The Best Table Saw: Your Guide to the Most Affordable Equipment

What you need to know is that the table saw is pretty big. In fact, it’s similar to furniture in size. It's a table with a saw built inside it. It could scare a lot of people since let’s face it; we’re more comfortable handling a portable toon than bigger equipment.

However, that shouldn’t stop you from purchasing and trying one, especially if you plan to be in woodworking for quite some time. Gone are the inconvenient hacksaws and other manual tools that will take you forever to finish your project.

Now, all you need is to plug a table saw and drive the wood right towards the cutting blade. It’s quick, efficient, and more importantly, accurate. What's great about the table saw is that it significantly reduces the chances of human error.

To give you a clearer understanding on the table saw, it’s a good idea to deconstruct its composition and its function. For starters, table saws range in sizes. The sizes depend mainly on the table’s dimensions. The saw itself that’s built-in are pretty much the same.

Hence, depending on how big your projects are, your table saw can be as big as a dining table for four, or it can be smaller, just like a student’s desk. The table doesn’t do much. That’s because it’s designed to be just like a wood working bench that’s big enough to accommodate your woodworking comfortably.

Then, the main trick with the table saw is the blade itself. At the center of the table is the blade. That comes from thin yet ultra-sharp stainless steel. The way it looks is pretty intimidating which may scare off a few people from buying it.

The blade is circular, and it greatly resembles that of the one you see in a meat shop. However, one thing to note here is that meat slicers usually don’t have jagged teeth.

The table blade, however, has one. The jagged teeth it has resembles a crocodile’s, and this mainly functions to cut the wood’s grain as smooth as possible.

The saw blade’s height can be adjusted. That gives you versatility when you’re handling wood with different thickness grades. If your wood is thick, you have to crank up the handle upwards to slice through it accordingly. On the other hand, if you’re making slits only, then you can lower the blade to create midpoint cuts.

Lastly, the table saw comes with a set of complementary components. These are tools that help you achieve better results out of your table saw. One of the first and most noticeable is the rip fence.

The wall acts as a guide to allow your cutting to be straight and precise. It pushes the wood straightly, acting like a sort of T-square in industrial drafting applications. The fence is a great tool to have for cuts going with the grain, more commonly known as a rip cut, thus its name.

Further, you also have the miter gauge with the table saw. The miter gauge, on the other hand, is ideal for cross cuts. These are cuts going against the grain, and you can do horizontally. The miter gauge allows you to align your workpiece to specific degrees, giving it stability as you cut.