Kapex - impressive cuts (pics)

[burp110]

from a closer look at the kapex cuts, there is a bit of tear-off at the part where saw exits. same as for the dewalt picture.

below are come cuts i made with my 7 1/2" makita. i like this saw due to its weight. only 13 kg. i'm using the stock 24t makita blade. i get some tear outs at the back as well.

[attachimg=1]

[attachimg=2]

 

[JonSchuck]

this makes me wanna do some test with my makita compound miter saw. will upload pics.

My old Makita mitre saw would give the same cutting results as the OP's kapex, in fact all of my old mitre saws would give those same cutting results.
  It's all about the blade and the Kapex comes with a very good blade, should do for the price. But most saws come with a pretty avarage blades and a lot of people who don't use a saw every day take a while or never replace the stock blade. If you do some research and replace the stock blade it's like having a new saw. I only replaced the Makita with a Kapex because I wanted better accuracy and better dust collection, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the quality of the cut.

As the OP and having a Makita for 20+ years with a premium Forrest blades (professionally resharpened by Forrest)  installed I would disagree - the Kapex (& Festool) is on an entire new level of quality. The machine handles like a precision instrument and I really enjoy woodworking with quality tools (if only my skills matched  [big grin])

I see you had an "oops" moment with your zero clearance fence on a miter cut.  [unsure] I can't believe I haven't done that yet, for I surely will.

 

[Lou in DE]

I see you had an "oops" moment with your zero clearance fence on a miter cut.  [unsure] I can't believe I haven't done that yet, for I surely will.
[/quote]

I figured that someone would notice that  [embarassed].

While I'm posting this, I wanted to mention that I was not doing "test cuts" with the Kapex - I was constructing an out feed table for my TS and these three shown were just some random offcuts from 2x4's that I thought might be interesting to some.

 

[JonSchuck]

I see you had an "oops" moment with your zero clearance fence on a miter cut.  [unsure] I can't believe I haven't done that yet, for I surely will.

I figured that someone would notice that  [embarassed].

While I'm posting this, I wanted to mention that I was not doing "test cuts" with the Kapex - I was constructing an out feed table for my TS and these three shown were just some random offcuts from 2x4's that I thought might be interesting to some.
[/quote]I'm on your side.  I had a perfectly good Ridgid non-compound miter saw (Is that what you call the ones that don't slide?) that I gave to a friend when I bought the Kapex.  I have no idea if that Ridgid was square because I didn't know how to check that then.  But I am learning and I have tweaked my Kapex to be off less than .001" in 10."  I might be a little biased.  Almost all of my ancestors are from Germany.

 

[#Tee]

i get the same impressive cuts with my old 10in dewalt. all in the blade.

 

[dingram]

I love festool, but the thought that only the Kapex can make thin smooth cuts is quite humorous. My road saws are the 12" sliding dewalt, and a 12" sliding ridgid, both keep Freud blades on them, both more than capable of producing extremely thin cuts. My shop saw is a Bosch axial glide 12" with a Forrest chopmaster blade on it, and it will do paper thin all day.

Now, non of them have the dus tcollection of the Kapex. The bosch is extremely close, but I have made a few modifications to it. I can cut 3/4" ply all day and have very little dust to sweep up or vacuum off the saw at the end of the day.

The kapex has two features I envy, the micro adjust on the bevel, and the dual laser. Other than that, I cant find a reason to stop using my Bosch axial. It has the same footprint to boot, or close to it.

The Starrett miter saw angle gauge is a huge time saver too.

Anyway...I think cut quality comes down to vibration and blade quality mainly. The old direct drive saws would vibrate more and thus produce less stellar cuts.

 

[Discap]

I mostly build furniture no framing or heavy use.  For me where the Kapex excels is.

1.

 

[Discap]

OK don't hit the tab key on the keyboard

1. the angles are dead on.  I was never able to get a 90 deg angle on either Dewalt or Ridgid despite much fiddling with adjustments.
2. Clean cuts.  Once you cut a piece of wood you are done.  With a 12" saw they all left "machining marks" that had to be planed off.  No longer.  This is a huge time saver.  Not sure if other 10" saws will do this but I have never found a 12" that will. The end grain on a piece of 2" walnut is shiny after the cut.

Bill

 

[Locks14]

OK don't hit the tab key on the keyboard

1. the angles are dead on.  I was never able to get a 90 deg angle on either Dewalt or Ridgid despite much fiddling with adjustments.
2. Clean cuts.  Once you cut a piece of wood you are done.  With a 12" saw they all left "machining marks" that had to be planed off.  No longer.  This is a huge time saver.  Not sure if other 10" saws will do this but I have never found a 12" that will. The end grain on a piece of 2" walnut is shiny after the cut.

Bill

The Bosch GCM 12 GDL can, can cut perfect 90 degree angles too!

 

[dingram]

OK don't hit the tab key on the keyboard

1. the angles are dead on.  I was never able to get a 90 deg angle on either Dewalt or Ridgid despite much fiddling with adjustments.
2. Clean cuts.  Once you cut a piece of wood you are done.  With a 12" saw they all left "machining marks" that had to be planed off.  No longer.  This is a huge time saver.  Not sure if other 10" saws will do this but I have never found a 12" that will. The end grain on a piece of 2" walnut is shiny after the cut.

Bill

The Bosch GCM 12 GDL can, can cut perfect 90 degree angles too!

+1 for the Bosch.

Again, if money was no issue id have a Kapex, but in reality, with some tweaking on the dust collection, I believe it to be the same cutting quality saw. Just my 2cents.

 

[justinh]

OK don't hit the tab key on the keyboard

1. the angles are dead on.  I was never able to get a 90 deg angle on either Dewalt or Ridgid despite much fiddling with adjustments.
2. Clean cuts.  Once you cut a piece of wood you are done.  With a 12" saw they all left "machining marks" that had to be planed off.  No longer.  This is a huge time saver.  Not sure if other 10" saws will do this but I have never found a 12" that will. The end grain on a piece of 2" walnut is shiny after the cut.

Bill

My 12" DeWalt 716 is off .001 at 90* and the blade is tuned to the arbor using a dial indicator leaving me with a combined blade/ arbor runout of .002.

The most common cut quality problems on a 12" saw are the material moving when the cut is started,blade flutter caused by heat and thin kerf tooling, slop in the bearings on a SCMS, or poor quality tooling.  I have an 80t standard kerf Royce Ayr blade on my saw and there are no machining marks on the cuts.  Cut quality and precision are nothing more than a good setup and quality tooling.

 

[Corwin]

My new Kapex hasn't arrived just yet, but I chose this over some other options because of Festool's more consistent build quality. Several of the other brands had nice reviews, but some were for their earlier versions where the current version has quality issues.  [2cents]