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As for the stand.I love it. Completely satisfied thus far. Just read a bit and you'll see that you merely have to adjust two screws. However, I can counter some of the nay sayers with regard to the rip fence.
I am a first time purchaser and, for that matter, user of a table saw. It does store the saw vertically. I did so and fence remained tight and cuts were extremely accurate. I purchased the 2704 separate from the stand.
It does securely tighten when you follow the owners manual. It is very strong and works effortlessly. Got the saw on Ebay (sorry Amazon) for about $430 and the stand on Ebay (oops again) for $196. Just basically use it for ripping at this point.
I am a big believer in Makita tools and own many for my contracting business, but I strongly suggest buying a different saw. Shortly after that it stripped again so I made my own replacement parts that work much better. Unfortunately other cheap plastic parts on it are starting to fail and fall apart. I Bought this saw about a year ago and thought it was wonderful. The best part on the saw is the folding stand which I now use to hold my old De Walt rack and pinion table saw. A couple of months later the handle to tighten the miter adjustment stripped out. Everything on it worked great. I ordered replacement parts from Makita and received them in a very timely fasion.
Works great and runs super smooth. Well after running some wood thought it I am glad I got it.
All those are very nice features.So why only three stars. Some further complaints. I bought the saw because of the stand, the T slots in the table, the adjusting wheel for the blade bevel, and the large rip depth. I hope they're not ripping without one, because if they are they will soon enough eat a board. I'm an occasional weeked do-it-your-selfer.
The bottom line is that some inexcusable design flaws have marred what otherwise would be the state of the art best portable saw on the market. I managed to fix the problem by using two small Irwin clamps to hold the table extension solidly in place, but it should not be necessary to jury rig a fix like that, and it it wouldn't work very well for ripping anything more than a foot wide. It's possible to wiggle your arm under the saw base to reach the button for releasing the blade guard latch on the Makita, but there has to be a better way. So the fence (actually the table extension) wobbles from side to side as you push your work through the saw. There's also the nuisance of putting on or removing the blade guard. The fence locks onto the table extension, which is not very securely held in place by the supposed locking levers. The Bosch allows such alignment, why not Makita. And finally, my biggest aggravation -- the fence and the table extension.
I've owned my Makita 2704 for about 8 months, and I've completed several projects with it, including three nice pieces of furniture. The throat plate is very flimsy, which can really affect accuracy when cutting small pieces. It's a real shame. I know the 2704 is a contractors saw, but that seems a poor excuse for leaving off any way to adjust the alignment of the table to the blade. I know some people say they don't use guards.
My opinion of Makita tools might be biased because of past good experiences with their other tools (though their cordless tools don't impress me much) however there is just no denying that this is a well designed machine. Another reviewer commented that the bevel release levers were flimsy. All the tools store on-board the saw base - tightly. The table extension works great. A month ago I bought this saw from Tyler Tools to replace the old Delta 9" I've been lugging out to jobs.
Makita could have spent the cost of it by adding 1 foot more to the length of the power cord.So, all you contractors and big dollar carpenters, hurry on down to your favorite on-line store (Tyler Tools) and get yourself this mighty fine saw. 3. The plastic push stick is pure home owner crap. I bet the machined aluminum table will long outlast the Bosch and Rigid as will the metal gears.
I hooked up the shop vac to the saw's dust port and was relieved of 90% of the dust generated during the ripping of MDF. Now that I've used it daily I feel that I'm qualified to write this review. Why. The reasons I didn't give it a fifth star:1. The fence is sufficient. You got to remember it's not a cabinet saw and your not buying a Biesemeyer fence.
I had to wipe the thing down when I first unpacked it and I'm still wiping it off.2. Unfortunately the saw doesn't come packaged with any finesse.
The jury is still out. You won't regret it.
Although the stand seems to be working just fine - I don't have that kind of faith in it - yet. This is a very good little saw.
Makita greased up the front and rear fence rails with what appears to be cosmolene. That you have to bring to work yourself.This saw has more than enough power to handle ripping most any materials.
Just like the Bosch - the blade storage is also on-board the base. Well - you really don't need to crank on it that much to release or lock it.
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