TS 55 Vertical Panel saw

[six-point socket II]

I have no idea where to “place” these commercial offerings with baseplate for handheld saws and what they are truly capable of or not.

From what I have seen, the vertical aspect alone makes material handling a lot easier, if you have the space. You can load off directly from a cart, pull onto the saw. And I kinda feel confirmed in that with Festool’s STM 1800 that they designed specifically for one person loading in a (mostly) vertical position. 

All I can say is that every “lumberyard” and every big box store that sells materials cut to size, that I have been to in all these years, had a vertical panel saw. And those are mostly Striebig machines.https://www.striebig.com/ Who seems to be a kind of “benchmark” in the industry. But then again, they have come a long way.

Can’t really speak for the “lumberyards” - or Bauhaus (one of the big box store chains in Germany) for that matter - as they mostly also run “fully” equipped wood workshops that are capable of much more than just making “cuts”.

With the lesser equipped big box stores, these vertical panel saws have to do it all. Thinnest rear panel/ back board materials, typical sheet materials and then countertops both massive wood and all the chipboard/composite stuff.

It’s an interesting topic, and I find those DIY builds, as well as the commercial “mobile” solutions highly intriguing!

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[woodferret]

I have no idea where to “place” these commercial offerings with baseplate for handheld saws and what they are truly capable of or not.

With the right panel saw setup, you can expect to spend 25% of the time cutting vs horizontally.  STM1800 might save a few too, considering you don't need to shim.  This video explains it better.


The Milwaukee 6480-20 is slightly different and more compact than the DIY/UK one.  40 sheets/week is kinda standard it seems... maybe 3-4 cuts/sheet for cabinets.  At least for the guy in the video, it'd make sense financially and pays for itself in 1 year (honestly less since $15/hr doesn't account for overhead). 

I'm okay going slow and steady though.

 

[Crazyraceguy]

Oh yeah, the basic idea of even having a vertical panel saw is fantastic. It is much faster and far less tiring. The ability to quickly switch back and forth between rips and crosscuts, without lifting the sheet, can't be overstated.
Even with the big beam saw doing most of the work, we still use 2 vertical panel saws. There is a smaller Holz-Her unit, in the countertop department, for crosscutting. A much bigger Striebig is in the Solid Surface area. It is much nicer to move the saw, than those really heavy sheets.

 

[MikeGE]

The Milwaukee 6480-20 is slightly different and more compact than the DIY/UK one. 40 sheets/week is kinda standard it seems... maybe 3-4 cuts/sheet for cabinets. At least for the guy in the video, it'd make sense financially and pays for itself in 1 year (honestly less since $15/hr doesn't account for overhead).

I saw one of these on display in a Stan Houston store in South Dakota. They are actually made by Safety Speed Manufacturing in Minnesota and use a Milwaukee motor. If the guy in the video paid $1,200 for the panel saw he has, then he definitely got it for a bargain. His saw has about $1K in upgrades over the standard saw.

The salesman at Stan Houston told me the Safety Speed saws are okay for crosscutting sheet goods, but not so good at ripping. Unlike a more expensive and larger Striebig panel saw, where the saw moves vertically and horizontally across the stationary panel, the Safety Speed saw only moves vertically. For horizontal cuts, the saw is rotated 90 degrees in the frame, moved to the desired cutting height, and the panel is pulled or pushed through the cutting blade. Since the entry level Striebig can cost over $30K, the Safety Speed saws are a bargain for small shops.

Here is the display model of the C4 waiting for a new home.



Edit to add: Thank you @six-point socket II for posting the links to the Woodspezi YouTube videos. I watched the three episodes where he built his Festool version using 40x40mm aluminum extrusion. If I had room in my shop or garage, I would certainly consider building one.

 

[Crazyraceguy]

There are other models of Safety Speed saws, that do turn, so you can do rips cuts. They are definitely more clunky than Striebig, but they do work. That's what we had in the old building, before the fire. (August of '19)

 

[peter halle]

Many years ago I won a Safety Speed Cut saw in a drawing.  I used it infrequently and eventually gave it away after getting used to the Festool system.  Mine would also do rips but I hated pushing the sheets thru the saw when doing rips.  Although it had a riving knife you really needed to stick a shim in the kerf to get a good cut if your workpiece was over 5 ft long.

Peter

 

[MikeGE]

There are other models of Safety Speed saws, that do turn, so you can do rips cuts. They are definitely more clunky than Striebig, but they do work. That's what we had in the old building, before the fire. (August of '19)

I think all of the Safety Speed panel saws allow rip cuts by rotating the saw in the frame.  The C4 in the photo in my post above rotates 90 degrees to the left and right.  However, they all require pushing or pulling the panel through the blade instead of moving the saw for rip cuts.