General Int. 50-200R

[Philip Spencer]

I am thinking about making the big plunge into the lower-end of the cabinet saw spectrum. Does anyone have experience with the 50-200R? I have read positive reviews about it, but my only concern was that the reviews and discussions on this board about this and other General products were fairly old. I wanted to make sure that the quality had not recently taken a nose-dive for any reason.

[scott spencer]

Hi Philip - I don't own this saw so take these "observations" for whatever they're worth, but have owned another GI table saw that I was pleased with. A couple things....I believe the 50-200R is more of a hybrid saw than a full blown industrial cabinet saw....power and duty ratings will be more similar to a contractor saw. It does have full enclosure and even has what could be called cabinet mounted trunnions, but they're not the big yoke style trunnions we've come to know in most industrial style cabinet saws. They should still be easier to align than standard table mounted trunnions, but are no beefier than that type.

General is a reputable family owned business. They have the renowned Canadian made General line, that's more like old school American made machinery, and they have their Asian import line - General "International". GI is more comparable to Grizzly, Jet, and other Asian import machines. Good stuff, but not to the level of the Canadian General, so be careful not to confuse comments about the quality of one with the other.

The biggest concern I have for this saw is that the fence looks a little questionable. It has the appearance of a steel t-square fence (like a Biese clone) from a glance, but if you look closely it's not as robust. Where the fence tube mates to the t-frame is bolted vs welded, and the tube doesn't look to be steel....hard to tell from the pics, but it's definitely different than the beefy Biese, General T-fence, HTC, Jet Xacta II, Shop Fox Classic, and others. It might be just fine, but was something I noticed.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y203/hewood/sawparts/50-200Rfence.jpg