Rant: stop telling new guys to buy a miter saw first, it's backwards

I keep seeing guys on here tell greenhorns to drop $400 on a sliding compound miter saw before they even own a good tape. That's backwards, and I'll die on this hill. A miter saw is a finish tool, it cuts angles someone already laid out for you. What a rookie actually needs is a decent circular saw and 50 feet of straightedge, since 9 out of 10 cuts on a job site are rips and crosscuts on sheet goods. I watched a kid in a Fresno shop burn two whole days trying to break down plywood on a miter saw because that's what the internet told him to buy. What's the first tool you'd hand a new guy, and would it be the same one you started with?

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the_drew18d ago

Man, I was you a couple years back, swore up and down the miter saw was the first buy. Then I helped a buddy frame a shed and watched him fight a sheet of OSB with one for an hour, and yeah, that was it for me. Circular saw and a straightedge all day for a green guy, the miter can come later.

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