Kapex Annoyances

[Brian]

I've had a Kapex apparently just long enough now to find out about what I dislike about the tool.

I've set the blade square to the fence three times now, it seems to slip out of adjustment perpetually and it happens with or without the adjustment locked into place. This leaves me to assume that it's the bolts which tighten the gauge that are slipping. Does anyone know what size bolts those are? I'd like to buy a more suitable bolt for this purpose?

I should have used this as a downpayment on a sliding table saw. If only I had the room.

Thanks gents!

[djwong]

Brian,
I have a very early Kapex I bought used. It has been accurate since I used the 5-cut procedure outlined in the manual to square the blade to the fence. I don't use it that much, but the cuts still look square, as gauged by a try square I trust. I do not have an auxiliary fence on the saw.

[Chris Hall]

I find the same problem with my Kapex - in fact, it is common to SCM saws IME. My previous Hitachi 10" sliding chop saw would frequently go out of square cutting. I think that the culprit is shock - whenever you have a bit of wood move in the cut and bind, or have some reaction wood which closes up a kerf while you are cutting, and you get any kickback, you can generally assume something in the blade alignment is now slightly out of whack. Always pays to check alignment after such incidents.

[Brian]

Ah, I was afraid that would be the case. I'll keep a closer eye on things, it would seem that cutting heavy stock must have done the trick.

[Chris Hall]

If upgrading becomes possible, but you still lack space for a sliding table saw, you might want to look at Graule saws.

[Brian]

Those look pretty serious, thanks for the recommendation!

I think there are some inherent limitations in the scm design that I was hoping Festool had eliminated but not so much, still it has made quick work of so much crosscutting for me that I have been fairly happy with it.

[Chris Hall]

At least Festool can produce a saw with a flat table surface and a fence which is square to the table - unusual within the product category. Also, their dust collection is good (though on the Kapex, the rubber shroud gets in the way of some cuts, so I have generally been leaving mine off which results in mess than stellar chip collection).

[Brian]

Very true, I gave a Hitachi SCM to my father a few years back to replace his old craftsman. Comparing the two it would seem the Festool is a lot nicer given it's few drawbacks compared to a RAS.

Nice that you can take it on the job as well, not that I do very much of that but I liked the idea of leaving the door open for that sort of thing. I have a feeling my work will involve installs at some point.

[Chris Hall]

I agree it is better than the Hitachi in many respects.

Maybe the No.1 thing I like about the Kapex is that you can adjust head tilt using a handle on the end of one of the linear rails- and that the protractor for tilt is extra large and it is easy to interpolate whatever angle you want to set on that protractor. It's nice also that the turntable goes to 60˚ on one side.

Do you have yours on the Stand? It comes with the stand doesn't it? (I can't remember)

[Marc]

Yeah, the Graule Radial Arm Crosscut Saws are the real deal!

Regarding a Sliding Table Saw you might want to look at Rapid. The Rapid PK100 is a great saw imho. Quite small, but sturdy build with a nice weight (~250kg) and capable to do the most of your sawing work I would think.
Made for precise work. The sliding table is easy retractable btw. Build for decades in Germany with only slight modifications.

http://www.rapid-maschinenbau.de/files/ ... -PK100.pdf