Compound miter saw Makita LS1018L

The Makita LS1018L was my overall first saw I got. I did a lot of comparing between different brands and versions on a good value for money aspect.

In several reviews on this saw, people stated that this saw does perfect cuts and that it has good adjusting options.

I thought it could be a reasonable tool to start building (simple) furnitures like shelfs out of glued panel boards which do not exceed the saw’s cutting length of 300mm.

The cutting results were great and the saw has made a good impression. As any other Makita tools (on which I am big unpaid fan of :-) ) this tool has a great quality and appearance.

For my tasks this saw did a good job when using 90 degree angles for miter cuts.

And here the drawbacks come into play:

The saw table has several pre defined common angle positions for miter cuts at which the table can be locked. But when measuring the resulting angles at those positions I found out that the angles were pretty off the desired result. The saw table can not be calibrated or something.

In general it is pretty complicated and annoying to adjust the table to any angle setting even using a digital angle meter.

For the bevel cuts it also is quite difficult to adjust the saw to a desired angle. At least you have to do it with another person since the saw part is quite heavy and therefor difficult to adjust. Best is to use a digital bevel box to master this challenge.

With leaving these adjustment issues behind you the saw does a great job with awesome cutting results.

Another general issue on most miter and chop saws are the dust extraction qualities.

By default, the dust extraction qualities are moderate when attached to a shop vac, therefore I have build a modification (see detailed project page). With this mod you will get a acceptable result for dust emissions in your shop.

In summary it can be said that this saw is a really valuable and good saw producing great cutting results. The major drawback for me is the inconvenient and long lasting procedure to adjust the saw to any angle for both miter and bevel cuts.

For this reason - but also for raising enough money for buying a table saw (see my detailed page for my awesome Makita 2704 table saw), I decided to sell this saw since the table saw replaces the miter saw for most tasks.

Have a look above at my unboxing video for the Makita LS1018L for further details.

If you have any questions about this saw feel free to write a comment below.