Unisaw 36-816 right tilt

[Craig Ryder]

I have a chance to buy a used Unisaw for $700 (about 12 years old.) I have been using a much smaller portable saw. I am a hobbyist and fairly new at it. The Unisaw is in great shape and has been used sparingly for personal use. I have been watching the local market for about 6 months and this is the best deal I've seen. The only issue is that it is right tilt. I have read a few things about right tilt but have not used one much. Is right tilt a major issue/deal killer?

Thanks,

Craig

[Cary Falk]

I grew up with right tilts. I currently have a left tilt. I don't tilt the blade that much. It's a big deal for some. Me, not so much.

[Chris True]

I don't think so, you can always move the fence to the left side of the blade for a bevel cut. I only ever bother if it is a particularly narrow board. To me, for the 99.5% of non-bevel cuts right tilt is better because your fence tape gives accurate measurement no matter what blade or dado stack is on the arbor...

Right tilt Uni owner.

[Don Morris]

Also a serious hobbyist. I have a left tilt Grizzly 1023SL (L is for Left), bought after I had a right tilt contractor saw. The 1023 is a sort of clone of the Unisaw. That's how good a design the Unisaw was/is. I'm not an expert on older Unisaw's value. The Left tilt has some small advantage IMHO. When I was looking for a lower cost left tilt cabinet saw and someone offered me a great shape right tilt Unisaw for about the same price I paid for the 1023...that would have been a hard decision. Certainly not a deal breaker to me. A lot of great stuff has been made on that machine.

[Chip Lindley]

Just the opposite, Craig! IMO, left-tilt is the only drawback of "regular" Unisaws. Right-tilt is preferred for ripping on a bevel with the fence to the right of the blade. 99% of most TS work is done with the blade at 90 deg. anyway. Although I have 2 LT Unisaws, I love my RT PM66!

[Scott Shuman]

I have a similar vintage Unisaw ('95) and IMHO it would be hard to beat the great deal on a great saw. As Chris mentioned, you can move the fence over to the left for bevel cutting (which I very seldom do). And if after using the saw for a while you decide you still want that left tilt you can easily sell the Uni with probably no loss and maybe a gain. Tough deal to beat.

[Sean Nagle]

I have a '94 right-tilt Unisaw which has been a workhorse all these years.

Right tilt hasn't been too much of an issue. Wider boards can be bevel-ripped with the fence on the right. Narrow boards, will require moving the fence to the left which is easy enough to do.

I know that left tilt is all the rage these days, but back in the day, the big benefit of a right-tilt saw was that the width of the blade did not nullify the accuracy of the fence cursor. With a left-tilt saw, once the fence cursor was dialed-in, changing from a regular kerf blade to a thin kerf blade or even to a dado blade would require recalibrating the fence cursor or using your tape measure to "eye" the setting..

That's a decent price for one.

[Craig Ryder]

Thanks everyone for the feedback. The Grizzly G0715P (their new Polar Bear series) was the alternative I was looking at for $160 more. That kind of $$ is not an issue when it comes to convenience, set-up ,safety, etc in a table saw. Based on what I hear I think I will go with the Delta Unisaw. I have to move soon on it as the seller already has a waiting line of about 6 guys from Craig's List if I don't grab it.

Thanks Again. Its really nice for someone new to all of this to have this board as a resource! I have been reading here for some time but don't post much. If any one else has any thoughts it is appreciated.

Cheers,