Review

On October 21, 2019, my 25-year-old Craftsman table saw died. It had been falling apart slowly for years. The handle for tightening the rip fence had broken off and other handles were loose. To start the motor, I had to flick the blade into motion with a stick. But now the motor would not spin up at all, instead making a horrible noise and then triggering the circuit breaker. I was in the middle of re-shingling part of the house and needed a table saw to square up the shingles after they were back-primed. Winter was closing in and I needed to get the house protected so I couldn't spend a lot of time selecting a replacement. On October 24, I purchased a Craftsman CMXETAX69434502 table saw from Lowes for $199.99. My thinking was that for that little money it would be hard for the saw to be disappointingly bad. One month later, I have to admit that I'm disappointed, even allowing for the low price (which, by the way, has since been reduced to $159.99). The saw does the job I bought it for (sawing shingles), but anything more demanding is a struggle. My advice to anyone considering purchasing this product is to spend a little more money unless your requirements are very basic indeed.

Here's a link to the product page at Lowes. I don't hold any grudge against Lowes. The guy there knew nothing about the saw (they were all boxed - there wasn't one on display). He said that if I didn't like it I could take it back, but I can't in all honesty do that as it's no longer in saleable condition. The other options seemed to start at about $500. I could have afforded a $500 saw, but I didn't have the time to figure out which was the right $500 saw to buy.

References to this saw on the Internet are almost non-existent. The Craftsman Web site does not list any table saws at all. This one is sold only at Lowes. Three months ago an apparent power tool enthusiast posted pictures of its box. On September 21, 2019, bigelite94 posted his sixth YouTube video in which he spends a minute and a half walking around the assembled saw saying things like "it is what it is".

So, I'm going to tell you what I think of the saw, feature by feature. I'll try to keep in mind how little money I spent on it in fairness to the manufacturer. In fact, I'll start with the things I was pleased with, or at least not immediately disappointed with.

Assembly, Stand, Stability, Etc.

Some reviewers at Lowes criticize the assembly instructions. I can see their point, but there actually isn't much assembly and once I realized that the words were not helpful and just looked at the pictures I had the saw up on its stand in about ten minutes. It is quite stable, better than I expected from the pictures. I can lift it up and move it from place to place fairly easily (which wasn't the case with my old cast iron saw).

The Motor and On/Off Switch

The motor has the power I expected, which is to say enough, but no more. I used the supplied 24-tooth blade for ripping and a Freud 60-tooth crosscut blade for crosscuts. Performance with modern "two-by" pine and cedar lumber, ¾" plywood and ¾" poplar is fine. Cutting ¾" maple has to be taken more slowly and some of the 1920's vintage wood I've taken out of the house at various times has to be fed very slowly. The on/off switch has a nice businesslike appearance and feel, but it's not located in a terribly convenient place (for me, at least) and I'd really prefer an off paddle that I could hit with just muscle memory.

Dust Collection

A port to attach a vacuum is a nice feature that I did not have on the old saw. My shop vac (also Craftsman and 25 years old) hooked right up. Most of the sawdust is collected, but definitely not all. Be prepared for fine dust in the air and a scattering of powder on the floor. How much dust escapes collection depends on how you're using the saw.

Rip Fence

What at first suggested to me that I'd made a good decision was the rip fence. When unlocked, you can pick it straight up and put it down in a new position (or stow it in brackets on the right hand side of the saw). You can jostle it along in small steps to get where you want it to be. If it balks, just lift it and blow the sawdust from the slot it rides in. The fence locks firmly and, as far as I can tell, is reliably parallel to the blade. It would probably be perpendicular to the table if the table was flat (see below).

There is an accessory stored on the right hand side of the saw, near the rip fence, that the Instruction Manual calls the "sub fence assembly" (page 19). Its purpose is described as "... ripping a narrow workpiece ... to prevent hands from getting too close to the blade". It attaches to the rip fence as shown in Fig. 19b on page 20. I personally can't see how this accessory will be of any help, but here is a YouTube video of someone using something similar on a Bosch saw (jump to 2:42).

Miter Gauge and Miter Slots

From the pictures I expected the miter gauge to be useless and it was. The way it is designed, nobody could expect it to function properly. It rattled about so much in the miter slot that I just immediately set about replacing it. This was when I got my first major disappointment - the miter slots are non-standard. They are inverted-tee-shaped, about 7/8 inch wide at the bottom. To get up and running, I wrapped electrical tape around the edges of the miter gauge runner, which was just bent sheet metal. This worked surprisingly well, filling the excess space and reducing the rattle. For squaring up shingles this was acceptable. For more precise work, I've made fixed 90 degree gauge, which was time consuming due to the tee-shaped runner.

Throat Plate / Insert

The supplied throat plate is plastic and sags under the slightest pressure, which renders it just as useless as the miter gauge. I did not expect this, but was not too perturbed as I planned to replace it with a zero-clearance throat plate, as shown in about ten thousand YouTube videos. This went reasonably well, although I had to cut pockets in the bottom to clear various parts of the saw mechanism. From time to time, I want to make cuts with the saw blade tilted (see below) and rather than hack out the slot in my new throat plate I reinforced the supplied plastic one with a ¾ by ½ inch aluminum angle cut to clear the ribs, epoxied into place and then fastened by flat head sheet metal screws in case the epoxy doesn't stick. This all works reasonably well, but was a lot of trouble.

Blade Tilt / Angle Adjustment

You can tilt the saw blade up to 45 degrees to the left. This is done by releasing a locking handle, wrestling the axis of the handle to the new position and re-tightening it, all of which works reasonably well and is faster than spinning a wheel at the side of the saw. Zero degrees (a "vertical" saw blade) is defined by how far you can swing the handle to the left, which is established by an adjustable stop. This was not set correctly on my saw (perhaps because the saw bed isn't flat, see below), but isn't difficult to change if you have the right hex / allen wrench. You can also adjust the pointer that passes over the angle scale so that (presumably) you can set other tilts accurately.

Table / Bed Flatness

One thing that I really hoped for was that the saw bed would be reasonably flat. It isn't. Relative to the middle area, it droops down to the right and left, particularly at the rear right corner. A straight edge shows a gap of about 0.05 inches at the left edge and 0.1 inches at the right. As a result, if you hold a wide piece of wood down to the table at its middle this results in it being tipped up at the blade and so not producing a cut at right angles to the wood surface. I don't know what I can do about this. Right now, I'm holding the work piece down hard on the throat plate and letting it float up away from the table surface elsewhere. Sometimes this results in my hands being a lot closer to the blade than they should be.

Blade Height Adjustment

As usual, the blade is moved up and down with a rotating handle. It doesn't take many rotations to go from no blade to full exposure, which is convenient. More effort is required to lift the blade than lower it, which makes sense if the gear ratio is low. However, a result of this is that the blade can just slide down on its own when the saw is operating. That's right - if you set the height of the blade, then while you're making the cut the blade can sink down. This is probably caused by vibration allowing the weight of the blade and motor assembly to overcome the friction of the lift mechanism. So now, for blind cuts, I have to stuff a lump of foam in between the handle and the saw body to stop it turning. For through cuts it isn't a problem.

Safety Features (Riving Knife)

The saw comes with a fitted riving knife. Blade guards and anti-kickback pawls are stored at the sides of the table. The latter I have not even installed as they will always be in the way. But I cannot figure out how to remove the riving knife. This may be good, because if I could get it off it would probably be in the trash. Markings on the riving knife state that the blade core must be thinner than 2.2 mm and the cut (kerf) must be wider than 2.6 mm. A 1/8 inch full kerf is 3.175 mm and a 3/32″ thin kerf is 2.38125 mm. So, with this saw you can't use thin kerf blades. It seems to me that all blades sold in stores these days are thin kerf, certainly every one of my existing stock of blades is thin kerf (except the new one that came with this saw). Sure enough, with my crosscut blades when the work piece reaches the riving knife it jams. You can "adjust" it to one of three positions. For through cuts, it is intended to arc above the blade. For blind cuts, the top is just below the top of the blade. It can also be lowered for dado cuts. But, this is not low enough to clear a 7¼ inch diameter blade that I occasionally use for aluminum. All-in-all this is a major inconvenience. How much trouble would it have been to supply a riving knife suitable for modern saw blades?

Improvements

A (Much) Better Blade

Unless you're only going to perform rip cuts, you'll need a better blade than the one supplied with the saw. You could buy a second blade specifically designed for crosscuts, plywood and laminate, such as the Diablo Model # D1060X (Available from Home Depot at about $40). But, then you'd have to change the blade back to the supplied one for rip cuts as the small gullets in the 60-tooth blade would choke up. A cheap solution would be a Diablo Model # D1040X "general purpose" blade, (Available from Home Depot at about $30). In my opinion, general purpose blades neither rip nor crosscut particularly well. I recommend the Diablo Model # D1050X, which is available from Home Depot at about $37. This is a "combination" blade and performs rips and crosscuts almost as well as dedicated blades, but avoids the need for blade changes. The differences between this and a general purpose blade are the larger tooth count and the use of "raker" teeth and large gullets at every fifth tooth to improve rip performance. In every group of five teeth, there are four ATB (Alternate Top Bevel) teeth with small gullets for smooth crosscuts and one FTG (Flat Top Grind) followed by a deep gullet to clear removed material efficiently on rip cuts. A side benefit of this blade is that dados made with repeated cuts are much flatter at the bottom than with ATB-only blades.

Throw Away the Push Stick

The long, thin plastic push stick supplied with the table saw should be thrown away. Using it would be dangerous. There are a lot of YouTube videos on the subject of push stick design, some of them contradicting each other. However, it is clear that poking at the back end of the workpiece from a couple of feet away does not give the necessary pressure 1) down onto the table along its entire length, 2) sideways into the fence where it meets the blade and 3) forward to advance the cut. Some people like to use two long, thin push sticks (for example, Matthias Wandel), so you could be safe if you made a second one. But, you might as well make two new ones out of wood rather than slippery plastic. Most people like push sticks that sit mainly on top of the workpiece with a small hook at the back to push it forward. This allows you to hold the work firmly down on the table surface. If the bottom of the push stick is covered with something that provides friction, then a twist of the wrist will supply pressure against the fence. You can also use a second stick of non-critical shape to press the work into the fence along the part that has yet to reach the blade (never press the work into the blade). Do your research, watch a few videos and decide on what you prefer, but I doubt that you'll keep the supplied push stick. I made mine very quickly from a piece of scrap plywood that was already a suitable shape Not easily seen in the picture at right is the vinyl strip glued to the bottom edge to "grab" the work. The hole, through which I can put my fingers, may be a bad idea. Popular Woodworking makes the point that if something goes wrong, you don't want to have your hand trapped in a handle. I take no responsibility for your safety, I'm just warning you that by supplying a poorly designed push stick, Craftsman isn't taking responsibility for your safety either.

Trying to Level the Table Surface

A basic requirement of a table saw is that if I put a piece of stock down flat on the table and pass it through the blade, then the new cut should be at right angles to the bottom face that was on the table surface (assuming that no blade tilt is dialed in). The zero-tilt angle of the blade can be adjusted to facilitate this (refer to the instruction manual). However, if the table is not flat, it is not possible for this adjustment to be accurate for all sizes of workpiece. Suppose that there is a high spot (a "hump") in the table to the right of the blade (and that you're working on the right side of the blade). A narrow piece will ride to the left of the hump and slope slightly down, right-to-left, so that the angle between the bottom and the new cut will be less than 90°. What happens to a wide piece depends on where you're applying the downward pressure. If you hold it down near the blade, the results will be as for the narrow piece. If you hold it down near the fence, then the hump will cause it to tilt up at the blade, at best causing a cut at greater than 90° and at worst causing a dangerous situation as the blade strikes unsupported material. If the hump is not uniform from front to back, then as the workpiece moves past the blade it will sway from side to side and the cut angle will change. This is precisely what I found was happening, leading me to look for a cause and discover the non-flat table surface.

Eventually, I found the time to see if I could do something to level the table. At first I had the idea that I could build up the low areas with epoxy, but I was not sure that the rip fence would still work afterwards if the table edges, to which the fence clamps, dipped down along with the surface. Using a mason's spirit level instead of just a straight edge, I discovered a distinct hump between the throat plate and the right-hand miter slot, about in the middle of the table. I figured that I could remove material without the danger of the rip fence no longer working. Therefore, I went at it with my belt sander, fitted with an 80 grit (medium) belt. I looked for points about which the level would rock in both the side-to-side and front-to-back directions, marked them with a pencil and then sanded them down. I removed only a small amount of material at a time and checked my progress often. The table was level along the front and rear edges and along the left-hand miter slot, so as well as rocking the level I inspected the bubble when choosing where to sand. After about an hour's work, I had made what I felt was a significant improvement. The result is shown in the picture above / right.

Stiffening the Throat Plate (Insert)

The purpose of a table saw's throat plate is to allow you to change the saw blade. This is analogous to the purpose of a sewing machines's throat plate, which provides access to the machinery under the fabric, such as the feed dog and bobbin. The saw blade rises though a slot in the throat plate. Ideally, the slot would be barely wide enough so as to provide support for the workpiece right up to the blade. This is complicated by the desire to fit blades of different kerf widths, to tilt the blade and to support dado blades. The manufacturer usually supplies a throat plate which is a compromise between flexibility of function and support for the work. However, giving access to the blade results in a large hole in the saw's table. The throat plate fills this hole and must provide the support for the workpiece that would otherwise be provided by the table. Basically, with the plate installed, you want everything to be as if the table was continuous up to the blade - the plate needs to sit parallel to the table surface and offer firm support. The throat plate provided with the saw can be adjusted for alignment with the table, but this is useless because it provides almost no support, being made from bendy plastic.

Replacing the Miter Gauge

The miter gauge provided with the saw is completely useless. It is such a loose fit in the miter slots that the angle of a cut made with it could be off by several degrees. You can buy after-market miter gauges, but only for standard three-quarter-inch miter slots. This saw has non-standard slots that are wider and have overhanging tabs that prevent the running from being lifted vertically out of the slot. So, it is necessary to make a new miter gauge (or, at least, a properly fitting miter runner). A YouTube video by The Newbie Woodworker shows how to make the runners. It's not rocket science, and I figured it out for myself before I found the video. But, I made three mistakes, which I will now alert you to so that you can avoid them. First, I used the table saw to make its own runners. This worked out badly because of the many deficiencies that I have identified, in particular, the tendency for the blade to sink down of its own accord as you make a cut. As a result of this, my rabbets were not of the dimensions I intended. Second, I used a piece of hard maple that was hanging around. It looked straight when I started, so I just went ahead with it. After a week or so, however, the piece I cut off to make the runner decided that it wanted to be curved. I suppose that I should have left the runner to settle and inspected it again before assembling the gauge. Third, I did not pay attention to the direction of the growth rings. They should be vertical as the runner sits in the slot; mine were horizontal, parallel to the table surface. This is because wood changes dimension due to moisture content only half as much radially to the tree as circumferentially.

The picture above / right shows the miter gauge I made. It is fixed at 90 degrees for right-angle crosscuts. I need to replace the runner, for the reasons I explained above, but it will look about the same afterwards.

Using the Rip Fence Elsewhere

Something I actually like about the Craftsman table saw is the rip fence.

Craftsman CMXETAX69434502 Table Saw