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Delta TwinLaser 12” Compound Miter Saw (2005)

Likes:

Capacity. The 12" blade is capable of crosscutting a fairly wide board.
Powerful. Plows through 12/4 hardwood with no problems.
The laser is very helpful and amazingly accurate. Once dialed in to the width of your blade teeth, the lasers mark both sides of the saw kerf. It's easy to cut off your marking line, split the line, or cut right up next to the line. The lasers have stayed accurate over many months of hard use. Having them mark both sides of the kerf prevents accidentally cutting off the wrong side of your mark. Surprisingly nice feature.
Smooth cuts thanks to the many-toothed Oldham blade.
The manual is well written and helpful.
Delta's customer service is great. My saw was a floor model, and it was missing a few minor accessory pieces. Delta sent everything I needed right away with no hassels and at no cost to me. Couldn't ask for more.

Dislikes:

Large. It's a bit larger than my DW705 CMS, and it's also a bit heavier. I wouldn't want to drag this thing to jobsites every day. Since I keep the saw permanently installed in my bench it's not a real issue for me.
Tricky to set the fence perpendicular to the blade. It took a little fussing, but once dialed in they've stayed perfectly aligned.

The picture above shows the dust collection hood I built for this saw. It’s made out of scrap plywood, and includes a register boot in the underside of the table. It’s connected to a full 6” drop from my dust collector piping, and the downdraft collection with the hood does an outstanding job. It’s my third attempt at a reasonable dust collection system for the CMS, and this is by far the best design. It gets about 95% of the dust – far better than my previous attempts. You can get more details about this hood on my DC Hoods page.

I've built the CMS into my bench and positioned it so that the top of the bench is level with the top of the saw table. With 8' of support to the left and 4' to the right, this setup makes it very convenient to crosscust lumber. I use this CMS to do 90% of my crosscuts for furniture projects and have never had a problem with accuracy of the joints. This is a great setup, and much more convenient that using the TS to crosscut all your lumber.

You'll notice a set of Peltor ear muffs hanging on the saw. I wear those whenever I'm using the CMS because it can get quite loud - especially if I'm also running my Dust Collector at the same time. These Peltor muffs are great.