That $400 miter saw stand seemed like a waste until my last big deck job

I picked up a rolling miter saw stand about six months ago, thinking it was a luxury I could skip. The price tag made me wince, but I was tired of setting up on sawhorses and moving everything by hand. On a recent deck rebuild in Tacoma, we had to cut over 200 pieces of composite decking to specific lengths. Having that stand with the extensions and stops meant I could set a length once and just feed the boards through. It cut my cutting time in half, easy. My back thanked me at the end of each day, too, from not having to hunch over. I still think it's a lot of money for a stand, but the time and strain it saved was real. What's one tool you bought that felt expensive but ended up being worth every penny?

3 comments

3 Comments

bencampbell2mo ago

My buddy felt the same about his pricey air compressor until it ran three nail guns all day without a hiccup.

patricia_king232mo ago

Honestly, that "cut my cutting time in half" part, how'd the stops work? @bencampbell

nancy1546d ago

Yeah the stop system works by loading them in spaced out rows, so you get maybe 10-12 per pass instead of scrambling to keep up. I just set a flag on the first and last one in each row to keep my count straight. It takes a little getting used to but once you figure out your spacing it really does speed things up.