Take a tour of my Miter Saw
Interesting Characteristics
I've had this Bosch Compound Sliding Miter Saw longer than any other saw in my shop, however it also is the most recent of my custom workstations. I had this mobile cabinet on my 'todo' list for a couple of years but kept putting it off due prioritizing other (paid) projects. My old setup wasn't so great but it was workable (see the 'before' picture in the list of photos). Since the Miter Saw is a real dust blowing machine, I decided to add dedicated dust collection. I have a shop vacuum behind the center door hooked to a dust hood mounted under the saw's sliding rails. It doesn't catch all the flying debris but most of it. The saw and the vac are both plugged into a tool activated switch so when I turn on the saw, the vacuum automatically powers up. When the saw shuts off the vac runs for a few seconds, a feature handier than I had originally thought.
Commentary
I added two extension tables to either side of the saw. These basically extend the saw's table surface in both directions by 2 feet. The tables each hold a drawer where I store various accessories. On the left side, I also have an swing-up 2ft extension wing. This gives me 4 feet of extra table surface. I also added 4ft of fence and a stop for repetitive cutting jobs. The cabinet itself is 75" long and 47" high. I made this workstation quite tall, a good deal taller than what I've seem of other miter saw stations. The main reason was for sighting a cut line to the blade. If the saw is low, that means you have to hunch down to line up the saw's blade to your mark. With my tall setup, it's easier since you're not bent over so far. Unlike a tablesaw where the low work surface is necessary to get the right leverage to push a board through the blade, a cut on the miter saw is much physically easier and (cross) cutting pushes the board against the fence.
For a detailed walk-thru of individual workstations in my shop, click on any of the links below.