Two radial arm saws?

[Dave Cav]

I just picked up a 25 year old Delta/Rockwell 33-895 12" radial arm saw for a decent, but not outstanding price. The sale included two good carbide cutoff blades, a couple of Sears carbon steel hollow ground planer blades, a B&D 12" blade missing three teeth (went in the trash can), a steel Sears dado stack and a Sears molding head with all the cutters, apparently unused. Not a bad haul for $900.

I already have a 10" Delta radial saw, the current model which I bought six or seven years ago. It's a good saw; the only real complaint I have with it is the depth of cut adjustment is back on top of the column, which is a tough to adjust compared to a front adjustment like the 12" saw has.

Right now you get about 55 or so hits on Seattle Craigslist when you do a search on "radial arm saw". Almost all are crappy late model Craftsman saws that people are practically giving away. Given the economy and the fact that I would like to get about $500 for my saw, I am considering keeping the 10" saw and mounting it next to the 12" saw on my 6 foot built-in crosscut bench. I was thinking about putting a 3/4" dado stack in the 10" saw and using it for a permanent dado/tennon station, and use the 12" saw for crosscutting. I have a cabinet table saw, but I have been cutting dadoes and tennons on the RAS for years so this would not be anything new for me, and it would really decrease setup time.

Any thoughts or comments?

[keith ouellette]

I bought an old dewalt ras just for the thought of dado cuts. The 12" saw you have probably has lots of cross cut capacity. I think your idea sounds good.

I am planning the same thing only my cross cut saw is a 12" sliding compound.

[jerry nazard]

Dave,

I have the same Delta RAS. I bought it new for a specific house remodeling project and was subsequently unable to sell it for anything near what it was worth. I did not have much success with using a dado set on it: the saw would not hold it's adjustments for any length of time. At the present, it is set up for ~90 cutoff only and gets plenty of use. I only want it to do one thing, and it does it perfectly.

-Jerry

[Neal Clayton]

i have the same delta, also bought it used, and also have noticed that the factory mechanisms for adjusting the tilt, swivel, and bevel are lacking. so i just over-torqued the bolts on each with the machine square, now it never moves from 90.

with a sliding miter saw the usefulness of cutting miters and bevels on a RAS is very limited anyway, imo. takes alot more time to get it back where it was than you spent cutting the bevels or miters.