Hitachi C10FCE2 Review
Hitachi 10" Compound Miter Saw | |
 | Hitachi C10FCE2 Review Highlights
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| For the Professional Contractor | 4 out of 5 |
| For the Do-It-Yourselfer & Weekend Warrior | 5 out of 5 |
| For the Hobbyist and Beginner Woodworker | 5 out of 5 |
| For the Serious Woodworker | 3 out of 5 |
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The Hitachi C10FCE2 Review Summary
In my Hitachi C10FCE2 review I’ll be covering all the features and benefits of this saw, while also including my own personal opinions on ease of use, practicality, and real user review summaries, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The first thing with this Hitachi 10″ compound miter saw that jumps out at me is the price tag. It’s a pretty low-cost compound miter saw, and yet it’s still been able to hold very high user reviews in the online marketplace, which is no easy feat.
This particular model comes with a feature that is lacking on many low-cost miter saws, and that’s the flip-up extended height fence. This feature is used for taller vertical board cuts, such as baseboards and crown molding.
And overall, this is a well-designed saw that offers miter adjustments in both directions beyond 45 degrees, it bevels to the left for bevel and compound cuts, and it is a really lightweight saw. This makes it easy to pull out as needed for home projects, or to easily move around a job site for all the professionals out there.
Out of the box, the Hitachi 10 inch miter saw C10FCE2 comes with a 24 tooth blade, the flip fence attachment, clamp down assembly, blade change wrench, dust collection bag, and material support extension.
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Hitachi C10FCE2 Review – Why Choose It?
Comes with all the standard features fo a good compound miter saw, at a competitive price point
The Hitachi C10FCE2 10 inch compound miter saw comes factory calibrated, so right out of the box, you should have no tuning required. It’s got everything you would expect from a good project power tool, including dust collection, miter and bevel capabilities, a good solid molded base that’s flat and true, and enough power to cut through even stacked dimensional lumber like it was butter.
While it offers all of these standard components, it does so while maintaining not only a very competitive price tag but also keeping the weight down to near the lowest for its class of miter saw. This lightweight means you can easily move it around the job site, or stow it away in the garage more easily, and be able to quickly pull it back out when your ready for your next DIY project that requires some framing or finishing work.
It’s built to handle multiple project types, such as framing, finishing, crown molding, etc.
Hobbyists and professionals alike can get good use from the Hitachi C10FCE2 10″ compound miter saw. It handles projects such as adding on to your house, finishing a room with new crown molding, baseboards, and door casings, renovating your bathroom, and pretty much any other project you can think of. If you’re a woodworker and prefer to build furniture with your power tools, this saw can handle softwoods and hardwoods easily, creating a great companion for furniture builders and cabinet makers. I would suggest checking out this post on how to build a miter saw table.
If you’re a professional, you’ll love that this saw is so lightweight and easy to carry around the job site. It’s got all the power you need for construction work, runs on the standard 110 vac plugin, it’s quick and easy to change the saw blade, plus it has impressive miter and bevel capabilities that allow you to do just about any kind of crown molding and baseboard jobs.
And let’s not forget the 5-year tool warranty from the manufacturer. For a power tool that gets as much use as a contractor can give it, these warranties are really important.
The miter and bevel adjustments go above and beyond the standard and include quick adjustment stops
It reaches further over to the left and the right with its miter adjustments than many other saws, stopping at 52° both left and right. This allows for added capabilities when it comes to finish work and custom jobs. Consider trying to match up crown molding on an outside corner when the wall is out of square. One side may do ok as a 45° angle miter cut, but the other side may have to go beyond the 45° to close the gap. This is pretty common and due to the 52° angle abilities of the Hitachi C10FCE2 miter saw, you can handle it with ease.
The bevel adjustment does the standard left-lean only and goes up to 45 degrees. For most applications, including crown molding, this is plenty good. My Hitachi C10FCE2 review gives this standard 45-degree bevel capability a gold star for design, and for practicality.
Convenience is built in with a large cutting surface, easy to read gauges, comfortable grip handle, etc..
If you’ve got a project of any size, such as a room renovation, adding on to your house, or pretty much anything on the construction site, you can appreciate a good comfortable grip and easy-to-use trigger on your miter saw. This model has just that. Plus with the soft-start mechanism, you really have no startup jarring that some saws have which can cause board shift.
The cutting bed is large and supports 6″ dimensional lumber while feeling solid and secure. If it did not have this feature, larger heavier boards could possibly wobble off the corner, making for an unsafe cutting scenario. The support extension adds to this secure stability of the cut piece. The extension can be removed and placed on either side of the tool, so you can use as needed depending on which side of the saw the longer piece is positioned.
The miter and bevel adjustment gauges are very easy to read. The miter adjustment comes with all the standard positive stop angles making it quick to set up for most miter cuts, including the 90-degree crosscut. The bevel adjustment has 2 adjustable stops at each end, to help make a quick setup for 0 degrees and 45-degree bevel angles.
Opinions Based On Real User Experiences
Positive Reviews
- Most users are thoroughly impressed with the accuracy and clean-cutting for such a low-cost saw
- DIYers love this saw just because it handles home projects with ease, and is moved around very simply due to low tool weight
- The consensus is that at this price point, it’s a no-brainer, and is surprisingly solid and sturdy
- This saw is found to be perfect for doing crown molding jobs and hardwood floors around the house
Negative Reviews
- Some users did have to make a few adjustments out of the box, but it took very little time to do
- Dust collection performance is poor unless you build a dust trapping shroud
Is This Low-Cost Compound Miter Saw Worthy?
Overall I suggest this miter saw for contractors due to the lightweight and great warranty, for do-it-yourselfers for the versatility and low-cost, and for beginner woodworkers who need an inexpensive miter saw to start out with.
To sum up my Hitachi C10FCE2 review, I think contractors and DIYer will get the most benefit from this compound miter saw. It’s priced very competitively, while still offering all the standard features of this class of miter saw. Home projects and construction sites alike will demand similar needs, only at different volumes, and the 5-year warranty closes that gap.
Woodworkers may be better off with a heavier tool that has more capabilities, and preferably (in my personal opinion) the ability to slide, for expanding crosscutting capabilities. For this type of saw check out my 10″ sliding compound Ryobi TSS102L review.
But overall I think this is a great saw that has honestly gotten stellar reviews for a long time in the online market, so if you’re leaning towards this particular saw, I would say go for it, you likely will not be disappointed.