20 Best 12 Inch Compound Sliding Miter Saw (2023 Updated)

Love this miter saw. with its slide mechanism I was able to butt the saw right up against the wall and save so much space in my mall shop. As others have described the dust collection isnt the best and hopefully will be improved in the next model whenever bosch updates the saw.

Only other downside of this saw compared to others is no laser or shadow light to measurements/blade line. Overall a good saw with small areas that would be a great saw if having better creature comforts like dust collection or laser line.

I bought this saw 2 months ago in an effort to upgrade my 10″ compound miter saw of another make. I am a custom furniture and cabinet maker, so increasing capacity and quality over my previously owned tool were the main objectives and this unit hit it out of the park! When upackaging the unit I was suprised at its size.

It was a bit larger and heavier than expected. However, this is a good thing since it means I don’t have to worry about it moving so much during use, and generally weight = quality. First thing I did was to set it up on my miter saw stand (compatible with the Ridgid stand I own) and checked calibration of the 0° and 45° stops.

Everything checked out spot on in that regard. The sliding mechanism worked perfectly, and the fact that I don’t require 2 feet behind the saw to accommodate the sliding bars is a huge bonus. I did some test cuts on 4/4 oak and the saw had plenty of power to make it through that wood.

A couple of very minor issues: 1. The laser was slightly out of calibration. Not a big deal, and very easy to correct. In fact, I don’t use the laser too often anyway, but it’s nice to have when I do use it.

2. As is the case with all new miter saws that I know of, the gap between the table insert is quite large. However, I rectified this by making a zero clearance insert out of oak. Took about 45 minutes start to finish, but very worth it.

3. Again, as is the case with almost all miter saws, dust collection is quite bad. Other than making custom dust collection on it, not much can be done. Overall, a great saw and would recommend. Very happy with the purchase.

I bought this absolute monster of a saw a little over a month ago. My woodshop is really hard on tools, which is why I’m team green! This saw has cut through several White oak barnwood beams with absolutely no hesitation.

I was actually not aware that this saw had a brake until I used it for the first time. It was a feature that I never knew I needed or wanted. Lots of time saved by not having to wait for the blade to spool down.

An added benefit of the brake that a lot of people dont realize, is its ability to minimize the time spent in a dangerous situation should you get any sort of binding in the blade or something youre cutting shifts because you misjudged the balance of the lumber.

This thing was absolutely PERFECTLY calibrated and adjusted straight from the factory. I absolutely hated fiddling with my old miter when I first got it. The laser adjustment knob is very handy. The ability to adjust which side of the blade your laser follows is invaluable if you have to cut a lot of lumber in large volume.

The motor runs cool and quiet. The working table is flat. the bevel and angle adjustments are accurate and repeatable. If you work as hard and run through as much hardwood lumber as I do, this is an investment in your future, and in your workflow efficiency.

Fantastically well done miter saw.

Right after the start of the new year my old saw burnt out. I own my own wood shop and needed a new saw ASAP to finish orders. I’ve looked into the metabo previously and loved the design of the 12 inch saw.

The small footprint in my small shop was a big draw. I also love the vertical position of the handle. I feel like I have less influence on the accidental directional pull of the blade that happens in horizontal handles.

The saw was dead accurate out of the box. All of the detents for the miter adjustments are dead on accurate. Returning the saw back to the 90 degree position is always spot on. This saw is so much quieter then my previous saws, which I didn’t know bothered me so much until I got this saw.

The laser has been accurate for me and something I didn’t realize I would use often I find myself using frequently to help align my cut quickly. I have mine stationary in a full miter station so I cannot speak to the portability of it.

All in all I highly recommend this saw. It’s accurate, powerful and doesn’t take up much space especially compared to many other 12” saws on the market. Because of this saw I have been steadily adding more metabo tools to my shop and have been pleased by them all.

This is a great saw, my old eyes love the LED light and cutline. Great price and quick shipping from Acme.

I drove from Indy to Urbana to buy this saw because Blain’s was running a DeWalt promotion for an additional $100 off (and also because it was a good opportunity for my son to get in driving hours on his learner’s permit).

At $299, this was a no-brainer. I’ve used the saw to construct a riser platform in my home theater room and it works great. Clean, straight cuts, accurate angles on both axes, and plenty of power.

I bought this saw a month ago to upgrade from my old 10 inch sliding miter saw. I’m very impressed with the how high the fence is for cutting large crown moulding vertically nested, which my old saw lacked.

The numbers on the miter and bevel scales are easy to read and adjust. The extra cut capacity with this saw has also been a huge upgrade. It’s been a great space saver in the shop since I don’t have a lot of room to work with.

Out of the box, the blade and fence were 90 degrees and didn’t need any adjusting. The laser needed some tweaking, but was able to get it lined up with my cut lines. I also needed to put a little extra grease on the slide rails, which made it nice and smooth when slide cutting.

Overall, I’d highly recommend the product if you’re in the market to upgrade.

I bought this saw Jan 2022. I did not need a 12 inch miter but it was on clearance which made it more affordable. It looked pretty good straight out of the box. After making some simple straight cuts I noticed it was out of square by about 5 degrees.

After spending too much time fixing this I also had to readjust the zero pointer to make it look correct. Disappointing for nearly $600 saw. Laser is only good when the saw is in the upright position also.

When the saw is brought down the laser is blocked by shielding almost immediately. I should be able to see the laser across the workpiece so that I can line up the blade to cut line and saw blade. Is this fixable without removing guards?.

This was the first and only DeWalt product I ever owned on a referral from a fellow Pro woodworker. I purchased this saw in October, 2018 but wasn’t able to really check it until February, 2019. Being a high end custom woodworker precision cuts are the key to everything including material waste.

Unfortunately my cuts were coming out 1/16+” to short. My not be bad for some but for what I do it’s critical. After researching the unit I found it had a blade had a run out of. 0630 at 5 1/2″ from the center of the blade and that’s not good.

I’m thinking a machining flaw in the arbor. So, it had been 90 from date of purchase and I figured I needed to contact DeWalt to let them know and find out what they wanted to do while also letting them know I needed to keep the job going as to not upset a customer.

First, under know circumstances were they going to send a replacement. Second, the service center is 40+ miles away from my home and would take a month to repair and have ready for pickup. Hummmmmm. wonder why?? And third, this one got to me pretty good.

The tech could not even tell me what DeWalt’s tolerances were for blade run out. That’s just sad in my mind. Your a trained service tech but can’t answer questions about your product. So back to Home Depot with a big hope in my mind and to at least exchange it.

And yes they did. The replacement is actually quieter and smoother. All settings were spot on from the factory. Sooo, I’m pleased but I will most likely never purchase another DeWalt tool. Which sticks, because I’ve been looking at and researching the mobile none cordless table saw.

First Hercules product I’ve purchased and I’m not too disappointed. Got it for a specific job and it’s worked very well. Had to do some initial alignment to get the blade squared but expected that. Have made hundreds of cuts without an issue.

Love the red shadow light for cut alignment, although it’s not easy to see outdoors until later in the day. This is an outdoor job so I use it outside only right now. The biggest complaint is that the sawdust bag is utterly useless.

Glad I’m using the saw outside as it just makes a total mess, leaving sawdust and debris everywhere. Tried to hook up my vac system to it in the shop for my initial testing and set up, but that was equally as ineffective as expecting the bag to collect material on is own, as the thin rubber flaps behind the blade just get sucked together preventing anything from being sucked up by the vacuum system.

If I reduce the suction in the system so the flaps don’t get sucked together, there isn’t enough suction left to pull in the chips and sawdust. Poor design on that feature so minus 1 point there. Once my outdoor project is done I’m not sure what I’ll do as I can’t just drop this into my shop as-is without wearing a mask and cleaning the entire shop after each use.

Have other similar saws and the sawdust bag gets filled quickly on them when on the job, and the vac system works great when using them in the shop. After hundreds of cuts, I have yet to need to empty the Hercules bag.

But, all-in-all, is a great performer, had great features, and has worked very well on this recent job. Glad I tried the Hercules brand. Will continue to try out their other products!.

The reason I am giving this one star is because the saw is not equipped out of the box to do what the sales listing says. I am sad to say the blade included will tear up your your work although the saw desription says it will do “cabinet work, mouldings, baseboards, shelving, window and door casings, and flooring”.

The price to do this will cost more because you will have to purchase the proper blade designed to do these things. I called Dewalt customer service and they offered to send a new blade a month ago. The overseas customer service keeps saying call back tomorrow.

I pretty much have given up on receiving the blade that cuts what they say, and I will buy another brand. I am losing respect for Dewalt for cheaping out, and for the way they put off customers. I buy a lot of tools but I don’t think they will be Dewalt now.

Bought this saw during the frenzy of summer 2020 worked well for the first year occasional use on the weekends repairing a deck and carport unfortunately, the saw started cutting cuts off 1/16th of an inch, even after blade change, fence square no obvious wobble.

a gander into the rigid forums and a faulty arbour bearing cased in aluminum seems to be a common culprit Customer service nightmare! I originally loved the idea of Rigid’s warranty multiple holds of over 50 minutes to be transferred to someone else without information, when I did after several hours receive a call back I was told I as the saw was under 3 years old could do an exchange at another HD who also did warranty a few hours away.

Contacted the store they informed me they receive numerous calls regarding this and it is not the case they do not deal with Rigid Warranty whatsoever even when rigid themselves list them as a repair center.

End of the day options are to drive over 3 hours to another repair area drop off my saw or mail it in for almost the price of the Saw and wait a few weeks to see if Rigid Deems it repairable and start the job.

Moral of the story think twice if you want to buy a Rigid for their Warranty and previous quality it does not last for long !.

I absolutely love this thing and it’s easily my favorite tool in the garage. It can be a little loud and the dust collection isn’t the best (live every other mitre saw), but this this is POWERFUL. It cuts through anything you put under it like butter and that’s using the stock blade.

The angles and bevel settings have a nice snap feature, so you know you’ve set it correctly. This thing takes up a lot of space and is heavy, so keep that in mind when purchasing this; otherwise, I can’t say enough good things about this.

Oh and the Ridgid lifetime warranty is unmatched.

I’ve used this for 5+ years and only replaced the blade and LED light battery. Read the instructions! The outfeed fences are adjustable which is surprisingly useful, as are the alignments. Mine’s needed the (very) occasional adjustment.

The miter table is a bit stiff and hard to move; I’m sure use a bushing rather than bearing and perhaps. But this saw has held up for framing building sheds, building fences, trim/moldings, and the like – as a DIY, not professional.

It’s been great for my uses and is light enough to move around.

My husband and I purchased this saw a year ago to work on some home renovations. It is still going strong and has been a great tool to have! We have cut flooring, baseboards, lumber, etc. I would definitely recommend this saw to anyone looking for quality and a fraction of the price of the bigger name brands.

It is easy to work with. We had no problems out of the box ready. I especially like the light and laser line showing where it is going to cut. Helps make more precision. Love that it is portable and can be moved to whatever room or even outside to the porch to use in summer.

It can be a bit weighty for me to move on my own but the husband has no problems moving it.

I really wanted to love this saw but there were too many flaws in the quality. I shopped for about a week, watched youtube videos and read reviews and finally settled on this saw. Well kinda, I really wanted the 10 inch version which is identical except for the size but all the stores near me were sold out.

There are so many features for a really good price so I pulled the trigger. I will say it was boxed really well and looked great when I pulled it out but then my joy slowly eroded. I bought a brand new diablo 80T blade to put on this bad boy and figured everything would be butter smooth.

wrong. The saw didn’t sound right when I turned it on. It just sounded like there was always something dragging or rubbing. It also sounded like there was a wobble in the blade. I took the blade off and put it back on 3 times trying to figure out if it was rubbing or if I somehow put it on wrong but I didn’t see anything.

From there I thought I’d give it a test cut. Far from buttery smooth. The tear out on the 3/4 in ply was horrendous. My old saw never came close to being that bad. If I slowed it waaaaay down I was able to get a pretty smooth cut but no way I would want to go that slow for every cut.

The blade guard also catches on the edge of the wood almost everytime. It eventually goes up but some cuts it would mess with the action of the cut. From there I went to check square on everything. Cuts were way off but I thought no biggee I can adjust the fence.

I ended up not even bothering because I found other issues. The left side of the deck that remains stationary was not flush with the rotating portion. It was lower, so if you were to use the clamp on that side to hold the work piece it would be at an angle and begin to rise off the deck at the blade.

Not a lot but enough to be frustrating when joining pieces. The right side was flush. Then I checked the fences for 90 degrees from the deck. Again the right side was good but the left side had issues with the upper fence.

When you tighten the locking screw on the back the upper fence would begin to lean and no longer be square. All of this added up to me boxing it back up and I’m going to return it tomorrow. I had high hopes but this was just too many flaws right away.

It would probably be just fine if you were building a deck or framing something but for anytype of furniture or trim work it would just cause more frustration than it’s worth. Maybe I just got a dud.

I don’t think i’m going to try it again with a replacement because I’ve already lost an entire day on my project because of this saw. I guess I will give the hercules a go and cross my fingers it’s as good as the reviews.

I own two of these saws and one single bevel one. The saw is powerful enough to cut through everything from cheap pine to cherry, and with a simple blade change (integrated tool included) even hardie plank on a daily basis.

Combine this saw with the portable stand and you have a great combo that holds up to commercial trim work (MDF crown, baseboard, pine etc. ) and cabinet work (poplar, pine, maple, alder etc. ). Only issue I’ve ever had with one was a set of brushes going bad.

7 minutes and 2 brushes later this saw was back to work. The miter and bevel settings were right on the money out the box and even with daily use hardly ever need adjustments. Dewalt makes great tools for professionals and amateurs alike.

I’ve had this saw for a few years now. It started off as my primary miter saw, but due to the saw’s inability to remain square (the blade in reference to the fence), and the complete failure of the saw to cut accurate miters, I bought a saw from a competitor.

I still have and use this saw, but only for rough cuts; not when accuracy is essential. If I would recommend this saw to a friend entirely depends on what the saw is going to be used for. This is a pretty good saw for rough carpentry work; but is a total failure in the realm of fine woodworking.