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Suggestions on Selecting a Saw

1. Choose a blade size

Saw blades are very costly, the fewer saw blades you purchase, the better off you will be. If you will eventually will purchase a radial arm saw, a miter saw, a table saw, or some assemblage of these saws, pick a size and stay with it. While there are many sizes available, the most common and popular blade sizes are 10" and 12". If you stick with the same size blade for all of your different types of saws, you will be able to share saw blades between your saws. In the long run, this will save you hundreds of dollars.

2. Cordless or corded?

Batteries for cordless tools have made large advancements over the last several years. Tools that you would never think would have a cordless option, such as circular and miter saws, now offer cordless options. If you are considering a cordless saw and you have, or may someday have, other cordless tools, consider staying with a single battery/brand system so that you can use batteries amongst all of your tools. Extra batteries are very expensive -- it's usually cheaper to get a brand new tool than to purchase replacement batteries. If you purchase multiple tools from the same manufacturer using the same battery technology, you'll have extra batteries at your disposal to finish your task, this can significantly increase the amount of work you can get done.

Before deciding to purchase a cordless saw, don't forget that there will be limits to the amount of work that can be done in a single session with a cordless saw. If you are a hobbyist or you don't use your saw for long periods of time, a cordless saw may be a good solution for you. But if you're a contractor who will be cutting wood all day long, you will probably want to bypass cordless technology for tools that draw large amounts of power.

Cordless saws are also more expensive to purchase and maintain. Your cordless saw may last for 10 or 20 years; but the batteries will not. On top of the higher cost up-front of a battery operated saw, plan on spending more money in the future too, perhaps repeatedly, as the batteries need to be replaced.

3. Read before you purchase

A saw is a large investment -- they cost a lot of money and they get a lot of use in the typical workshop. Getting the correct saw is a big deal and even more important is to avoid getting a saw that doesn't work for you. Prior to buying any saw, check the internet for rankings, reviews, and opinions for the kind of saw you are thinking about buying. If you use a saw for a week or so, you'll form an opinion about it. But it's nearly impossible to get a real feel about a saw just by reading the specifications. When you read the internet for saw reviews and rankings, you will get the opinion of people who have worked with the saw and who have an informed opinion. When people have problems with their costly new purchases, they are usually more than happy to let other people know if something is not good. Let their bad luck save you from getting stuck with the same bad saw.

Before you purchase any type of large tool, read the user manual first. You can find out a lot about how easy a saw is to use by reading the manual. If it takes a whole bunch steps that has to be repeated several times to make sure that your table and blade are square, you can probably be sure that this will lead to frustration in your future. If you are thinking about a saw where there are multiple cutting configurations, look at the user manual to find out what level of work is involved in changing the cutting configuration. If the set up is difficult and not easy to understand, it could be more effort than it is worth and you will be inclined to just not use your saw this way. So even though it has some cool features, if they are too complicated to use, you will not use them. So why spend extra for them? You can flush out a lot of these sorts of problems just buy reading the manual for the saw before you purchase it.

Article Source: http://www.ebaykings.co.uk

William has been working construction for over 20 years. You can find his saw reviews at www.saw-rankings.com where he is a senior contributing editor.

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