Miter Saw Newby

[bpeck]

After reading all of the threads on miter saws I bought a 10 inch Hitachi compound miter saw. I ain't a power tool person, but need this to do some porch and deck railing projects, and nearly collapsed at the thought of hand sawing all that mess.:nah:

Anyway here's the questions.
First: what's the best blade for treated lumber, realizing that this is a onetime project.
Second: I now realize I probably need some sort of portable stand since I don't have a workshop and will want to move it around to wherever I'm working. Any ideas? Or does it even need to be bolted down to anything. Yes I can hear your cries of horror over the safety issues of that, even from this distance.::no: But you probably get that I don't want to spend too much. All solutions gratefully accepted.

Thanks
Brian

 

[DaveO]

Probably the blade that came with the saw will be adequate for working with treated lumber. If it didn't come with a blade any decent 60-80 cross cut blade will work fine. Just about anything that you can find at Lowe's/HD is good for construction work.
You can make a simple saw base out of twoby stock and set it on some saw horses. It is good to have the saw bolted down to something if you are going to be cutting long stock.

Dave

 

[Bas]

What Dave said. Cutting pressure treated lumber isn't too hard on the blade, but pine will usually gum up the blades pretty quick. Just clean it once in a while. Ordinary citrus cleaner will do great, or use 409.

As for mounting - the slickest system I saw (for the price) was a piece of plywood that had two sets of 2x4 attached to the bottom (parallel, running lengthwise). The sawhorses would fit right between each set of 2x4s. Then bolt the saw to the plywood. Portable, and you can even use it without the sawhorses.

 

[bpeck]

Thanks all, and it looks like I even have the scrap lumber to make a simple stand.
Brian:icon_thum