Shop Tools

Table Saws for Woodworking: What to Look For

A table saw earns its space in a shop once accuracy, not raw cutting ability, becomes the limit on your projects. Before buying one, check the fence, the safety features, and whether your space and power supply can actually support it — motor size is the least useful spec to shop by.

Benchtop, contractor, and cabinet saws

Table saws scale by size and power, roughly in this order: benchtop saws are portable and light enough to store between uses; contractor saws sit on a fixed stand with more power and a larger table; cabinet saws are the heaviest, most powerful, and most accurate, built for daily shop use. Most beginners outgrow a circular saw before they need more than a benchtop or contractor saw — see Table Saw vs. Circular Saw for a Beginner for whether you're at that point yet.

Fence accuracy matters more than motor power

The rip fence controls how parallel your cut stays to the blade across the full length of a board. A fence that drifts out of parallel or doesn't lock down firmly will ruin more cuts than a slightly underpowered motor ever will. Check that the fence locks square to the table and stays put under pressure before you check anything else on the saw.

Blade selection: general-purpose, rip, and crosscut

A general-purpose combination blade handles most beginner work. A rip blade, with fewer, larger teeth, cuts faster along the grain; a crosscut blade, with more teeth, leaves a cleaner edge across the grain. Buy a combination blade first, and add specialized blades once a specific project's finish quality demands it.

Safety features to check before buying

• A blade guard that doesn't need to be removed for normal cuts
• A riving knife, which sits behind the blade to stop the wood from pinching and kicking back
• An anti-kickback pawl system, on saws that include one

Don't buy a saw missing these features to save money — a table saw is the single most dangerous common tool in a hobby shop, and these features exist specifically to prevent its most common injuries.

Space and power requirements

Measure your available floor space with the saw's full extension — outfeed and rip capacity — not just its folded footprint. Check the saw's amperage against your shop's circuit before buying; some larger saws need a dedicated 220V circuit that a typical garage outlet doesn't provide.

Next: see Track Saws for Woodworking: What to Look For for a lower-footprint alternative that covers many of the same cuts.