Guess I'm going to order a Euro Slider

[Ray DuBose]

Been looking around and seems like Hammer K3 Winner with their current discount on a 78" slider is going to be the saw for me. Just got my Sub Panel put in my garage to be able to run 220/230 over to it. I need to get some of my garage cleaned out more to make room for it.


I'm sure I'll be looking for help with this saw having never used a Panel Saw. Seem to have a hard time finding blades for a 30mm Arbor with Holes. The guy at Hammer said that Forest makes blades for it but looking at their site it looks like just a Dado Blade. Freud doesn't make any that I can find on their site either. it comes with a Blade but if I want others where is the best place to look.

Also, is the lifter bar and rolling kit from Hammer the best value out there? I read there were others that fit it as well at a cheaper price.

Thanks

Ray

[Steve Rowe]

Ray,
I have purchased blades with 30mm bore and pinholes from Felder, Forrest, Tenyru, and Leuco. I am sure there are others as well. With Forrest, you need to call them. They will charge extra for the bore (if I recall correctly it was a total of $22 last time I had one bored). They will also rebore your existing blades if you have a favorite.

I gave up on the Freud blade with this bore. Freud will tell you to go to your retailer and they will order them for you. I did this and after the requisite deer in the headlight look, they told me that they order from a distributor warehouse and it would cost me a lot for a special order. I read between the lines and they didn't want to deal with me so I took my business elsewhere.

On the rolling attachment, I am not familiar with the Hammer version but the Felder rolling attachment is top notch (with the price tag to prove it too).

[Mark Woodmark]

Forrest does make blades for it. Also they will bore your blades for it if you send those blades to them

http://www.forrestblades.com/dado.htm

[Eiji Fuller]

cabinet supply companys should stock blades for euro machines. They are common enough in the industry. You just wont find any at Home depot. LOL. Or you could just order a few extra with the machine.

[Rick Lizek]

Any decent saw shop can bore any blade out to 30 mm and you can get saw bushings to allow you to use the same blade on other arbors for around $5 each. We do this with 30 mm, 1" and 5/8" arbors with all sorts of blades from crosscut, rip and dado.

[Gary Curtis]

Rick is correct. My local saw-sharpening service will enlarge the arbor hole of American sawblades to 30mm.

The Hammer is quite a machine. I took a few classes at Felder's Sacramento, Calif. facility.

Gary Curtis

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi Ray, cogratulations on the new purchase, I have a B3 Winner.

As others have stated, any saw shop will be able to supply blades with the appropriate bore and pin holes, as well as convert your old blades for you.

I use FS Tools, the cost was $12 to re-bore my existing blades plus $6 for the two pin holes.

I presume that you've ordered it with a scoring saw option? I wouldn't pass that up.

I made my own mobility kit, similar to the Hammer kit. The Hammer mobility kit works very well, if you're not a metal worker, buy the kit.

Regards, Rod.

[Rob Russell]

Rather than the mobility kits for my Felder equipment, I bought a narrow fork pallet jack. That's been useful for other things than moving the machinery around.

[Dave MacArthur]

I would think that with the euro at historic lows against the dollar this month, prices would be very low if you could acquire European equip priced in euros rather than dollars. Not sure how that might be except by dealing with european offices, but it's possible some companies set prices in europe and then translate into dollars on some recurring basis.

[Martin Shupe]

Ray,

How much is that saw with the 78" slider? You can PM me if you want.

You've got me thinking....

Thanks

[Tom W Armstrong]

Martin,

I'm not Ray, but I've been going through the same process and pricing out a K3 with the 79" slider, and it's no secret Hammer has the K3 on sale right now. Basically, you can pick up the K3 Winner with the full "Comfort" package for around $5000 or so. This is about $3000 off the list price right now. I'm having trouble justifying the $495 shipping or I probably would have pulled the trigger by now, but still contemplating...:(

[Ray DuBose]

Yea as stated previously, The saw is on sale for $4999 + shipping (around $480 for me but that's lift gate to my house) then + $200 for a mobile kit so I can move it around the shop.

I called yesterday to find out if they have them in stock and they told me if I ordered today it wouldn't be here to August. They are suspose to be checking if they can expedite that any sooner but if not it looks like I may have to wait which isn't to bad for me since I wanted to empty my shop and put an epoxy floor down and finish some wiring up and get it cleaned out (wife thinks its a storage area since she can't park her car there)

[joe milana]

Just curious here, would spending the money for a nice euro slider and not being able to rip a sheet of plywood, or SLR long stock, lead to a bit of buyers remorse? I would hate to think I had that fancy saw and still had to break down sheet goods by hand.

[Frank Drew]

I never had any problem finding stock 30mm bore blades, and I never paid an upcharge; if you get existing blades re-bored, make sure they re-tension the blade afterwards -- any change to the plate, such as enlarging the arbor hole, can throw a blade off balance until it's re-tensioned.

[Ray DuBose]

I haven't had the issues come up were I wanted to rip a section of the 8' side of the ply. Usually I cut across the 4' side of the ply then go from there. Also most of what I use these days is 5'x5' Baltic Birch.

You can still cut down the 8' side of it buy using the fence on it I would assume. Unfortunately the next size up comes with a price tag that's pretty much double what I'm paying.



Just curious here, would spending the money for a nice euro slider and not being able to rip a sheet of plywood, or SLR long stock, lead to a bit of buyers remorse? I would hate to think I had that fancy saw and still had to break down sheet goods by hand.

[Ray DuBose]

Well point me in the right direction, everywhere I've looked all I can seem to find are 5/8 arbor blades. Once you get into the euro side with a 30mm arbor and pins I don't know who makes a quality blade.



I never had any problem finding stock 30mm bore blades, and I never paid an upcharge; if you get existing blades re-bored, make sure they re-tension the blade afterwards -- any change to the plate, such as enlarging the arbor hole, can throw a blade off balance until it's re-tensioned.

[Frank Drew]

Ray,

My Ulmia didn't require blades with pinholes, but try Leitz; I always liked their blades.

http://www.leitztooling.com/sawblades.htm

And if Hammer says Forrest makes blades for their saws, ask them specifically how to order them.

[Ray DuBose]

Well just put my 20% down and now I get to play the waiting game. Apparently it won't be here until the last week of August first week of Sept..

Ray

[joe milana]

You can still cut down the 8' side of it buy using the fence on it I would assume. Unfortunately the next size up comes with a price tag that's pretty much double what I'm paying.

Wow, that COULD be a deal breaker!

[C Scott McDonald]

I ordered the smaller hammer that is is on sale on 4-1-10 and it is on the truck on its way here finally! Should be here on Monday or Tuesday of next week I cant wait!! I was just getting ready to buy a Laguna TSS and the Hammer deal came around so I pulled the trigger on it.

Going from a Delta contractors saw to the Hammer is going to be so cool.

And yes it is a long wait :p

Enjoy your new saw,
Scott

[Jim Becker]

Ray,

How much is that saw with the 78" slider? You can PM me if you want.

You've got me thinking....

Thanks

Oh, com'on, Martin... you know you want a bigger one!! :D :D :D

[Rick Fisher]

Joe Jensen at this site just got a Felder Slider and ordered a bunch of different Tenryu blades which are specifically made for the Felder saws..

As he seems to have one of each blade they sell, you might ask him his opinion on them :)

I know he researched blade choices to death before making his brand decision.. because he researches everything that way .. lol..

[Joe Jensen]

Yes, I originally ordered Felder blades with my saw but then read that they were noisy. I did look at another guys Felder which had a Felder blade and it was indeed a lot noisier than any blade on my prior cabinet saws. On the Felder forum lots of guys had great experience with Tenyru so I ordered 5 different Tenyru blades. They make a series of blades specifically for Euro saws with 30mm arbors and the side holes. I have only used the rip and fine tooth plywood blade so far, but I can saw that the cut quality is amazing, easily as good as the Forrest blades I've used for years. I think online the 12" blades are between $60-90 each. Higly receommended

[Chris Parks]

Joe, what was your source of the Tenryu blades?

[Ray DuBose]

I'll have to go look for Tenyru blades now. BTW were are the Felder Fourms located at? I'm sure I'll need a lot of help before this is over on how to adjust my work habits.

[Bijesh Jacob]

Yes, I originally ordered Felder blades with my saw but then read that they were noisy. I did look at another guys Felder which had a Felder blade and it was indeed a lot noisier than any blade on my prior cabinet saws. On the Felder forum lots of guys had great experience with Tenyru so I ordered 5 different Tenyru blades. They make a series of blades specifically for Euro saws with 30mm arbors and the side holes. I have only used the rip and fine tooth plywood blade so far, but I can saw that the cut quality is amazing, easily as good as the Forrest blades I've used for years. I think online the 12" blades are between $60-90 each. Higly receommended

hi Joe, did u also order dado blade from Tenryu and if u did can u please let me know how much they cost? I have a hammer k3 that will hopefully land at my house next week and did not want to spend another 500-600 on the hammer dado.

[John Harden]

Yes, I originally ordered Felder blades with my saw but then read that they were noisy. I did look at another guys Felder which had a Felder blade and it was indeed a lot noisier than any blade on my prior cabinet saws. On the Felder forum lots of guys had great experience with Tenyru so I ordered 5 different Tenyru blades. They make a series of blades specifically for Euro saws with 30mm arbors and the side holes. I have only used the rip and fine tooth plywood blade so far, but I can saw that the cut quality is amazing, easily as good as the Forrest blades I've used for years. I think online the 12" blades are between $60-90 each. Higly receommended

This is good information, thanks. Currently, I use Felder blades on my Felder, and they are definitely noisy. I keep the speed turned down which helps, but I'm thinking of getting a few Tenyru's based on your experience.

How much quieter would you say they are? The Felder's have a very high pitched whistle. I always wear hearing protection, but it'd be nice not to annoy the neighbors every time I turn my saw on.

Regards,

John

[Joe Jensen]

I have a fiend who is a Tenyru dealer and I bought through him. The prices online were only slightly higher than his dealer cost. I don't recall the sites I looked at.

I purchased a Felder Dado blade set, it's very well made and cuts fantastic but it's also VERY expensive

[Rick Fisher]

There are online sources for Tenryu blades that a crazy cheap. Tenryu discounts distributors who buy large volumes of each blade.

I have a Tenryu and Forrest woodworker for my cabinet saw, I prefer the Tenryu blade, but not by much..

I just had my 80 tooth SCMS Tenryu Gold medal blade sharpened and the sharpener said " that is a high quality blade " .. He said in our area, he doesn't see many really high quality blades ..

[Frank Drew]

The Felder's have a very high pitched whistle.

Is higher blade speed maybe a feature of a lot of the European machines? I know my Ulmia had that same fierce whistle, and it was definitely faster than my Powermatic.


I always wear hearing protection Ditto, religiously. I once worked with a really good carpenter who said he never wore hearing protection; I told him, "That's ok, pretty soon you won't have to."