[Closed] Evolution mitre saw. Any good ?

Evolution appeared on the scene pretty much with these multi material saws, I'm guessing they hold some patents that prevent others bringing something similar out. Their stuff is good enough but not great

They are good for cutting steel, not as accurate as the dewalt would be for timber work. The limitation with all sliding saws, even good ones, is slop in the sliding mechanism allowing the blade to tip and deviate, not a worry if you are going to weld the finished item but with wood where you are more reliant on the cut to keep everything square then not so great.

Unless you really need that capacity go with a regular non-slidy one if you can.

Another limitation is you are tied to evolution's own blades as the arbor spins at a different speed to other brands of saw

I have 1 of the 300mm 1's . Its been great not many other saws where you can pick up a bit of wood with metal in it and not have a care in the world. Its pretty accurate cuts wood and metal with ease. Been using a dewalt 1 on site lately and its certainly not any better....

For the price they are a good buy and i am happy to buy there blades the cheap enough and last bloody ages...

the man who designs them is a singletrackworlder...

(seriously)

I have one from when I built my Landy trialer a few years back

Scary things when cutting scaffold tubes and 6 mm steel plate

great bit of kit for the price .

Well thats gotta be a first . Folk on stw agreeing 😉

Tony thats exactly what brought them onto my radar . Lots of my reclaimed fire woods got old nails in.

And trout - thats as good an endorsement i need .... Im fairly sure a landy trialer build will e on the cards once my ninetys back on the road

Couldn't help adding my bit - Cheers Pook! The Rage 3 (255) is a big seller for us and built for fairly heavy use. We completely outsell DeWalt mitre saws in the UK these days.

You could also consider for that mitre saw or another, the Blacktip blade range - http://www.evolutionstore.co.uk/blacktip/25436.html it's a bit cheaper than a multi-purpose blade and will still go through wood with nails in, so great for your reclaimed wood also. (the Blacktip isn't suitable for cutting steel by itself though) There's even a diamond blade you can fit for cutting stone, tiles etc.

We also make a non-sliding multipurpose mitre saw, (Fury-3B) but it only comes in 210mm blade size and has a smaller depth of cut. Frankly, it's more of a DIY product when compared with the Rage 3.

All our blades are high-spec, Japanese-made - although you're tied to these blades due to bore size, they're relatively inexpensive compared with similar quality blades by other brands. The multipurpose blades are intended to run at a slower speed for cutting steel, so they don't tend to work well for steel cutting on other mitre saws, if you were to use a bore-adapter. If you use a 30mm-1" bore-adapter you can fit other wood blades to an evolution saw though, as long as you don't cut wood with them.

We have plenty of customers who use their saws for most of the cutting during welding projects, instead of the traditional angle grinder route. You get a much cleaner, accurate cut and there's no heat-affected zone that angle grinding causes.

cf - I looked at a sliding Evolution in Screwfix a while back, but was put off by what appeared to be 'slop' in the sliding mechanism. Maybe it'd been badly put togther, not sure. But, probably because of the 'bright' colours hadn't realised they were professional products either.

Maybe I need to take another look, as I need one now.

Yeah bright colours threw me too , like a dewalt wannabe

Bought one today at screw fix

Cant say ive noticed any noticable slop , no worse than the dewalt. What you have to watch out for and i suspect that the saw in screw fix might have been is at fresh from the box the motor/handle tilt locking mechanism wasnt done , this gave the impression of slop to start with till i wound it up.

Chopped all my fire wood this afternoon in an hour , reduced a full shed of scrap wood into.a pile half the height of the shed f ready to burn wood. . Used to tAke a half hour with a bow saw just to cut enough for a nights burning !

Through nails no issues at all. Should make butt welding a pleasure having accuracy as unless i use the expensive mm thick grinding disks i never get a descent straight cut with the 4" grinder. ( work man tools , skill etc etc..... And lack of all the above 😉 )

If there's any play in the sliding mechanism, you can adjust the "pads" on the RH auxiliary slide. The purpose for this is as a calibration device to ensure the slides /headrun perfectly true

Just realised what I meant to say above in my last post - If you use a 30mm-1" bore-adapter you can fit other wood blades to an evolution saw though, as long as you don't cut [u]STEEL[/u] with them. whoops!

I'd advise a front clamp if you're doing lots of metal cutting also. It can take some of the fear out of making "big" cuts in steel. They're around a fiver from the evo website shop.

Also, any suggestions / feedback about the product would be welcome - I'm working on a new design soon...!

My one today came with a top clamp and a front clamp :/ - instructions didnt mention it.

Glad your cleared that up cf as id quite like a fine tooth blade for finishings noticed today it doesnt give a comparible cut to the dewalt when it comes to finishing( not a fair comparison as i had a fine blade on the dewalt ) and i found the slower i drew the saw the more it ripped the face of the wood where as the dewalt would make a nicer cut.

But thats not a complaint as to have a blade so versitile there has to be a draw back somewhe and its no biggy to change a blade to a fine.