Actually I discovered a few things. First someone mentioned cutting 2
by 4s and yes with an aggressive blade, things will go much more
smoothly and you'll get more from the battery and of course not
pushing the saw will help. My problem was having an appropriate blade
that did not require working the saw so hard. So, I switched to a more
aggressive blade which did no harm to the work, but still seem to take
a long time and thus killed batteries much to quickly. So, what did I
do? I went over to Home Depot because I was not wasting another minute
trying to resolve cutting straight lines.
I looked at several table saws from $99 on up to $449. The $99 model
would have gotten me through the project likely, but it really was a
very light duty saw that would not have lasted very long and probably
done a poor job. So, I looked at the Ryobi at $249 and it was a nice
saw, had legs and so forth, but then I realized that for storage
purposes it was stretching it a bit. Yeah folks, I got a reasonably
sized house, but storage space wasn't configured properly and until I
get a shed, I'm stuck with what I got. So, I took it up to $300 and
looked at the Dewalt portable "contractor-grade" table saw. Now here
was something that was only slightly smaller than the Ryobi, did not
have feet and wheels, seem to have a nice table, the necessary
adjustment, a fence that looked quite solid and would stay where you
set it, and best of all, I could put it on my shelf with the other
saws and the like. So, I have to say it works very well for my
purposes, I believe if you set things up correctly you could rip a 4
by 8 sheet of plywood or rip pretty much whatever you want. It would
just be a matter of making or getting some stands and setting things
up and perhaps putting the saw on a table/work bench whatever.
Well I think with this saw, I might try some projects that have been
floating around in my head, but knowing I didn't have a good way to
work with larger pieces, this might be the answer. It's not the top of
the line, or maybe not even middle of the road, but for what I need/
want, it should do. Yeah, it would be nice to have a great big shop
and all the goodies, but I don't and don't have the time that I would
want to invest for a really nice setup. So, I'm stuck doing most my
work outdoors and at this point just finishing this project would
please me a great deal. grin
