Tips on Selecting Saws

Pick a size
Saw blades are very expensive, the fewer of them you buy, the happier your wallet will be. If you plan on buying a table saw, a radial arm saw, a miter saw, or some combination of these, pick a size and stay with it. While there are a variety of sizes available, the most common and popular blade sizes are 10" and 12". If you stay with the same size blade for all of your saws, you will be able to share saw blades between your saws. In the long run, this will save you hundreds of dollars.

Corded or cordless?
Cordless tool technology has made significant advancements over the last several years. Tools that you would typically not think of being cordless, such as miter saws and circular saws, now offer cordless options. If you are considering a cordless saw and you have, or may have, other cordless tools, consider sticking with a single brand/battery system so that you can share batteries amongst your tools. Extra batteries are very expensive -- it is often cheaper to buy a new tool than to buy replacement batteries. If you buy multiple tools from the same manufacturer using the same battery technology, you will have additional batteries available to complete your job, this can really increase the amount of work you can get done.

Before settling on a cordless saw, remember that even though cordless technology is very advanced today, there will be limits to the amount of work that can be done in a single day with a cordless saw. If you are a hobbyist, a cordless saw may be a good solution. But if you are a contractor who will be cutting wood all day long, you may want to bypass cordless technology for tools that draw large amounts of power when cutting. Cordless saws are also more expensive to purchase and maintain. While your cordless saw may last for 10 or 20 years, you will be lucky if the batteries last for two. In addition to the higher up-front cost of a cordless saw, plan on shelling out more money in the future, perhaps repeatedly, as the batteries will need to be replaced eventually.

Read before you buy
Saws are a big investment -- they cost a lot of money and they get a lot of use in the typical workshop. Buying the correct saw is important and even more important is to avoid buying a saw that you will be unhappy with. Before buying a saw, always check the internet for reviews, rankings, and opinions for the type of saw you are looking to buy. After using a saw for a week or so, you will have a definite opinion about it. But it is nearly impossible to get the correct feel for a saw just by looking at the specifications. When you check the internet for saw rankings and reviews, you will be getting the opinion of people who have laid hands on the saw and who have an informed opinion. If people have problems with their expensive new purchase, they are usually more than happy to sound off on the subject and warn others away. Let their bad luck save you from the same fate.

Before buying any type of large tool, read the user manual first. You can learn a lot about how easy a saw is to use by reading the manual. If it takes 20 steps and an iterative process to ensure that your saw blade and table are square, you can be sure that this will lead to frustration in your future. If you are considering a saw where there are different cutting configurations, read the manual to see what is involved changing the configuration. If the process is long and hard to understand, it may be more trouble than it is worth and you will be inclined to just not use your saw this way. So even though it has some great features, if they are too hard to use, you will not use them. So why pay for them? You can find a lot of these sorts of problems just buy reading the manual for the saw before you buy it.