I'm looking to improve our crosscutting operation for faceframe, door & drawer parts. We currently cut these to length with a sliding tablessaw & manual flip stop. It's accurate but very time consuming.

Is an upcut saw with tiger stop the most efficient way of doing this operation?

I know Omga makes an upcut saw, are there any other good quality brands? I'd like to avoid China/Taiwan machines.

I think for typical small shops, it's one of the most efficient ways to do it. An optimizing saw is faster, but big money that I can't justify.

As far as pop up saws go.
Northfield makes one.
Razorgage has their own.
I've actually heard good things about the cantek saws from a couple of people.

I watched your shop tour video on YouTube. Very impressive set-up. What brand of saw do you have paired with your tigerstop? Are your infeed/outfeed tables flat or tilted back 10 degrees?

Have you had any issues with it going out of calibration.. or crashing into a piece jammed between the blade and the stop block (operator error).

You can also find used saws on the auction market. Usually for a fraction of the price of new. Pair any upcut saw with an automated fence and you will see an automatic increase in accuracy for one, speed will be second. Spend the money on good blades though, bad blades=bad cuts. I built my own fence system years ago, don't know if I would do it again, to much time to construct and get right. The cost of the Tigerstops now seem pretty good and I've heard support is good also. They make an interlock kit to keep someone from crashing as you asked. It will keep the fence from moving while the saw is in motion or up. Seems like you would have to balance your workforce common sense to the cost of that additional piece.

What about stack cutting? Do you ever cut two pieces at a time? Thinking about drawer production where we always need 2 sides and 2 fronts/backs of the same length. Is there tearout on the top side of the part, or does the hold down act as a zero clearance insert?

Anything to watch out for if I go the used route? Are there adjustments for squaring the blade in the vertical and horizontal axes, or is this in theory set at the factory and never needs to be touched?

Chris, if memory serves, I tried stack cutting but you couldn't always maintain accuracy due to materials sliding on each other. Was a balance between speed and accuracy in that case. Tear out on top of the boards is affected by tooth angle and where the width of board is in relation to the blade diameter. I was using a 16" saw and a +5 degree blade, once I went over about 7-8", it started to feather the top front edge. Similar to crosscutting plywood without a scoring blade. More aggressive hook angle might solve that but not give you as good of cut on the endgrain.

As far as buying a used saw, it's a crap shoot on how the machine was treated and maintained. If you are mechanically inclined, there isn't much to these older saws that don't have computers in them. Shims here or there can line up most stuff but most of these are built pretty good and robust. Understanding pneumatics is a huge plus since that's how most of these operate.

A few things to consider.

A used saw may not meet current safety standards.

Razor Gage and Tiger stop are incredibly accurate stops.

You need to hold the material to the back fence and to the stop to get a perpendicular cut. Stock might have slight bows in it.

The only saw I have seen that enables you to hold the stock to the fence and keep your hands out of harms way is the Razor Gage saw.

The Razor Gage saw is expensive. Razor Gage products are of a very high quality and there support is excellent.

If I were buying a system today I would buy the Razor Gage saw and Stop. I would expect it to cost north of $25K. I would expect it to outlast me.

I have a razor gage, it is over 10 years old. The original, computer touch screen went out and when I replaced it they did not gouge me. The stop is as accurate as the day we bought it.

You want to import cut lists from somewhere. Pecking in the numbers is not the way to go. Make sure you understand how you are going to transfer files to the saw. It can be as simple as a spreadsheet or from your cabinet design software.

Good Luck,

Bill

RE: Stack Cutting

Not sure your experience but for us often times gang/stack cutting anything results in more fumbling, checking, re-checking, than its worth. Long parts your trying to use your hands/tactile to make sure the stack doesnt slip and the bottom/top part isnt the only one hitting the fence or that a piece of trash hasnt bumped one shorter than the other.

There are times it can work but more often than not for me when I try to get aggressive with stacking/ganging parts I tend to do more checking at the stop end than cutting. Its just better to single part flow and in the end you are ahead.

The 50's mindset of wringing every drip and putting a motor on everything to make it faster can wind up making you slower overall.

Chris, I have a whirlwind. They aren't made any more. They're okay, but don't blow my hair back. Leaky which drives me insane. It seems like I'm constantly replacing an o-ring, or fighting something leaky. Air costs too much to pump up.

As already said, good blades are key. I don't cut anything on mine that is super critical for finish quality. I don't do drawer fronts, or fronts and backs for drawer parts. Door parts and face frames parts it's good enough though.

I have two of those saws. One is just sitting on the shelf, I've never even used it. It was in good shape at a local auction, and I snapped it up for a decent price. My Tigerstop is getting a little wonky too. My plan is to can both saws and the stop, and replace them with Northfield's and Razorgage stops. Some days, I should really use another cut off station.

Dust collection on the whirlwind saws is terrible, bordering on pointless.

I personally don't think gang cutting will get what you want. Too hard to get everything sitting nicely in my experience.

Thank you for the shop comment. I'm very proud of the nightmare/slave master I've created. LOL

Mark B- I hear what you’re saying re gang cutting.. not much time savings if it takes twice as long to position the parts.

Bill- have you used the razor gage saw? I like the overall design. Curious if it would be a bit awkward to use with it being so deep. Realistically the widest part I’d ever be cutting is 10”

Karl- that’s helpful feedback regarding only using the saw for certain tasks. Do you not use it for drawer parts because of tear out, or because of squareness issues as the parts get wider?

We have a wider saw and we use the width often.

I have a concern that it might be awkward. I might call and ask if there is anyone in your area that has one.

It's just not a super clean cut. On dovetail drawers, it just means more sanding in the exposed end grain. It's slower cutting parts on a 12" chop saw, or on the tablesaw, but the time lost is gained on finish sanding.

I used to slow the cutting speed down on my saw to allow for a better cut quality when going with wider stock like drawer parts. We always hit our drawers after assembly on the edge sander to level out any assembly imperfections anyway, then random orbit sanded for final. Think I was running a 100 tooth blade and was getting very acceptable results. Good thing about these saws, you can adjust how fast it advances in the wood, not blade RPM mind you.

For sure. I've got mine running pretty slow. Almost slow enough to make you be impatient

I'm curious what the advantage is of the upcut saw over a chop saw with the tigerstop fence? Is it just a quicker cut?

The advantage is speed, power and width of cut.

In our packaging area we cut 3 - 2 x 4's at a time. The cycle is very short. Much shorter than you could cut a single 2 x 4 on a miter saw. Also no deflection, clamps before it cuts, you an control how fast the blade comes up. A true 7-10hp. It is truly a different world.

We have the larger Omga cast iron miter saws which are wonderful. They still could not keep up with a uncut saw, not even close.

Your hands are also also free so they can be ready to move or clear parts