Chris Livingston
02-06-2005, 2:21 PM
As I posted before I couldn’t get my new Biesemeyer fence aligned properly on my Grizzly G5959 12" 5HP saw.
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I went out and spent $200 on a 4’ machinist’s straight edge and found the problem. I made the mistake of laying the straight edge across the table. Wow! From side to side there was a dip of almost 1/8”!! Using a 2’ machinist’s straight edge from the outside edges of the miter slots there was only a dip of about 0.005 but the 4’ really showed how bad it was. The edges weren’t even square so shimming the wings would only do so much and between the miter slots the dip was 0.009.
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I have had the saw for about 3 years and was a bit upset that I had not checked this out before but thought I would give Grizzly a call anyway since this was obviously a manufacturing defect. They said that since I hadn’t found it in the first year there was nothing they could do and some variance was to be expected. I talked to two different people and they wouldn’t even let me talk to someone higher up. The table would have been over $500 without shipping for replacements so I priced out similar saws from other manufacturers and had a good machine shop quote me for grinding the top and decided I would go with the grinding instead. $400 is better than the $4500 I would have to spend on a new Powermatic of similar specs.
I should have the newly ground top back on Tuesday so we'll see if I can get the Bies setup this time.
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<o:p></o:p>I’ve bought a 20” band saw, 2 dust collectors, a 12” jointer, got my dad to buy the same table saw, an edge sander, 18” band saw, and 24” drum sander and I was about to spend $3000 on the 20” 5hp spiral cutter head planner. After this I very skeptical about the precision of Grizzly products. Their customer service is great if the problem is in the first year but after that you’re out of luck even if it was bad from the factory. I will probably stick with the upper end manufacturers from now on. I want my machines to last me the rest of my life, not until I get a good straight edge.
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
I went out and spent $200 on a 4’ machinist’s straight edge and found the problem. I made the mistake of laying the straight edge across the table. Wow! From side to side there was a dip of almost 1/8”!! Using a 2’ machinist’s straight edge from the outside edges of the miter slots there was only a dip of about 0.005 but the 4’ really showed how bad it was. The edges weren’t even square so shimming the wings would only do so much and between the miter slots the dip was 0.009.
<o:p></o:p>
I have had the saw for about 3 years and was a bit upset that I had not checked this out before but thought I would give Grizzly a call anyway since this was obviously a manufacturing defect. They said that since I hadn’t found it in the first year there was nothing they could do and some variance was to be expected. I talked to two different people and they wouldn’t even let me talk to someone higher up. The table would have been over $500 without shipping for replacements so I priced out similar saws from other manufacturers and had a good machine shop quote me for grinding the top and decided I would go with the grinding instead. $400 is better than the $4500 I would have to spend on a new Powermatic of similar specs.
I should have the newly ground top back on Tuesday so we'll see if I can get the Bies setup this time.
<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>I’ve bought a 20” band saw, 2 dust collectors, a 12” jointer, got my dad to buy the same table saw, an edge sander, 18” band saw, and 24” drum sander and I was about to spend $3000 on the 20” 5hp spiral cutter head planner. After this I very skeptical about the precision of Grizzly products. Their customer service is great if the problem is in the first year but after that you’re out of luck even if it was bad from the factory. I will probably stick with the upper end manufacturers from now on. I want my machines to last me the rest of my life, not until I get a good straight edge.