Grizzly G0623X assembly, Part 1

[Mark Engel]

This post is a duplicate of the one I placed on NCWW. If anyone is interested.


I started putting this beast together this morning, right after a trip to Lowes to pick up 10 ft of 10/3 power cord.

One of the first things I noticed about this saw was the "4 inch dust port". Not so much. The connection on the back of the saw is for a 4" pipe, but that is just bolted onto the cabinet centered over a 3" hole. The flex pipe on the inside that goes to the blade shroud is 3". I can see no way to make that any bigger. Hopefully, it will get the job done.


http://www.ncwoodworker.net/forums/images/statusicon/wol_error.gifClick this bar to view the full image.http://www.ncwoodworker.net/pp/data/2330/medium/Grizzly_G0623X_012.JPG
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So on to bigger and better things.

First up was installing the sliding table. That was pretty easy, but there is not a lot of room under there to add the one nut on each end that holds the sliding table assembly to the base.


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The nut in the center is threaded onto a t-bolt that fits into a t-slot in the slding table base. I had to shim the sliding table up about 3/8" to get the washer, lock washer and nut under the end of the t-bolt.

In the first picture you can see a small allen head bolt screwed into the underside of the sliding table base. That is a stop that positions the sliding table base on the saw cabinet. Absolutely no mention of that in the manual. As a matter of fact, there is nothing in the manual that says exactly where the sliding table base should be postitioned. The manual just says to mount it and tighten the the nuts. Oh well, I'm glad that Grizzly put the small bolt in there and that I found it.

Next were the extension tables. There is a small table that bolts to the back side of the main cast iron table and a second, larger tabe that bolts to the right side of the main. The manual says to bolt the extention table(s) to the main table and then add the set screws that are used to level the extension(s). This seemed backwards to me, so I screwed the set screws in first, with the table(s) upside down on the bench, then mounted the tables to the main.


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And here it is with the slider and both extension tables mounted.


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Next was installation of the rip fence. The rip fence system consists of a fence scale, fence rail and fence base. The fence scale is bolted to the main and right side extension tables then the fence rail is bolted right beside the fence scale. All of this went very nice and easy.


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Then the real fun began. I could not get the fence base to slide smoothly on the rail. The rail would bind to the point where I could barely move it. There is a note in the manual for this very occurrance.
"The fence should slide smoothly; if it doesn't, remove the fence base and adjust the spring pressure plate mounting position on the fence base (See figure 23)."
That is the entire explanation. There is nothing in the manual that explains how to do this. After some time messing with it, I found out that there is a steel rod that holds a cam that the fence handle screws into. I removed that rod and that provided access to the 2 screws that that held the spring pressure plate. I adlusted the spring pressure plate, re-assembled the fence base and tried it again. It was still binding. I tried this several times with no success. Finally I just removed the spring pressure plate alltogether. Now I could move the fence and still lock it down. But the fence still does not slide smoothly or evenly. It is binding a little here and there and it kind of chatters as it slides. At this point I am not sure if there is a problem with the fence design, or if I simply got a bad fence set up. I will have to contact Grizzly to find out how to correct this problem.

I did go ahead and mount the rip fence for now.


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Next was the cross cut table and fence. This also went prettly smoothly, although, there are two sets of four holes on the bottom side of the crosscut table, and the manual says to mount the support leg to the cross cut table without mentioning which set of four holes to use (other than a not too clear picture). I'm not really sure what the second set of holes could be used for. The set I did use is closer to the center of the table, The other set is close to the edge (but not down by the river, YES reference, sorry)

So here is the cross cut table and fence installed with the two flip stops mounted to the cross cut fence.


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And that is about as far as I got today. Should be able to finish up and power up tomorrow, if I don't run into any more significant problems.

__________________

[David Nelson1]

Pretty cool. Directions always need tweeking!

[Peter Aeschliman]

That's the thing I've always been confused about with sliding table saws- why are their rip fences so flimsy? Couldn't they just put a regular biesemeyer t-square style fence on there?

[Karl Card]

That's the thing I've always been confused about with sliding table saws- why are their rip fences so flimsy? Couldn't they just put a regular biesemeyer t-square style fence on there?

It is about marketing. It is better marketing for them to show a cheaper price and use a cheaper fence than to show a higher price even though it has a better fence. At the same time it would be nice if they had the bm fence as an option...

[Mark Engel]

That's the thing I've always been confused about with sliding table saws- why are their rip fences so flimsy? Couldn't they just put a regular biesemeyer t-square style fence on there?


It is about marketing. It is better marketing for them to show a cheaper price and use a cheaper fence than to show a higher price even though it has a better fence. At the same time it would be nice if they had the bm fence as an option...

I actually like this style of fence. I had replaced the Shop Fox fence on my Grizzly 1023 with a Delta Unifence. I like the hi-low feature and the way the fence blade can be moved back to use as a stop for cross cuts, etc.

I'm hoping that I just got a bad fence base rather than a badly designed fence base.

[Peter Aeschliman]

I actually like this style of fence. I had replaced the Shop Fox fence on my Grizzly 1023 with a Delta Unifence. I like the hi-low feature and the way the fence blade can be moved back to use as a stop for cross cuts, etc.

Definitely fair points. Seems like these are features they could add to a t-square style fence without too much engineering (i.e., adding a face to the fence with t-slots on it, etc). But I don't want to hijack the thread.


I'm hoping that I just got a bad fence base rather than a badly designed fence base.

I'm sure that your fence is either just defective, or needs an non-intuitive adjustment. I've played around with this saw in the Bellingham, WA showroom and the fence works as expected on their demo machine.

[Ralph Butts]

Mark, I have had my 623X for two weeks now and I have to say that I have been less than impressed with the fence system setup and adjustments. I am the second owner of my unit though I can't imagine its seen 100 cuts with the condition it was in when I picked it up. It was in better shape than the tent sale unit I passed on this year in Bellingham. I have only had time to make a few cuts for some pieces for some shop cabinets I am building but I have found the fence to be accurate but a bit fussy to dial in due to what I would call a bit of sloppiness in the travel. This basically results in a consistent measure twice (or maybe three times) and cut once. I am sure that the pressure plate adjustment you wrote of will ultimately address the issue. The manual is surely lacking but I have come to expect that from other companies that use oversees outsourced technical writing resources. However I have to also add in that Grizzly's technical support has been extremely helpful with any questions I have had regarding setup and/or operations. I too were surprised to see the three inch internal dc hose to the blade shroud. More surprising to me was the fact that any dust that falls outside of the shroud will compile on the floor space under the saw as the bottom is not enclosed. By no means is this a deal breaker to me but just something that I was not expecting. I don't use the provided overhead dust collection / blade guard mainly because it is opaque and I feel the need to see the blade at all times. I have a Grizz universal overhead dust collection arm I used with my previous cabinet saw and decided to use it instead. I was hoping to see if one of the clear guards from any of the other Grizzly sliders will fit this unit. The dust collection between the shroud and the overhead unit gets just about all of the dust from the cuts I have made. I am hoping that once I get my ClearVue cyclone in place that the increased air flow will even get the dust within the cabinet that does not make it down the shroud. I was thinking of putting a false bottom in the base and enlarging the cabinet opening to six inches keeping the 3" shroud to the blade in place. I would appreciate any comments or critiques of that idea.
All in all I have been pretty happy with my purchase of the 623X. I will also have to get used to performing some tasks differently. The slider feature is by far a greater plus to me than any negative criticism that I may place on the model.

[Mark Engel]

Peter, after reading your post I played around a little more with the rip fence and got it working quite a bit better than it had been. The main thing that seemed to correct the binding problem was backing out the handle a few turns. Not sure why that worked, but it did make a difference. I was still not able to re-install the spring pressure plate.

[Mark Engel]

Thanks for that Information, Ralph.

I had a similar thought to your idea of opening up the cabinet with a larger port. I would be very interested in seeing how you design that upgrade.

[Mike Wilkins]

Congrats on your recent shop addition. I have owned a Laguna slider for about 2 years now and know the frustrations of setting up the rip fence. Nothing that Laguna did contributed to this; just a result of an off-shore manufactured machine and less than descriptive owners manual. It is not unusual to have to fiddle with a tool like this to get optimum operation; were not talking about Martin or Altendorf, but machinery made for us mere mortals. Hope you like your slider as much as I have enjoyed mine.

[Mark Engel]

This is part 2. Sunday's progress.

I started by mounting the front and back leg supports and the main switch assembly. The legs and the switch mounting bracket are attached to the underside of the sliding table base in a T-slot. The saw was very tippy with the sliding table fully extended. It is rock solid with the legs installed.

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This is the short miter gauge with hold down and stop. There is also a moveable push handle included. The stop slides up and down on the round bar which is the miter handle used to tighten the gauge in place in the T-slot. To move the miter gauge along the T-slot you have to loosen the hold down clamp on the miter handle, then loosen the miter handle. The miter gauge can then be slid along the T-slot.

Loosening the miter handle also releases the miter gauge body, so every time you want to move the miter gauge you have to re-check the miter gauge angle setting. This is not a problem if you are using one of the hard stops, but if you are using an odd angle, you then have to manually check and re-set the angle. It sure would have been nice if there was a second knob to hold the miter gauge angle as the gauge moves along the T-slot.

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Installing the blade was nice and easy. Move the sliding table out of the way, swing open the blade cover, insert the arbor lock tool (didn't get a picture of that), remove the left hand threaded bolt and washer, install the blade and reverse the procedure. Lots of room to work in there. Just don't drop the nut or washer or it will go right into the dust collection hose.

The riving knife was also very easy to install and adjust. Is held in place with a nylock nut and there is a post above and below the mounting screw to keep it aligned vertically.
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Here is the long cross cut fence. It is ~54" retracted and extends out to ~78". Very nice and smooth. To zero it to the blade the fence is move up to almost touching the blade. After doing this the scale on the fence was right on. There is a UHMW tip on the fence, so no danger of blade damage. The fence pivots on a steel pin and locks down with the cross cut fence lock knob from under the cross cut table. There are scales on the table to set the angles when the fence is set in the forward or rear positions. I checked the fence at 90 and 45 degrees in both positions and found the scales to be accurate. There are positive stops at 90 degrees for both positions. Both are adjustable but did not need any adjustment.

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On to the blade guard which mounts to the riving knife with one allen head bolt. The mounting hole has a metal insert that the bolt slides through and a threaded insert that the bolt screws into. The bolt goes in from the right side, through the metal insert, then through the hole in the riving knife and then into the threaded insert. Just snug it up and your good to go.

When I first installed the guard it had very little up and down movement due to a drift pin that was mounted through a hole behind the guards mounting hole.

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The pin hits against the flat on the riving knife and stops the guard from lifting.

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This didn't seem right to me, so I removed the drift pin.

Now the guard can raise much higher. There is a cutout in the back of the guard that now rests on the flat in the riving knife when the guard is fully raised.

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It seems that the riving knife needs to be raised so that the mounting hole for the guard is above the top of the blade, otherwise the blade cannot be lowered past the top of the table. Not sure how this is supposed to work. I will contact Grizzly TS to see what they say.

There is a hose support provided to keep the guards dust collection hose raised above the table. A nice feature.

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At this point I had to make some positioning decisions and my SIL came over to help me move things around. I also have to re-configure some dust collection pipes to accomodate the moves.

That's it for now.

[Mark Engel]

First a couple of updates. Grizzly TS is checking into the issues I had with the rip fence and the overhead blade guard.

The rip fence base may have a badly machined (or drilled) sleeve. It has an off center hole that locks the fence base against the rail when the handle is rotated down.

Based on pictures in the owner's manual and the parts lists, it seems that I received the wrong riving knife for this saw. The overhead blade guard mounts to the riving knife, so that would explain the lack of swing in the guard. I sent pictures of my riving knife and they are checking that out.

Ok, progress.

My SIL helped me move things around in the shop and I then re-configured my DC for the new equipment positions. Basically, we turned the G0623X 90 degrees and I added another five foot section of 6" pipe to the drop for the TS and router table. The router table and my work bench have switched positions. I am absolutely sure that this is were everything will be forever, or at least until I get the rubber floor mats configured. http://www.ncwoodworker.net/forums/images/smilies/wacky/nah.gif

So we have a 4" gate reduced to 2-1/2" for the overhead blade guard. Then a 6" gate reduced to 4" for the TS port, which is then reduce inside the saw cabinet to 3" pipe going to the lower blade shroud. Then one more 6" gate reduced to 4" for the router table.
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This saw needs a lot of clear space around it. Here are a couple of shots showing the sliding table fully extended front and back. The cross cut fence in these shots is fully retracted to ~54". When fully extended it goes out to ~78".
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I made a few test cuts in some 3/4" plywood. The overhead guard dust collection was very good. Virtually no saw dust on the tables. The lower blade shroud dust collection was not nearly as good. You can see from the next picture that there is a lot of saw dust on the braces inside the cabinet and on the floor under the TS. At this point I don't have any ideas on how to improve the dust collection around the lower part of the blade
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At this point I decided to make my final checks and adjustments.

First I checked the sliding table for parallel to the blade. Nice, +- .001.

Re-checked the cross cut fence settings at 90 and 45 degrees in forward and back fence positions. All good.

The miter gauge. Worthless. I need to find a way to mount my Incra 1000SE to a t-nut bar that will fit in the sliding table t-slots.

Now the fun part. I checked the rip fence for parallel to the blade. Off by about .015, back side closer to the blade. That's not good.

Now the rip fence base slides on to the rip fence rail. There are no adjustments on the rip fence base to change the angle of the rip fence. The only way to adjust the rip fence angle to bring it parallel to the blade is by adjusting the rip fence rail that the base mounts to. The mounting instructions for the rip fence rail says to mount the rail with an even gap of a minimum of 1/8" along the length of the rip fence scale. That is the extent of the instructions in the manual on how to properly align the rip fence to the blade.

The rip fence rail is mounted to the cast iron top and the extension table using three M12x1.75x90 studs. These are large coarsely threaded studs. Two of the studs go through the cast iron top and one through the extension table. The studs are threaded into a t-nut that slides into a t-slot in the rail with a bolt on the outside of the rail to hold it in position. There are three M12X1.75 hex nuts threaded onto the stud, one on the inside of the tables and two on the outside. To adjust the rip fence angle to bring it parallel to the blade you have to adjust the rip fence rail closer or further from the tables using these three coarse thread M12X1.75 mounting studs and the three M12x1.75 nuts holding the rail to the tables.
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It took me almost 2-1/2 hours to adjust out that .015".

After working with a Delta Unifence this adjustment method is... a little archaic.

Now, there may be a better, simpler way to do this adjustment, but, if there is, including it in the owner's manual might be a good idea.

There are two nylon set screws in the rip fence base, but I could not find a way to make the fence adjustments using these. All they did was remove some wiggle from the fence base. On the Delta Unifence there are two large nylon set screws in the same position as the two on the Grizzly. The two on the Unifence are there to make the angle adjustment to the rip fence. Takes about 1-2 minutes.

I guess I'm done for now. Waiting to hear from Grizzly on my open activites. In the meantime, I am back up and running with a table saw in the shop.

I will probably right up a review after I have had a chance to live with the saw for bit.

[ed vitanovec]

My rip fence set up parallel to the blade when I assembled the machine, it actually is set up with less than 1/32" of tapper away from the back of the blade. Also the fence on the slider was square and the 5 cut test came out dead square. The rip fence rides on an aluminum extrustion that bolts to the table saw, make sure the extrusion is pushed upward as you tighten the bolts. If the extrusion is a little on the low side it will put pressure on the nylon glides that lock it onto the extrusion. The underside of the fence needs to be as parallel to the table top as possible, if the extrusion is on the low side it will put more pressure on the fence towards the front binding the head that rides on the extrusion. I like my slider and have been using it for about 28 months now. There is some dust that escapes through the lower blade shrould. The worst thing is the blade guard and an overhead guard would be a better guard. I contacted shark guard and gave the cad drawings of my blade guard and riving knife to him. We have gone back and forth with drawings and he can make a new riving knife and blade guard. The guard was for a 14" table saw and I told him it was way to long and over hung the fence rail by about 1.5". He basically told me he did not want to make a 12" blade guard but if he had to he would. He said he would make the 12" guard over the weekend and send me cad sketches to review the size. The issue with the 10" blade guard is it would sit right on the scoring blade, the 14" was way to long so it would seem like the 12" would be the correct size. Well the last communication was almost 5 weeks ago and I believe he has forgotten about my guard and riving knife, we have been working on this for almost 2 1/2 months and I know he is busy but he told me back in early may he penciled me in. I have given up for now but maybe you can contact shark guard and pick up on this, most of the design should be done already.

Regards!
Ed

[Mark Engel]

My rip fence set up parallel to the blade when I assembled the machine, it actually is set up with less than 1/32" of tapper away from the back of the blade. Also the fence on the slider was square and the 5 cut test came out dead square. The rip fence rides on an aluminum extrustion that bolts to the table saw, make sure the extrusion is pushed upward as you tighten the bolts. If the extrusion is a little on the low side it will put pressure on the nylon glides that lock it onto the extrusion. The underside of the fence needs to be as parallel to the table top as possible, if the extrusion is on the low side it will put more pressure on the fence towards the front binding the head that rides on the extrusion. I like my slider and have been using it for about 28 months now. There is some dust that escapes through the lower blade shrould. The worst thing is the blade guard and an overhead guard would be a better guard. I contacted shark guard and gave the cad drawings of my blade guard and riving knife to him. We have gone back and forth with drawings and he can make a new riving knife and blade guard. The guard was for a 14" table saw and I told him it was way to long and over hung the fence rail by about 1.5". He basically told me he did not want to make a 12" blade guard but if he had to he would. He said he would make the 12" guard over the weekend and send me cad sketches to review the size. The issue with the 10" blade guard is it would sit right on the scoring blade, the 14" was way to long so it would seem like the 12" would be the correct size. Well the last communication was almost 5 weeks ago and I believe he has forgotten about my guard and riving knife, we have been working on this for almost 2 1/2 months and I know he is busy but he told me back in early may he penciled me in. I have given up for now but maybe you can contact shark guard and pick up on this, most of the design should be done already.

Regards!
Ed

Thanks Ed.

I will check the fence rail today to make sure it is pushed up. With the spring pressure plate removed, the fence slides nicely, so I think the rails are positioned properly. I haven't done the five cut test yet, just measured the cross cut fence angles with some drafting squares.

The Shark Guard seems to be a good way to go. I will try to contact him and see if we can get him to work on your design.

[Mark Engel]

I checked the the rip fence rails today and was able to move them up slightly, but that did not seem to make any difference. The spring pressure plate still will not fit where it is supposed to. I did get a call back from Grizzly today and they are sending out a replacement sleeve to see if that fixes things.

I had some time this afternoon so I did the 5 cut test on the cross cut fence. I did it twice, once with the fence in the back position and once in the forward position. The corner to corner measurements both times were as close to perfect as I can measure with a Stanley tape, <1/64". This is with the factory set stops, no adjustments needed.

I took a look at the Shark Guards and sent off an email. We'll see if it does any good. Have to do something, the Grizzly guard is not going to work for me long term.

[Mark Engel]

I received a replacement sleeve for the rip fence base from Grizzly and finally got a chance to take out the old one and put in the new one.

The old sleeve is on the left, new one on the right.

204332

There are two flats machined into the shallow side of the sleeve, opposite the hole for the handle. I re-installed the spring pressure plate and re-assembled the rest of the fence base and slid the assembly back onto the fence rail.

What a difference! The fence slides nice and smooth and locks down securely with very little effort on the handle. The handle stays in the full upright position for moving the fence along the rail. In the middle position (the second flat machined into the sleeve) there is enough tension on the rail to hold the fence in place but still allow for fine adjustments by tapping the fence base with my fingers. Now this fence works exactly like I expect it to. I was also able to adjust the nylon set screws a little finer to eliminate all of the wiggle in the fence blade.

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I also ordered some accessories for the saw from Grizzly. These parts were for the G0588 saw and I had to order each individual part and assemble them. First is a ripping shoe. The parts list called for one adjustable handle and one bolt. It makes more sense to me to have two adjustable handles, so a second one has been ordered.

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Next is the very nice hold down clamp.

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To make these two accessories work on the G0623X I only had to sand a few thousandths off of the t-nut plates to allow them to slide in the t-slots on the sliding table.

I was able to retofit my Incra 1000SE to work in the sliding table slots as well. I used the aluminum t-bar from OEM miter gauge. Had to drill and tap four holes to mount the Incra to the bar and add some nylon washers as spacers to get the proper clearance. Works like a dream.

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[Tim Morton]

do you have the part number and price on those hold down clamps? i need a few.

[Mark Engel]

do you have the part number and price on those hold down clamps? i need a few.

Tim, I ordered all of the individual parts for the hold down clamp from the G0588 purchase parts list. I had to build the clamp from the parts. The parts to build the clamp on on the sliding table tab of the purchase parts list.

One thing to be aware of. The list shows two parts to make up the hold down, the hold down plate (259) and the hold down shaft (261). Part number 261 should come with the shaft and plate already attached. I received both parts individually and could not put them together. I called to customer service and was told that part 261 should have the plate attached. They sent me out a replacement. The replacement shaft/plate was about 2 inches longer.

[ed vitanovec]

What is the cost of the shoe and hold down?

[Mark Engel]

The edge shoe with two adjustable handles totalled out to ~$25.25.
The hold down clamp totalled out to ~$71.75

All of the parts with pricing and exploded view drawings are listed on Grizzly's web site. All of the parts I ordered were from the G0588 purchase parts list.

http://www.grizzly.com/products/G0588/parts/7

[Greg Portland]

Are the outlet boxes in your way? It would seem that is where you'll be pushing the slider back and forth (tripping hazard).

[Mark Engel]

Are the outlet boxes in your way? It would seem that is where you'll be pushing the slider back and forth (tripping hazard).

They were, until about an hour ago. :D

I had those outlets put in when the shop was built and I had my old saw. I had the electricians over today to install some light fixtures in the house, so I had them move all the floor outlets to more convenient locations while they were here.

[Mark Engel]

Almost forgot, no pictures, didn't happen.

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[Jeff Monson]

Mark, how did you go about the retro fit for your Incra?

[Mark Engel]

Mark, how did you go about the retro fit for your Incra?

I took the aluminum T-Bar mount from the OEM miter gauge and drilled and tapped four new holes using the Incra miter bar as a template.
There are two 1/4-20 and two 10-32 threaded holes required.
The aluminum T-Bar is not quite flush with the top of the sliding table, so I had to use nylon washers as spacers. The nylon washers allow the gauge pivot bolt and the vernier pointer to be tightened on the aluminum bar without binding in the T-Slot in the sliding table. The handle can then be loosened to allow the gauge to slide in the T-Slot and tightened to lock it at any point on the table.

[John Petsche]

great grizzly sliding table saw review