The older I get, the more I tend to favor smaller and lighter power tools that are easy to move around the job site. That didn't stop me from buying Makita's big and heavy LS1216L sliding compound miter saw last year, though. I couldn't resist its cutting capacity: a full 15 inches wide at 3 5/8 inches deep, more than any other sliding compound miter saw I'm aware of. My crew and I don't always need this much capacity, so we don't use the LS1216L as our primary saw; but when we're trimming out a wide frieze or working on an unusually deep built-in, we don't mind lugging around a saw that measures almost 3 feet long and weighs close to 60 pounds - as long as it will do the job.

I've owned a couple of generations of Makita miter saws over the years and have always found them to be accurate and well-built. This model is no exception. Even though it's been bouncing around in a gang box for several months now, my LS1216L cuts as smoothly and accurately as the day I unpacked it. Crosscuts are dead-on, while vertical cuts...

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