws. just my two pennies

After you find this woodworker who has used good practices 100% of the time their entire life, having never once made even a small error or taken a minuscule shortcut, you can get to work on locating Bigfoot.

Well, Josh, no offense intended, but that’s hyperbole. We’re talking about making mistakes while standing at, and actively using, a table saw. Whether the user has ever made a mistake during the entirety of that person’s life, or even just for their time spent woodworking, is not the question. There are plenty of people who use standard table saws without serious incident, because they stay properly afraid of it and take the right precautions during the short moments they are actively using it. I can make mistakes with a pencil and be fine. I can’t afford to make mistakes with my table saw, so I don’t.

Having learned a bit about luthiery in a tablesaw-centric shop, a capable practitioner can make the tool sing and dance, to include long, curved freehand rips, milling of small sectioned stock such as binding, carving of chair seats, and other tricky stuff. That said, I never grew comfortable with the 3 horsepower cabinet saw at Greenridge, and admitted to such when the subject arose. The response was "Good. Don't."

The saw wore a 7-1/4" 40 tooth Diablo most of the time, but even with that blade an understanding of the nature of the beast was needed to avoid doing inherently stupid things. I doubt I will feel compelled to add a tablesaw to my own shop, but it was fascinating to see one used by a Bigfoot.

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

We may get a visit in this thread from an OLFer who I received a message from today an hour before he went into surgery. I'm not using his name, yet because he is still recovering from surgery for a very bad hand injury from his table saw while building a guitar. I want to ask him before I use his name of course.

He's been here, the OLF for a very long time, you all may know him although he has been less active in recent years.

Coincidence yes that he had to have surgery on his hand today as this thread is active.

Be careful out there folks table saws are not only potentially dangerous the wounds can be horrific.

Dave Collins did check out the SawStop contractor saw and he was so impressed he sought out the rest of the line and checked them out too. I've looked at them as well and what I keep hearing which matches my own thinking is that these are very high end, well made saws.

Dave had for years a Unisaw so he is used to very good saws and he thought the SawStop was superior and the safety technology a game changer.

I don't need to use a table saw these days for anything but if I did I would be all over a SawStop.

The contractor version of the saw stop to me looked very much like the Sawstop tech dropped into an older Bosch platform before it was constantly ‘improved’ for better profit…err…performance.

I love my Bosch tablesaw even though it only has two tasks now, I’ve rebuilt it twice…

No offense taken Don - My point is that 100% of people who have suffered injuries while using a table saw had a period of their lives - in many cases a very long period - where they had never suffered a table saw injury. In many cases this was because they knew how to use the tool sensibly. None of that is hyperbole.

I commend your safe practices while using the table saw and don’t doubt you are an experienced operator who knows what he is doing, too.

I suggest however that any notion that a person can, through sheer will power and concentration, reduce the chances of an accident to zero is fanciful and not reality-tested - for the simple reason that even the most careful human is an imperfect being, and the universe careens inexorably towards an entropic state.

The great thing about sawstop’s tech is that you can keep using all your safe practices and enjoy an extra layer of redundancy in terms of keeping safe.

I have never used a Sawstop job site saw so cannot comment on them. My sawstop cabinet saw was, at the time I purchased it, as good (or better) a tool as any other US-style 10” table saw that I could find for sale. Yes, a 12” saw is more useful in many ways but this 10” machine will make clinically accurate, ready to glue up cuts at full depth very dense hardwood. It was not, at the time I bought it, much more expensive than the competitor “premium” saws in its market segment.

I have not set the brake off once in many years of use - because I use the tool carefully. The technology is a safety net, not an excuse to be reckless.

I don’t think I, or anyone, suggests we can reduce risk of injury to zero. What I suggest is that one can reduce the risk to acceptable low levels by being a responsible user of the table saw during the few moments the blade is spinning as well as in the planning of the cut beforehand. I work with dangerous chemicals when I finish guitars, but I take good precautions, wear the right PPE, etc. I use a propane tank-fueled grill to cook meat on my back deck. I think we all assess personal risk and figure out how we want to get things done. Being blunt, I cringe when I read about some of the subpar ways folks “protect” themselves when they use some finishing products. But I bet some of those folks own a SawStop. And I am glad they are safer when using their table saws; but I wish they were safer when spraying finish.

Can I ask how you cut fret slots, Josh? I’m not opposed to owning a SawStop, but I don’t want to cut fret slots by hand, and I don’t want to use a second, smaller saw for that task alone.

Not sure what my or your fret slots have to do with saw safety, Don - cut them any way that brings you joy and equip your workshop to suit your tastes. I don’t think I suggested you should stop using your table saw to cut fret slots nor that you should sell your current saw and buy a sawstop.

I was making a comment on the notion that a person who uses safe saw techniques 100% of the time should be able to avoid injury. I don’t disagree that to always use only safe techniques would be effective, I just think it is an impossible ideal and in the real world there is not likely to be any saw user who would meet this “100% safe behaviour, 100% of the time” goal. Hence, the utility of an extra safety feature.

Fret slots probably came up because you cannot use the SM or LMI fret slotting blades with Sawstop. I have the Sawstop contractor saw and I love it. I use it a ton, more outside of guitars than with, but it is a great saw.

Side note: if anyone has the Sawstop contractor saw and wants to improve the dust collection send me a PM and I’ll share some plans for enclosing the base.



I also integrated a down draft table into the extension. Totally tricked out.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

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Josh—

I didn’t mean that question as anything other than a question, so that I can understand how a SawStop owner gets this job done. If it came off as anything other than that, I apologize. If I owned a SawStop, I would have to cut fret slots some way other than the method I use now, because a SawStop will not work with the StewMac fret slotting blade (which I use with a crosscut sled and templates). Some SawStop owners cut fret slots by hand. Others own a smaller table saw that is only used to cut fret slots. Maybe there is some other solution I have not considered. If I ever buy a SawStop (I’m not against them; I just have a mix of considerations), I will need to make a decision on how to do this job. Mere curiosity, nothing else intended.