Having the right tool matters.

In some cases, a table saw would be mighty handy, but I haven't acquired one yet.  That's on the "workshop tools" list.

Back in February of 2020, between truck acquisition and lockdown, I did some shopping for largish items.  One thing on the list: a bloody great sliding compound miter saw (a Hercules item from Horror Fright; it was getting good reviews, and was quite the deal with a coupon).

Why did I need such a big saw?  I didn't know, but it was the nearest I could realistically get to the radial arm saws I vaguely remember from a bygone era (the one in the high-school stagecraft workshop, that I wasn't allowed to use, and the one a neighbor had in his garage, that I also wasn't allowed to use).

I found immediate use for it in cutting up 2x4s and smaller things.

Yesterday... well, I found myself wanting to make an angled cut of around 15° right smack dab through the geometric center of a 13½" wide strip of OSB.  Could cut it with the beat-up old circular saw, trying to keep it straight.  Or... what's the widest, reasonably thin material the miter saw can handle?  Looks to be 14".

Strip quickly bisected, in a nice neat straight line, at a preset 15° angle.

Yeah, that saw was a good buy.

Comments

[Rob]

After I bought (and set up in the garage} a miter saw I really wondered what I had done before I had that.