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Kirstie

Kirstie

PFG, Picture Framing God
Joined
Jan 16, 2007
Posts
8,395
Loc
Berkeley, CA
We are fed up with 30 year old chopper problems and our old Frame Square saw for metal is marginal. We are thinking--just thinking--of looking at double miter saws at WCAF.

Saws and Dust collection--what do you use?

Recommendations please.
 
I use a Pistorius (sp?) double mitre saw and a Grizzly dust collector that is 30+ years old and it still works great. Just wished I could find some good blades! Any suggestions??
 
We bought a CTD double mitre saw two years ago in Vegas. Better cuts consistently, more dust, louder. I actually prefer it. Only limitation is I can't change the angles of the blades, not that it comes up that often. We are now looking into a dust collection system.

David
 
Both CTD and Pistorius are good saws, so I don't think you can go wrong with either. Pistorious will possibly hold its value better, but CTD is a Cal company, which you may consider to be an advantage.
 
Kirstie said:
We are fed up with 30 year old chopper problems
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Is it because it's 30 years old, or because it's a chopper? The 30 year old part can be taken care of - either by a major rebuild, which could cost a few hundred dollars or at worst with a new chopper. I'd say that 30 years paid for itself.

Our chopper is almost 30 years old and probably has a higher duty cycle than that of the typical frame shop. We have had to replace some parts over the years but never to the point that I would call it "rebuilding", and we still prefer the chopper over the Pistorious for the majority of our mouldings.
 
Quoting myself off the CTD thread

"I am probably one of the few that use daily three different double miter saws. A Pistorius 12"(30 years old), CTD 12"(25 years old) and a Sawtech Sientific (15 years old) for metal. Our CTD and Pistorius chop differently in that the CTD when you start the down stroke you are committed to finishing the stroke unless you manually hit the reverse button when the saw stalls and it some times will. The Pistorius the foot pedal can control the blade decent and ascent and with practice you can control the speed of the desent. The newer Pistorius now have an easy to use rate of speed control on the front of the machine. I won't discuss the Sawtech beacuse at $30,000+ it is probably out of your price range and only cuts metal. For wood I prefer the Pistorius. For blades I have had the best luck with Ultramiter wood blades"

It is best to have the person doing the chops actually use/test various saws as they may look the same they can operate differently (sometimes annoyingly so).
 
JFeig said:
In older machines that control valve is located inside, near the inlet to the down stroke piston on the air line to that piston. At least my 30yo Pistorius has one there.
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It's there even on our pretty new one (I guess it is four years old now - time flies whether you're having fun or not). It would be a great advantage to have it on the front of the machine. I wonder if they sell retrofit kits. I'm sure it's something you could do with some spare parts but it would be handy to buy a kit of everything you need and just install it.
 
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