Tools, Sharpening and Power Machinery - Mitre or table?

I'm looking to purchase either a mitre saw or table saw. I plan on doing cabinet work as well as crown moulding and possible a chair railing. I'm looking for a versitale saw that will let me expand on to other projects such as building a shed and fence. I doon't want to buy 2 saws if not necessary.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

A table saw is a must for cabinet making. It will do OK for the rest but a mitre saw would be the best for the rest of your projects. I have both.

table saw

kinda hard ro rip a sheet of ply on a miter saw

most anything you can do with a miter saw you can do with a table saw but not the other way around

Ha Ha! good point, MangoMan! In my opinion, they're both necessary. Sure, you can cut things to length and cut miters with the miter gauge on a table saw, (kind of like using a pipe wrench as a hammer in my book) but a table saw doesn't produce the fine quality cuts that a miter saw will. I would also imagine that a table saw would produce tearout on your finish trim where you least want it. But as the guys said, if you can only buy one, get the table saw.

If you can get both, I'd spend the majority on a decent table saw, and get a cheap miter saw to get you by until you can afford a better one.

For the projects you listed, the majority of them could/should be done with a mitre saw. The cabinet work is the only one that I'd question.

1) crown moulding and possible a chair railing - definately a Mitre saw.

2) building a shed and fence - Mitre saw for the 2X's and 4X's framing - for the plywood sheets, I would use a handheld 7-1/4 circular saw(a realitively cheap purchase).

3) For the cabinet work, there are too many variables. Most likely your going to need a table saw depending on what it is your building and what type of joints your creating, but any large project is also going to require more than just those 2 tools anyway.

I'd start with a good Mitre, and circular saw for the plywood.

gtm 20 makes sense...
I certainly couldnt imagine cutting a 16' length of crown molding on a table saw...nor cutting a 4x8sheet of oak lam plywood with a mitre saw.
I'd go with the mitre..and use a circular saw and a good straight edge for dealing with the sheet goods. All the trim work for your cabinets and chair moldings can be done with mitre...
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FWIW..I made a pair of bedside night cabinets w/3 drawers each, dado cuts etal, with only a circular saw. That was before I got my Dad's old craftsman table saw. They turned out quite well..and still holding their own........

As was the case with most of us I started out with only a few tools. Before I got a table saw and needed a precise rip I would clamp a board unto what I was cutting to use as a fence/guide. You can make mitre cuts with a table saw but they are never precise and I doubt you could cut crown mitres with one. I got my table saw first then mitre saw but it probably should have been the other way around. :)