At the moment I'm considering my next power tool purchase. I'm a home improvement beginner and have been enjoying the journey, and I'm now ready to get serious about investing into a proper saw. I would like to get views of the community on what would make a better investment for me at this point.
My situation: I live in a 1400 sq ft apartment and I don't have a "shop" to speak of, outside of a small 2' x 4' workbench in our storage room. I set up a Workmate in our kitchen if I am doing anything serious, and to further expand work space I use the kitchen table (and a special top I made for it, to prevent damage). Sometimes I set up the Workmate out on our 3' x 15' balcony.
What I do: typical home improvement stuff. Cabinets, shelves, racks, improvements to existing furniture, etc.
Limitations: I live in Bangkok, and as there is no significant DIY movement here, the big stores here don't provide the same kinds of services as they do elsewhere. Therefore, I must buy my sheet material in full sheets only. They won't cut it down, at all.
I am now considering the purchase of either a circular saw or a table saw.
- A circular saw of course makes it easy for me to cut a big sheet down to the right sizes. I can do that pretty much anywhere. I probably would rip the big sheets down outside of my condo, in for example the parking levels of my building. A table saw is significantly less movable. Although possible, I don't think I would take such a thing out into the parking area to cut sheets.
- A table saw seems ideal for most purposes of smaller stuff, up to 24' perhaps. But then there have been so many videos that show how to create a home-made table top for an inverted circular saw that would probably suit my needs just fine. And using that approach perhaps perhaps gets me an "ok for now" solution, until I can justify the next investment into a proper table saw.
- Although not huge, a table saw is a chunky piece of gear that in order to store it I would need to do some serious thinking for. A circular saw is of course much smaller.
Curious about the other considerations, or comments re the above. I won't buy both, I will only buy one of these for now. Probably an entry level DeWALT in either category.
