Marc - On today's show, we're gonna talk about this
little beauty, right here,
the Bosch 12 inch Glide Sliding Compound Miter Saw.
♫ Hit it
I've been dragging my feet talking about this saw,
primarily because the way I use
a miter saw is fairly simple,
I'm in a very controlled situation here,
so most of my cuts from a miter saw
are gonna be at 90 degrees, and if it cuts dead on 90,
and gives me a nice, wobble free cut, I'm a happy camper.
I don't ask much of my miter saw,
but folks are wondering how this saw compares
to what I was using previously, which is the Festool Kapex.
It's a very expensive saw, it's $1500,
more than twice the price of this guy, this is only $600.
People want to know, what do I miss about the Kapex,
is it really worth spending all
that extra money to get the Kapex?
Spoiler Alert, no it's not.
At least, if you're the kind of woodworker I am,
in this controlled environment.
Now, if you're a road warrior
and you're doing all kinds of angled cuts
on interior trim and working on
a clients home, something like that?
Yeah, it might be worth it, to get the Kapex.
In my case, it's just not, all right.
Let's just quickly go through
some of the things I like about the Bosch,
stuff I don't like, and even some of the things
I miss by not having the Kapex here anymore.
Let's get into it.
One of the first things you'll notice about the saw,
is this articulating arm, and that unique feature
allows this saw to go right up against the wall.
Most compound miter saws like this
will actually have bars that extend beyond
the back of the saw, which means you have to have
this thing pretty far away from the wall.
If you have a small shop, that could be problematic.
From the back to the very front tip,
you've got about 33 inches here.
By comparison, here's an Makita that I'm also auditioning.
That guy comes in at around 41 inches.
The saw bed is nice and flat and wide,
there's a lot of working surface here.
If you put a straight edge on there,
you can see the center section,
which is really the most important,
this is your real reference surface,
that's dead flat on mine.
We've also got these retractable supports
on both sides, that's included with the saw.
Sometimes, on other saws, that's an add on
that you have to pay for, so it's nice to have it included.
The handle is really intuitive
and obvious, as handles should be.
If you have to think about it too much,
it's poorly designed.
You've got a right handed operation
and left handed and it's very comfortable.
The handle is really something you take for granted,
until you find one that isn't quite right.
When I first got the Kapex, that was an adjustment,
because you have this sort of vertical orientation,
and you have to really get your hand up and over
to release the thumb lock
and then be able to pull the saw down.
Ergonomically speaking,
I really didn't like the way that felt.
This feels natural, the was it's supposed to be.
Bevel and miter adjustments on this are pretty
straight forward, you just have a detent release here,
that allows you to go to any angle you want,
you can pop this guy back down
and then find your detents again and tighten it down.
Very smooth operation, the buttons are just huge,
and obvious and almost toy like, in a way,
so you really can't miss their function.
I don't make bevel cuts with a miter saw very often,
but, when I do, I know I'm gonna miss one aspect
of the Kapex that was really cool,
and that is the simple adjustability.
There's just knob that you turn to the side,
so once you release it, you can just rotate it
and the head moves and pivots very, very nicely.
Here, we've got to undo a lever, like so
and now we have zero to 45 degrees adjustability.
My saw is not secured to the table,
which makes it a little harder to do this,
but it moves, it's fine, it's OK.
But, it's nothing like just being able
to turn a little dial and really dial
in the perfect degree setting.
One of the first things I did with this saw
when I got it in the shop, was upgrade the blade.
I've got a Forest Chopmaster in there,
which provides incredibly awesome cuts.
That's one of the benefits of this saw,
is it has standard arbor sizes,
and you're gonna have a whole slew
of choices in what type of blade you want to put in there.
The Kapex does require a special arbor size,
so you're gonna be a little more limited
in your blade selection.
Let's talk about dust collection,
there is a nice port on here
that you can connect a dust extractor to,
and it does a decent job, I mean,
compared to other miter saws on the market,
the dust collection here is really pretty darn good.
When you compare it to the Kapex it falls short.
It looks very similar to what's on the Kapex,
and you've got a rubber shroud down here
and I think the shroud itself is part of the problem,
I think the dust collection would be more effective,
if you had a wider shroud.
You can see this cardboard, this is not something
that comes with the saw, I've just taped
that in there to try to experiment with
what size shroud is gonna give me the best result.
I think this dust collection can improve,
but I think it needs a little bit of
re-engineering to get there, still.
Better than just about any other miter saw on the market,
with the exception of the Kapex.
Because I used this saw for very precise cuts,
I like to clamp my work down.
That is one of the things I really miss about the Kapex.
It had a very nice quick action clamp
that you could just slide down and lock in two seconds.
This guy has one of these doo-jobies.
(clamp ratchets)
Almost there.
(slow music)
Ah. There we go.
But now I want to cut this piece so ...
(clamp ratcheting)
(slow music)
All right, so you get the point,
bottom line, is it's kind of slow.
It does have the ability to lift out of its socket
in the back and you can quickly reposition it
to a different location and it makes it a little bit faster,
but ultimately, there's still nothing
like a very quick release clamp.
Oddly enough, Bosch does make a quick release clamp,
and I picked it up hoping it might fit this saw,
but it doesn't, the clamping mechanism here
gets in the way of the fence,
so you actually have to have the post out
of the hole pretty far to get that to be effective.
It's probably good on other saws,
but on this particular model,
it doesn't really work that well.
Hopefully, maybe someday, they'll make
one just like this for this saw.
There is one thing that bothers me about this insert here,
even though the table is nice and flat,
the insert is just a little bit lower
than the tables surface.
That can create issues if you're dealing
with small work pieces as they drop down, and they don't
really have the reference surface that they need here.
Easily fixable, because we can probably just shim
this insert if we wanted to, or make our own insert,
which we really should do with a miter saw anyway,
to get a nice zero clearance in here.
Easily fixable, but right out of the box,
this is pretty much a non ideal situation.
Now we've messed with the settings, for this demonstration,
but I've put everything back to 90 degrees.
That's one of the big tests of a saw,
can it go back to a previous setting and nail it?
Let's do that cut, the cut that I do most often, 90 degrees.
I've got a full 13 1/2 inch wide piece of plywood,
with one jointed edge against the fence.
Let's see how it does.
(saw whirring)
Just put my square against the back edge,
and that is pretty darn good,
I don't know that you can ask for anything better than that.
What's the final verdict?
Well, I gotta give this thing a thumbs up.
It's a great buy at $600, it's a good investment,
a rock solid performer, it does everything
that I ask it to do, in fact,
I've got a Makita sitting on there floor
that I intended to audition for a permanent role,
in my shop and I don't want to touch it.
I'm really happy with this guy,
and I'm getting comfortable with it,
so it's really a rock solid performer.
The only things I really miss about the Kapex
boils down the the dust collection and the clamping system.
I'm not sure if the clamping system
is going to get any better,
but this does work, it just takes a little bit longer.
The dust collection does seem like something,
that if I continue to do some research
and work with it, in fact I even read somewhere
that the larger shroud from the Kapex
can be retrofitted onto this unit
to make it a little bit more functional.
I don't know, we'll see, but there's room
for improvement there, and hopefully,
I'll figure out a way to get to that point.
It's one of those things, you have
to do the research for yourself, look at some
of the other features on the other saws on the market.
You may value things differently than I do,
but for me, my recommendation here,
Bosch Glide, definite purchase, it's a really good buy.
Thanks for watching.
(peppy music)