I just purchased a CF531 and have now had it for a couple weeks. I replaced a 52” SawStop cabinet saw. I also previously had a A3/31 jointer/planer. The reason for my change was that I got a CNC machine with a 4’ x 8’ table and have moved to doing my large sheet processing on the CNC router instead of the table saw. I wanted to reclaim some space.

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I debated on the Hammer C3 and also just a saw shaper but ended up getting the CF531 for the nicer XRoll table and the tilting shaper. I got the full combo instead of just a saw shaper because the extra jointer/planer function was only about $2K more than the saw shaper version and also provided some more table surface area.

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I’m not very far into the machine and this is my first sliding saw, but here are a few initial thoughts:

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• Felder recommends way more operating clearance around the machine than I (and probably most people have). Because of that, I can’t always put my kept piece of wood to the left of the blade to use the material stops – e.g. if I wanted to cut a 10” piece off a full sheet I would need 86” right of the blade for clearance, which I don’t have (I actually don’t have it left of the blade either – I would probably do that cut with either the track saw or the CNC router.
• The CF531 slider is perfect for 5’ x 5’ plywood sheets.
• There are some operations that are harder [for me] to do the slider way and therefore I use conventional saw techniques – ripping boards longer than 6’, or combination techniques – using the fence to put the kept piece of wood to the right of the blade but still using the sliding table to maneuver the rest of the sheet
• The hole in the table between the saw section and the J/P section is mildly annoying to work around – if you want to set the fence at 18” you’re doing it with a tape measure rather than the fence scale. This is a minor nuisance only.
• If you can plan your project where you do your operations in order, then the combination machine is totally functional. If you do a bunch of one-off things where you bounce between saw and planer especially, the changeovers get annoying fast.
• There are a ton of options that take a lot of time to sort through. If you decide to order one, do your homework to figure out what you need and what the choices are. I had probably 30 hours of research and 4 hours of phone calls with my sales rep.

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At this point, I think I’m going to keep my A3/31 J/P along with the CF531. The way my shop is laid out I will probably do most of the jointing on the CF531 and planning on the A3/31, but could swap that around depending on the needs of the job in hand.

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Short version – if you have a 10,000 sq ft shop and a rich benefactor, then a combo machine is not for you. If you have limited space like I have and your projects are usually on the smaller side, especially if you can plan all of your construction steps to minimize tool changes, then the combo machine is probably fine.

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Specifically, if you have a small footprint shop (hobbiest).

If you already have one, I would love to know if you would have chosen differently.

PK