Steven Owen said:
- What’s your overall opinion of the Saw?
- how well does it perform hardwood cuts without kickback issues?
- how clean are the offcuts on plywood? Hardwood sheets are costly. You have to squeeze every cubic inch out of a sheet.
#1. I've sold my TS55 and HKC once I demo'd and bought the Makita. I don't regret it one bit.
Very smooth and powerful. No cord is a bonus. Using a dust extractor, the TS55 is better but it does have the splinterguard window which helps. We are talking maybe 5-10% difference in dust collection I reckon with a hose. I've also gone the Mafell dust bag route which catches most of the dust.
The TS55 is probably the more refined machine purely in terms of things like changing blades, setting your depth of cut, you don't have to always add 4-5mm for the rail manually etc.
#2. One of the primary reasons I bought the saw. TS55 blades are expensive here and having to change between the 48 and 28 tooth for rip and cross cuts. Been making a lot hardwood cutting boards lately and squaring them up with the rail + tso square.
The Makita saw will make rip cuts effortlessly in solid hardwood with the included 56 tooth blade! That is a game changer in my opinion. Will it do that with other blades, I don't know?
I have made rip cuts in Oak, Walnut, Iroko, Meranti and Ironwood ranging between 15-25mm thick and anything up to about 600mm long. Yesterday I set a new record of ripping in 36mm thick Iroko, no problem for the saw.
It doesn't burn and it doesn't struggle and there is no kickback. On the thinner rips I probably held the saw back, on the 36mm rip I knew I was in thicker material but the tech in the saw boosted the torque and lowered the power to compensate as intended but it still went through the cut like butter in my opinion.
#3 I only made a few cuts in board materials when I went for a demo of the saw. With the 56tooth blade and with the thicker 48tooth blade from the corded model. I felt more resistance with the thicker blade and I used it both the board material and hardwood crosscuts in the demo. However both blades left perfect edges on the board. If I was blindfolded and you showed me the cut I would not know what brand of saw had made it.
Unfortunately I can't offer a lot of feedback regarding board cutting.
Overall I think the Makita 18vX2 is a fantastic machine and offers great value for money purely because you can accomplish so much with a single blade. The added bonus is it works on Festool rails and all the accessories that go along with those rails.
