Shortly after we moved to the island, a couple who live in our vicinity and whom we’d known for a few years announced that they had purchased a home in Costa Rica and would be moving. They said that they were selling everything, and asked if we needed any tools. I have a lot of tools and we had just finished downsizing for our move, so I didn’t think there was likely anything we’d want. I half-jokingly said “only if you have a table saw” and, of course, they did. I don’t know why I was surprised, in that they built their own house. I immediately drove Timmy the Titan over and picked it up.
I have often wished I had a table saw, but never seemed to get around to purchasing one. Decades ago, I inherited an antique Shopsmith which could (and usually did) function as a table saw, but I only ever used a fraction of its capability so I eventually gave it to a good friend who was a master woodworker. He created many beautiful works of art with it, so I was glad it spent its declining years in a good home.
photo by Ancheta Wis, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license
The “new” table saw has been useful, particularly when building the pavilion. I did notice that there didn’t seem to be any way to do miter cuts, which seemed odd as there is a miter scale cast into the top of it. No big deal early in the project, as we were doing a lot of straight rough cuts, but as we progressed I increasingly needed to make some precision angle cuts. (I freehand cut the stringers for the front porch and they ended up being usable, but it was a pain.) I found a manual for the saw online and downloaded it, and discovered that a miter fence originally came with it. When I checked the manufacturer, though, they told me the part was discontinued and not available. I couldn’t find it on eBay, either. I was about to give up, but tried Amazon just for thrills and a third-party seller there claimed to have a compatible miter fence. I’m a bit skeptical, but it did call out this particular saw by model number and it isn’t very expensive, so I’ve ordered one.
It would be cool if it works.
—2p
addendum 2025-11-09T16:51-10:00
The miter fence came and, as I feared, it doesn’t actually fit this saw in spite of the Amazon product page claiming it does. I even tried to figure out a way to retrofit it, but it just won’t work. Back it goes…