Need help - to many options. Trying to find my first mitre saw that will cut up to about 270-280mm. I've seen the Dewalt 707 - seems good, but I really could do with saving a few pounds as i've just bought my first home - needs loads of work...aarrgh!
Seen many and got a few opinions. Don't want to buy a Chinese cheapy becouse I want some consistency and accuracy - will I get this from the Ryobi model - which is about 100 notes less than dewalt, cuts up to 305mm.......and comes with a laser - ooooohhhhhh!
About a week ago I saw a sliding Ryobi 10” miter saw at a Home Depot (HD) store. The saws were stacked in boxes but none were on display on the floor. I remember noticing the price on the box was $199.00 even, not like the $199.95 that HD always adds to their prices. I visited about 5 HD stores that day looking for some parts for a job I was on and I forgot at which store I had seen the tool. I tried to locate the tool on the HD website to no avail. I also looked on the Ryobi site and they did not even mention that they made a sliding miter saw. I made some online inquiries at some Do-It-Yourself forums and got this link to a HD store in Canada.
Tonight while looking for something else I again went to several HD stores, ending up at the HD in Lancaster. I asked the tool guy there about the Ryobi slider. He misunderstood me and directed me to the regular Ryobi miter saw. Disappointed I turned to leave, but in a last look around, high over the floor I spotted three Ryobi sliding miter saws! The tool guy said he didn’t know that they even had them at the store and wondered why they were not on the floor. They also were not in the store catalog with a price and SKU. A call to the store manager elicited this story:
Periodically, merchandise destined for one HD store will get miss-shipped to another. Since they usually carry the same items, the receiving store will normally just sell the item, rather than having HD pay for pickup and redelivery. In this case, since the saw has NEVER been sold in the US, there is no place in the CORPORATE APPROVED FLOOR PLAN for them to place the saw on the floor. Further, all their tool guys get sent to a one-day show/school on the merchandise that they carry. This saw is not in that show. Therefore, no one knows that they have it, or anything about it, and the saw is not on the floor, nor even on the US HD website! Finally, the store currently has only one 10” sliding miter saw and that is the Makita for $499.00 and they would hate to upstage that saw for a product that they do not yet officially carry. I think that this will change as someone has to notice that this saw is competitively priced with the Kobalt sliding miter saw at Lowes but is a more recognized brand.
We entered the SKU from the box and bought up the HD-Canada link. Well, HD now has one less Sliding Ryobi Miter Saw and I have an early Christmas present!
I enjoy using Ryobi tools and have always found them to be good values for the money. Unless you are doing this for a living, it is probably hard to justify spending 4 or 5 times as much for another brand that will not display a whole lot of difference for the extra money.
