Table Saw vs Track Saw vs Circular Saw! Which Should You Buy?

one of the most common questions I get is should I get a circular saw or track saw track saw our table saw job site or cabinet basically some iteration of that question and while I can't answer that question without truly knowing you and what your situation and goals are hopefully this video will serve as a guide to help you make that decision on your own so first let's go through a few tools a bunch of cuts you can make on them and then at the end I'll get into a few of the more opinion-based things first up is this circular saw for ripping with the circular saw the most basic option is gonna be using something with a straight edge as a guide as usually just use a long piece of plywood for this the pro here is that there's virtually no size limit to what you can cut in other words if you had a straightedge 100 miles long you can make a hundred-mile long cut you just need a big battery or a long cord the downside is that it's just kind of slow you have to reset up your cut each time you make a new one so if you were trying to rip four identically wide panels it would just take you a little bit longer and you'd be more likely to introduce human error as you set up the cut for different times now I've built entire projects with circular saws and something like this the Craig rip cut really helps to make it easier basically it lets you set a distance and repeat the cut as many times as you like so it doesn't make the actual cut faster but it makes this setup faster and a lot more consistent so if a circular saw is gonna be your main tool I'd pretty easily recommend something like this and by the way I'm gonna put links to everything that I'm talking about in the description so you can check them out after the video if you're interested okay the next tool we're gonna talk about is a track saw ripping with the track saw is pretty similar to ripping with a circular saw in a straightedge the main difference being that the setup is just a lot faster instead of clamping down a straightedge factoring the distance between your base plate and your saw blade and so forth you just strike a line lay your track on it and cut the down side would be that you're limited by the amount of track that you have that said you can buy a really long track or even attach to medium length pieces together to easily be able to rip beyond a full sheet of plywood the next tool we're gonna introduce might be the dark horse of this comparison and it's called the Craig adaptive cutting system or ACS it's kind of a unique tool to describe but here's an attempt picture a table saw only instead of the blade staying stationary while the workpiece moves through it the workpiece stays stationary while the blade moves through it and actually before I show it one thing to think about while I'm talking about it is that the track can actually detach from the table so basically everything that I've talked about or will talk about concerning the traditional track saw will also apply to the ACS when the track is detached on the table though the cons would be that you're limited to the length of the track which is 62 inches but the pro would be of the tools we've discussed so far this is the only one that really rivals the speed and repeatability of a table saw for ripping multiple pieces to the same width you just lock down these stops make your first cut move the piece and cut again as many times as needed and you can position the stops anywhere from zero to 48 inches with this extension thing sorry I don't know the technical names okay the last tool we're going to talk about in the ripping segment is the table saw and when it comes to ripping where the table saw really shines is the speed and accuracy with which you can make cuts so something to consider as you decide on what's right for you is how important that is to you if I'm being honest for myself what's more beneficial is the fact that it's probably the tool that's the quickest to make tiny little adjustments to as you sneak up on things and that is something that I do utilize quite a bit in terms of capacity they're technically aren't any limitations to how long of a piece you can rip but I will say that as pieces get bigger they become harder to control and at a certain point it just makes more sense to bring the tool to the workpiece rather than the workpiece to the tool for example if you told me to rip a 4x8 sheet of plywood at 24 inches I'd much rather use a circular saw than my table saw unless I had somebody helping me and even then it's a toss-up conversely if he told me to remove 1/32 of an inch from a piece I'd go for a table saw and would never consider doing that on a circular saw and I suppose this is a generalization but it's a generalization that I would say is true for the most part but the bigger the tool the better it is at handling smaller more intricate cuts and vice versa actually here's proof the table saws the biggest tool we're showing in this head-to-head and the crosscut capacity for the width that I can cut is in other words the least but vector cross-cutting where the table saw shines again is in the speed and repeatability of what it offers what you can see here working our way back down into smaller and smaller tools the ACS is nearly as fast as the table saw repeating cuts and I'd say equally accurate and one of the reasons for that is these holes which are perfectly perpendicular to the blade so if you use two of these stops versus stops yes I looked it up you can rest one edge of your workpiece against them to make perfect 90-degree corners the advantage of the ACS has over the table saw which is shared by a conventional track saw and a circular saw is that there's no cap to the length of a crosscut that you can make so for example a couple months ago I built these live edge floating wall shelves and to cut them to their finish length I used the ACS because making a cut like this on the table saw would just be really dangerous unless you own an industrial saw with a sliding crosscut table attachment which actually do and even then I still prefer not to use it for this application cross cutting with a track saw can be very accurate it just requires a bit more setup and you lose the repeatability aspect there are attachments though like this adjustable track square by woodpeckers that let you lock your cuts into a perfect 90 degrees which can significantly shorten the set-up time if you're doing a bunch of cross cutting and actually now that I think about it I know that Craig also makes a couple of different attachments that can be used on the ACS when it's in tracks on load to help with making repeatable and measured cuts but I haven't personally used them though looking at this video they seem pretty straightforward for cross cutting at its simplest I suppose you could use nothing but a circular saw I've definitely seen people do it and I've even done it for just roughly breaking down material but I wouldn't suggest it for any finished cuts at the very least I would use a speed square for a better and honestly safer cut in fact on some of my high-end builds I still use a circular saw with a square and some clamps just because it works so well especially when it's only one cut that I'm making and I know that it needs to be perfect and that's because frankly there isn't really anything in my shop that I trust more than my woodpecker squares for being a perfect 90 degrees so if I take the time to set it up this way I know it's gonna be right if you do want to get a little bit fancier with a circular saw though again there are like the Craig ACK you cut they essentially turn your circular saw into something very similar to a track saw for cutting angles on panels with a circular saw again a speed squares your friend and the good news is 45 degrees is probably the most common angle people cut if you're cutting something else though you'll most likely just need to mark it out measure it and then use a straightedge and some clamps or again something like the Accu cut which as I said before pretty much mimics a track saw another feature of the woodpecker's attachment that I showed earlier is that you can lock it in at any angle which would be really helpful if you need to repeat the same angle for multiple cuts on the ACS making angle cuts can be pretty similar to a track saw where you just strike a line and then cut to it but the holes in the table can also be used to quickly make 45-degree cuts or if you want to repeat a weird angle you can use this miter guide to lock it in on the table saw again it's gonna shine when working on smaller pieces for example if you're making something like a picture frame would be a lot easier here than on the other tools but just like before you're gonna have trouble working with larger panels for example in the shot the panel that I'm trying to cut here isn't really that wide but as you can see I can't safely cut it as my miter gauges already be on the front of my table hey sorry to interrupt I just wanted to take a second to thank Rockler for sponsoring this video in addition to showing off a lot of the tools that I'm showing in this video they carry thousands of others probably even tens of thousands and whether you're brand new to woodworking or not I'd highly encourage you to bookmark their website and if you happen to be lucky enough to live close to one of their physical stores go in and check it out they're a great woodworking resource and they have a ton of jigs that you guys have seen me using my other project builds and they also have a lot of specific hardware that you might not find in big-box stores so I'm gonna throw some links in the description to a lot of the tools that I've been talking about in this video as well as to some of the non saw related tools that are my favorites so check them out and thank you again Rockler for sponsoring this video and let's get back to if a circular saw were my only tool I don't imagine that I'd do a whole lot of this kind of cutting and would probably opt for biscuits Domino's or pocket holes most of the time but technically you could cut a dado groove or rabbet by marking out the cut cutting on the inside of each of the lines and then clearing out the rest of the material making these kind of cuts on a track saw would be pretty much identical to doing what we just did on the circular saw again doable but if I'm being honest I just don't see myself doing it very often the ACS is the first tool that actually makes it more realistic in my opinion and actually I'm gonna try a technique for making a perfect sized dado that I use on my table saw and see if it works on the ACS once I've marked where I want to cut my dado I'll set the piece that's going to go in the dado in between my fence and the workpiece to use as a spacer and then I can make my first cut next I'm going to the spacer piece and insert a couple of 1/8 inch drill bits to use as spacers and the reason for using these is they're the exact same thickness as the saw blade so if I didn't use them the data would end up being too wide by exactly the thickness of the blade and now I can make my second cut next we'll clear out the material in between and in theory it should fit perfect alright here's the moment of truth so I'll admit that that actually worked better than I expected it to but on the table saw you could use this exact same method and you just need to use a miter gauge or a crosscut sled and one advantage that a table saw has not all of them but some of them at least in America is that they can accept a dado stack which lets you cut an entire day toe or rabbit or groove in one shot and it's the type of thing that it's gonna take you a little bit of time to dial it in perfectly but once it's in you can make really short work of these types of cuts so if you're making a lot of them it is pretty nice alright so now you've seen all the cuts you've seen the tools and maybe you have an idea of which way you're leaning but the last thing I want to do is just share a few thoughts and opinions that may or may not affect what you're thinking so no matter what tool you lean towards I'm of the opinion that you should aim to buy quality and that way you only buy once and you don't have to replace something after a year or two and also realize that not all tools are equal what I mean by that is if you were to ask me what I prefer between my Craig ACS and my saw stop professional cabinet saw I'm pretty easily gonna say the professional cabinet saw now if you were to ask me what I prefer between the ACS and my jobsite saw stop it starts getting pretty close and if you asked me what I wanted between let's just say a less expensive table saw in the ACS I'd pretty easily take the ACS so I guess the point that I'm trying to make is a table saw does not equal a table saw does not equal a table saw okay so now who is a circular saw floor and of all the tools in the bunch this is the one that I feel the most confident saying everybody I can't really think of a reason not to have one in your shop even if you barely use it there's gonna be some situation that's gonna come up where it's the best tool for the job and it's a pretty cheap option but if it is something that you think that you will use a lot again I'd recommend getting a really nice one I have the high Cokie multi volt which if you live in America it's called Metabo HPT and some of the things that I like about it are first off it's just really powerful I cross cut 2-inch thick pieces of hardwood all the time and have never had an issue with it and the batteries last surprisingly long also if they do go dead they recharge really fast which is nice now I'm not suggesting that this is the only nice one on the market or the one that you have to have I'm sure there are plenty good ones but at the end of the day what I would say is go to the store get your hands on them and just see what feels right to you ok the next question is who is a track soft floor and I think there's a couple people so first is a person that maybe they've gotten a little bit more deep into the hobby and they want to do some of the things that they're doing what their circular saw but just a little bit quicker and maybe they're not ready due to space issues to get a table saw or some other factor and here's the good news if you did get a track saw as a stopgap and then say you're too later you got a table saw I don't think you're gonna regret it sure you might use it a little bit less but if you guys watch my videos you know that there's barely a project that goes by where you don't see me bust it out so no matter how nice of a table side get the track saw still has a valuable place in the shop and I think that the other person the attract saw might before is somebody kind of similar to who I was when I first got into this hobby so when I got into it I pretty much headfirst into it one of the first things that I got in my shop was a three horsepower 52 inch Grizzly table saw three horsepower really nice saw basically and I didn't have a track saw or a circular saw at the time and basically about a year into it I realized that it was kind of crazy to make every single cut on the table saw so I got one and like I said it's been seven years and I haven't regretted it once now for anybody who is considering a track saw I will say I would strongly take a look at the ACS especially if you don't have a table saw or aren't ready for one and here's why so as of October 2009 teen here are some of the prices so for my Festool track saw and a 55 inch guide it's 735 bucks for the ACS plunge saw and a 62 inch track it's 400 bucks now I'm sure somebody can point out why one is technically better than the other but I've been using my Festool for probably seven years or so like I just say I think that's about how long it's been and it's a great shot I have no complaints about it I've never had one problem with it the ACS I've probably had for about nine months and again no problems with it and honestly they're equal to me I like them both the same so but the main reason that I would say check out the ACS again especially if you don't have a table saw or aren't ready for one is for the master system so that's with it on the table with all the accessories and everything I think it's like $900 now I know that's not cheap by any means and you know I'm not suggesting that somebody just go out and buy it on a whim you want to do your research first but when I think about the fact that that's only a hundred and sixty-five more dollars than the Festool plunge saw and track it starts to look like a pretty good deal I guess another way to say is I think that the project table is really a game changer and just kind of elevates the whole thing to a new level and really it's the only thing in this bunch that I would consider as a legitimate stand in for a table saw and that I could see being the center of a workshop speaking of table saws and to answer the jobsite vs. cabinet saw question which I get asked a lot so the price breakdown is I think the jobsite saw is roughly $1400 and the professional cabinet saws start at around $2,500 and the simplest answer I can give is this so if you have space for either of them and you have the money for either of them I would say get the cabinet's off if you have space for either of them but maybe you don't have the money just yet but you might in a year I would say wait a year and get the cabinet's off now if you absolutely don't have the space then I would say get the job sites off and if you do have space for either but you have to take your saw with you sometimes to a job site well obviously job site them now I know that's very simplistic and that might not be the solution for everything but that's just the way that I feel the cabinet saw is just gonna give you a bigger cutting capacity it's more powerful it's actually quieter to my ears I don't know if that's true and there's cheaper options you can get then a SawStop either for a job site or for a cabinet saw but with this being my full-time job and how many hours I spend around these saws it makes sense to me to splurge for that safety feature again that's just me I'm not telling you you have to do that but yeah it just made sense for me and I also don't want you to think that I'm bad-mouthing the job site so this is a great song if this is all you could fit and you want to have a table saw I think you're gonna be very happy with it but if it comes down to it and you could have either it's hard to beat a cabinet saw okay one final thing is I realized that I could come off as a entitled brat in this video and I hope that's not the case like I fully realize how ridiculous it is that I have two table saws and I have to track saws like it's crazy nobody needs that and I'm not recommending you get everything and have all the tools that I have I think I'm in a kind of weird position where it's my job and you know having access to more tools enables me to form better opinions so that I can answer these kinds of questions when I'm asked them so yeah just don't think that that fact is lost on me and also I am very appreciative to be in this position that I can't have those things but again they are 100 percent overkill and you do not need them and the last last thing I would say is let's use the comments of this video to make this a good resource for people that are trying to figure things out go ahead and post your opinions your feedback down there any thoughts you might have and even if you don't want to comment go take a look at and see what people have posted answer other people's questions if you might have a little bit more expertise or experience with something that somebody's asking about let's make this a good resource so that it helps people to make their decisions all right well thank you for watching hopefully if you're new to the channel you can go check out some of my project videos which is more normally what I post and hope you enjoyed this one and I'll see you in the next one right thanks bye

Channel: Chris Salomone

Views: 708,713

Rating: 4.883893 out of 5

Keywords: table saw, track saw, circular saw, which saw should i get, what saw should I buy, beginning woodworking, woodworking, track saw vs circular saw, track saw vs table saw, best saw, how to woodwork, how to use a table saw, miter saw, miter saw vs track saw

Id: CfyWDp9uRes

Length: 19min 10sec (1150 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 12 2019