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It's a radial arm saw.
Basically the precursor of a modern chop saw, they were sold in the 50s as a single item workshop. It can also be used for ripping (not that you'd ever want to) amongst other things. Some people swear by them but I personally don't like them, they can however be useful if you build them into a bench for cutting repeated set lengths at 90 degrees.
This video explains some of their pros and cons better than I can:
Personally I'd buy a cheap chop saw and spend the time setting it up and buy a really good blade for it (Freud are my preference).
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We had a slightly older version of the same saw in the workshop, before the blade grabbed a work piece and went bang. A bit of cast alloy that makes up the body of the saw cracked in half, so we got a big Makita compound mitre saw to replace it.
Switching between angles / setups is a bit of a ballache and much slower than a modern mitre saw, but it will work perfectly well for most stuff. Wear a mask (always, of course) and expect your workshop to be covered in dust - extraction is non-existant. You could build a box around it, but this would limit easy of adjustability even more.
Be very careful of the blade grabbing and the saw jumping towards you. It probably won't do you any harm if your hands are in sensible places, but it'll destroy the piece and maybe itself.
Don't mean to be a downer, we used one for years with nothing but minor incidents, just be careful. They are good for chopping out cross lap joints.
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Bobbo
dbr
@JesperXT
Wanted some kind of circular/chop/mitre saw for my new workshop. This popped up at a very good price. Just need to figure out transport and find out exactly what model it is.
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