By Peter Labarba
If your needs are limited to the occasional baseboard replacement, science project, or picture frame, this tool will do the job extremely well. We tend to work on home remodeling projects as a family, and this would be a very good tool for use by adolescents, or others intimidated by power saws. The cam hold downs do an excellent job of keeping little fingers away from the business end.
I’ve used three similar manual tools with frame saws made by other manufacturers. This one worked very well and performs nearly as well as a European version at about 1/16 the price. Assembly is pretty easy with most of the critical components pre-assembled. It took us about 15 minutes. The core of the device is “protractor head” of light alloy material and the rest of the frame is steel and what seems to be a filled plastic material; durable but not “bomb proof”.
The cut is very clean and accurate. We did a couple of test cuts on fir molding then flipped the joints back and forth to test for accuracy and it was “dead on” at 90 and 45 degrees. We didn’t try the other angles as my spouse wants our remodeling project done in her lifetime. It is pretty light weight and I would recommend attaching the saw to a board. We drilled some holes into the top of the Workmate and attached the saw with some bolts and wing nuts. (Our Workmate has numerous holes for attaching drill presses, bench top saws, etc.) The cam locks do a very good job of holding the work fast; however our neighbor couldn’t figure them out. It’s worth the few minutes to figure it out – the cut is much cleaner with a very narrow kerf. The saw also has a length stop for repeat cuts, but almost all of our cuts exceeded the capacity.
We felt there are three drawbacks to the saw.
1. We felt the saw stroke was shorter than we would have liked and would concentrate wear on one section of the blade. However, we made nearly 100 cuts in fir and the blade still looks good
2. You can’t adjust the vertical angle. For most users this shouldn’t be a problem, but if you are cutting very wide crown molding, you can’t make compound cuts in one pass
3. If you need to cut at an angle other than indicated on the protractor base there are no detents to go between the preset angles, not a big issue unless you are making science/engineering project to cut some gagdet at 53.7 degrees (we’ve also been cutting aluminum tubes with it)
The precision mitre box saw represents a very good value and while not as sexy as a power saw, gets the job done. If this one was stolen or lost, I’d buy another one.
36 of 37 people found the following review helpful.
Good Product – No Replacement Blades.
By One World One People
I have been using this saw primarily for cutting quarter round after installing a hardwood floor. The saw works great and the cuts are very accurate. Unfortunately, I also used it to make some cuts on some old subflooring that had floor leveling compound on it. The box said that the blade was replaceable, so I didn’t think there would be a problem finding one. Now the blade is very dull and I can’t find a replacement blade anywhere, so far, not even online.
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful.
Blades ARE Available!
By Jeff Shultz
First…this is a tolerable saw. The cuts in typical molding (pine, birch, maple) are clean and accurate. There are preset cut angles that you must use (no moving it 1 degree). If you need a saw that can cut compound angles, this is not it. What this tool can do is give you much better and more accurate cuts than a cheapie miter box. With any saw, you need a sharp blade and finding a Stanley blade is impossible. Lee Valley stocks 22″ blades in 12tpi, 18tpi, 24tpi and 32tpi. You can find them online www.leevalley.com or you can call them at (800) 513-7885. They also sell more expensive miter boxes if you wish to explore that idea. This Stanley miter unit works fine for me as long as I keep a good blade in it.
See all 23 customer reviews…
