Track Saw, Table Saw, and Circular Saw Comparison
This post is sponsored by The Home Depot Prospective tool review program and contains affiliate links.
Don’t know which saw to get first or next? Here I compare the features, difference and similarities of the track saw, circular saw, table saw, and miter saw! Which saw is the best first or next purchase for you depends on what kind of work you do and how much you want to spend. After watching this video, you’ll know which will be the best fit for your work until you can acquire all four!
Tools Used:
All of these saws use a circular blade and are meant for cutting straight lines. There will be a few factors we compare that cover the differences. Those are portability, repeatability, dust collection, capacity, and ripping vs crosscutting.
Circular Saw
Of all the options, the circular saw is the most inexpensive and basic. That said, it’ll do pretty much everything all the other saws will do. Think of it as the jack of all trades. It’ll get any straight line cut job done - but there’s probably a tool that does each particular cut better; albeit by sacrificing capability in other areas.
The circular saw is also the most portable, especially in a cordless version. Anywhere you can take your saw and battery, you can cut. And capacity is limited to how far you want to push the saw, how far you can reach, battery life or cord length… you get the idea.
That free ranging capacity comes at the sacrifice of accuracy and repeatability. Running the saw along a straight edge will increase accuracy, but you have to be very mindful not to drift away from the guide. Without some sort of guide, the saw is as accurate as you can be. And for many jobs that’s just fine.
The other rough spot is dust collection. Until very recently, circular saws basically aim most of their saw dust in a general area. However, we’re starting to see those ejection ports get replaced by dust collection ports on some saws - like this Ridgid Octane Circular Saw. That said, there’s a lot of open air around the blade and cut on a circular saw, so a lot of dust still escapes.
Table Saw
The table saw is the heart of most wood shops and normally lives right in the middle.
That’s often because other tools and storage live along the walls and table saw needs lots of clear space in front of, behind, and beside it. The table saw is a machine you bring your material too. And while table top versions exist, the best performance come from the larger less portable versions.
It’s capacity (what size wood it can handle) is dictated by how far the fence will move over and what size material you can support and move over the saw.
Table top versions have limited dust collection that works so-so. As you get into contractor and cabinet grade saws the dust collection improves. And, if you combine a large dust collector to the cabinet port with overarm dust collection to the saw guard - you can get pretty close to dust free performance.
The table saw is also king when it comes to repeatability. Once that fence is locked down, every piece you feed through is going to come out the same. Which is why it’s the heart of most woodworking shops. For fine work, consistency is what counts mounts.
The downside of the table saw is that it doesn’t handle cross cutting dimensional lumber very well. With a miter gauge or crosscut sled, short pieces are manageable with repeatable results. But once the lumber has much length it’s just a giant lever hanging out in the wind trying to tip itself off the saw.
Miter Saw
The miter saw is the answer to the table saw’s weakness with crosscutting. The miter saw is a cross cutting machine, literally. If your goal is to make boards shorter, that’s where this baby sings.
Being built to excel at cross cutting though means that it’s no good for ripping. As far as working with sheet good goes, it’s useful up to twice its cross cutting capacity. So if the saw has a 13” capacity, by flipping the board and taking two cuts, it can cut something up to 26” wide.
Portability is a bit similar to the table saw. There are some very portable models that are made to be light and easy to take to a job site. But there are also larger versions meant to be more stationary.
As far as dust collection, track saws are known to be pretty bad for creating a cloud of saw dust. That said, there have been a lot of big improvements in dust collection on miter saws. And the Makita I’m using is one of the best in it’s class.
Repeatability. I haven’t seen a miter saw itself that provides a way to get repeatable lengths. That said, it’s quite simple. There just needs to be something you can bump the end of your material against that’s the distance from the blade you want to cut. Of course, that needs to be secured or heavy enough that bumping it isn’t going to knock it out of position. I have a miter station with a stop block that locks into a t-track. Jimmy Diresta has scrap steel blocks he likes to use.
However, the miter saw does have another type of repeatability built in. If identical miters, bevels, or compound angles are required the miter saw is the tool for the job. Almost all miter saws swivel and lock for miter cuts up to 45, and many can tilt the head to do bevel cuts. Combine those two and you have compound angles that are repeatable. Add a stop block and you can cut identical compound angles on boards that are identical lengths.
Track Saw
Though not a new tool, the track saw has been enjoying some recent popularity. It has most of the portability and capacity of a circular saw, but with much better dust collection and accuracy.
It’s a portable tool, so you can take it wherever you want to work. But to be really effective it rides on it’s track. So the tool is a bit limited to whatever track length you have. Granted, tracks can be combined together to an infinite length - or the cut paused and the track reposition as needed.
Why go through that pain? Well, the saw is made to be captive to the track so there’s no worry of it drifting off line. Once the track is dropped in place, the saw will make a dead straight cut right along the tracks edge. Most tracks have a plastic “chip strip” along the edge that shows exactly where the saw will cut and also holds down the wood fibers where the saw blade exits the wood which minimizes tear out.
Because of its track, track saws are great for ripping cuts and excels at breaking down sheet goods that can be too unwieldy to take to a table saw. The cuts are super straight. But repeatability is limited to your ability to accurately mark and position the track.
Dust collection is the other place the track saw has a lot of improvement over the circular saw. Because there’s a lot of enclosure around the blade the saw does a better job at directing the dust to the collection port. Combine a track saw with a vacuum like the portable Makita vacuum I’m using and you can keep a cleaner shop or feel comfortable taking the setup into a client’s home.
Summary
Whew, that’s a lot of words. Let me try to summarize.
Circular Saw: if you need portability and something that’ll do everything, but it doesn’t have to be perfect.
Track Saw: this is best if you need portability but really straight cuts and won’t be doing much cross cutting.
Miter Saw: if portability is less of a concern and you just need cross cutting with repeatability.
Table Saw: any crosscutting you need will be small piece, but you want the most repeatability for ripping and sheet goods.