Table saw resolution

[John Borger]

I took all your priceless imput - rolled it, rerolled it, shook it, blended it and made a decision. I had never seen a Steel City table saw so I took the 50 mile trek to Sumner Woodworking in Sumner,WA. Fantastic store with more toys in one place than I've ever seen - this includes Woodworkers Supply and Woodcraft. I was very impressed with Steel city so I rented a U-Haul and brought one home. All tools from this store come fully assembled and fine tuned - ready to roll. First thing I set out to do was readjust my Incra mitre guage for it's new slot - after only a few minutes of failure I discovered the miter slot was .021 narrower at the outfeed end than the infeed. How novel a tapered mitre slot. Damn - more to follow after a phone call to u-no-who.

[Harvey Melvin Richards]

I took all your priceless imput - rolled it, rerolled it, shook it, blended it and made a decision. I had never seen a Steel City table saw so I took the 50 mile trek to Sumner Woodworking in Sumner,WA. Fantastic store with more toys in one place than I've ever seen - this includes Woodworkers Supply and Woodcraft. I was very impressed with Steel city so I rented a U-Haul and brought one home. All tools from this store come fully assembled and fine tuned - ready to roll. First thing I set out to do was readjust my Incra mitre guage for it's new slot - after only a few minutes of failure I discovered the miter slot was .021 narrower at the outfeed end than the infeed. How novel a tapered mitre slot. Damn - more to follow after a phone call to u-no-who.

That would be totally unusable in my opinion. I hope they give you a new saw.

[Anthony Diodati]

That would be totally unusable in my opinion. I hope they give you a new saw.

agree, don't let them give you No BS, like "adjust it to the tight setting, and hold it all the way to the side"

[David Helm]

Should have come to Bellingham and visited Grizzly. Also a very big store full of toys!

[glenn bradley]

It is a long drive. Since the tools come assembled and "ready to go" I guess you now know what the level of quality that they call "ready to go" looks like. Simply bolting the thing together and eye-balling things into line is hardly setup. Doesn't really matter as the ride home would knock it out of alignment anyway, most likely. Proceed with caution. I would entertain the idea of them shipping me a new top for 10% off my purchase price to compensate for my gasoline ;-). Or just return it and chalk the 200 miles up as a learning experience.

A lot of folks are happy with the old Steel City tools. I am not sure how things have held up since the founders got out of it. If everything else seems good, I would probably try to work through the quality control issue. Generally I reserve that state of mind for tools that are priced well below the competition, like Grizzly. I am not sure where SCTW fits into the price point of their competitors. Good luck and please, keep us posted.

[Ronald Blue]

"Ready to go"? I would love to see how they checked yours out to insure it was ready. I guess the acid test will be how they offer to resolve the issue. It's not that you can't have issues with any machine, but a poorly or incorrectly machined miter slot seems more a reflection of poor quality control. If they set it up in the store they must not have checked the blade to slot relationship, or chose to ignore it. Good luck and keep us posted on how this goes. Is this one of the cabinet saws with the granite top?

[Brett Robson]

If your have one of their "seamless tops" the table extensions are joined with the seam incorporated into the miter slot- the left table forms the left shoulder of the slot and the center table the right shoulder (opposite is true on the right side). Mine has adjustable alignment pins below the extension table, which are used to position the extension table and set the slot width.

You'll have to take the table extension off to access them but it sounds to me like you just have an adjustment issue rather than some manufacturing defect.

Look at your owner's manual. It should go over how to attach and align the extension tables which should resolve your slot width issue.

[John Borger]

Bret, You got it! I talked with Steel City tech dept and they walked me thru it. The right table also "drooped" at the outboard end about .020". All in all the adjustments weren't that difficult. Now it's ready to use and I'll get back with a review in a couple of days.

[Phil Thien]

Is it .021" (about 1/50"), or .0021" (thickness of thin paper like that thermo receipt paper)?

[Richard McComas]

Wouldn't it be nice if we could buy tools to work with instead of work on?

[Myk Rian]

Should have come to Bellingham and visited Grizzly. Also a very big store full of toys!
I've heard/seen similar complaints about Grizzly.

[Brett Robson]

Glad it worked out for you! I'm sure you'll be very happy with your new saw! What model did you end up selecting?

[Ray Newman]

"Wouldn't it be nice if we could buy tools to work with instead of work on?"
--Richard McComas

BINGO!

[John Piwaron]

Wouldn't it be nice if we could buy tools to work with instead of work on?

Indeed. Alleluia. Amen.

That's like a prayer. To be fair, the "better" tools tend to have less of that. Sometimes. :)

[Randy Gillard]

My Sawstop PCS required ZERO adjustment. Mitre slots exactly parallel to blade. Even the fence went on with no fuss or mucking about. No prayers required.



Indeed. Alleluia. Amen.

That's like a prayer. To be fair, the "better" tools tend to have less of that. Sometimes. :)

[John Borger]

Is my couple days up?
I purchased a 35951C Steel City 10”
hybrid cabinet saw from Sumner Woodworking in Sumner, WA on Dec 4, 2012.
All required assembly was performed by by Sumner
Woodworking.

Both miter gage slots were out of whack
– the left tapered .021” front to back – the right was so sloppy as to be
useless. The table is a 3 piece affair with a narrow center section and 2
outboard sections that join at the miter slots.

The left table section “drooped” .030” (
1/32”-) at the outboard edge.

The blade was dead on parallel to the
center table section at 90 degrees.

At 45 degrees the blade was .031” out of
parallel.

The rip fence was not parallel to the
miter gage slots. Not hard to adjust but wouldn’t you
think........................?

The saw comes with a built in mobile
base which didn’t seem very stable – upon jacking up the saw in order to view
the wheel assembly I discovered the bolt (axle) for the right front wheel had
backed out or was never screwed in. The wheels and adjustable feet are hard
plastic and on a slick concrete floor the unit tends to slid around – I resolved
this by rolling it onto a square of corrugated cardboard.

It took hours of work with the help of
Steel City’s tech department to resolve the issues with the table – a shimming
nightmare to adjust the center table section to fix the 45 degree cut
discrepancy. Once the center section is loosened you have 2 battles going on –
keeping it parallel to the blade @ 90 and shimming to get it parallel @
45.

This machine was not useable when it
went out the door and it was a little discouraging to be told by the dealer to
call the Steel City technical department and “it wasn’t meant to be
perfect”.

I really haven’t had enough time using
it to give an evaluation, I think it will please me after I finish being pissed
off. Remains to be seen.



Regards, John Borger

[Ron Kellison]

I have a 5 HP Unisaw that has required a lot of tweaking/shimming to get right. It's a good saw but it took a fair bit of time, thinking and ingenuity to get it dialed in. This is why I'm developing a fondness for finding the old stuff and rebuilding it. The process is enjoyable and, when you're finished, you know the machine inside and out. Once they're set up they tend to hold their adjustments and you can take some pride in saving something useful from the scrap dealer. And some of them are just beautiful, almost works of art. A gentleman recently featured in FWW lives near me and I've had the luxury of watching him work on my old R/I motor while I drooled over several of the machines he has restored and put to use in his shop. He should issue bibs at the door!

250489

Ron

[Jim O'Dell]

John, I think that can be said of most tools...they require a little work to get them "right". I love my G0691, but I had some issues at first too. I ended up having to take the top off and ream out the mounting holes in the base. Not a big deal, and in the end I'm glad I did it because I learned a lot about the saw that I would otherwise not know. And if a problem ever crops up, I know how to go about getting to it to fix it rather than come here and moan, which I guarantee you I would do. So keep your chin up. You will get it where it needs to be, and you will be better off for it. Jim.

[John Borger]

Jim, I totally agree - I think my upset came from the fact they said I couldn't buy it in the box because they liked to make sure eary thing was just right before it went out the door. I agree with you on the learning curve in doing your own set up. John

[John Borger]

Ronald, No it's 3 piece cast iron and called seamless as the seams are in the miter slots. The center section is the key to it all and had that been dialed in at the factory all the rest would have been cake. The rest of the table is very adjustable. Thx, John

[John Borger]

John, My 30 year 1.5 hp Delta contractors saw with a few upgrades served me well. If I had to spend 3500+ to replace it I'd still be using it. I was looking for a riving blade and better dust collection at a price I could afford. A Saw Stop is a beautiful machine. John B

[Rod Sheridan]

When I received my saw, it was properly adjusted, I checked it against the test sheet supplied and it was as accurate as they stated..........Rod.

[johnny means]

+1 on the Sawstop factory set up. Got my ICS about 5 years ago and every adjustment was spot on out the box and they still are. Except for the cheesy plywood fence face. But I suppose I paid for the technician who fiddled with my saw for a couple of hours.

[Brett Robson]

Sounds like my experience with my band saw. It was assembled by the store when I bought it. I had all sorts of problems with alignment from the pulles to the wheels and the roller guides. I basically had to disassemble the saw and put it all back together correctly to get it working properly.

[Jim Andrew]

When I bought my Unisaw 8 years ago, it was adjusted correct right out of the box. Went and bought a dial indicator with magnetic base so I could check everything, and didn't really need to. Have found most of my tools to be good right out of the box, most are Grizzly, the jointer was adjusted right, as was the planer. However, I had another brand of jointer before getting the Grizzly, and never could get it exactly right.

[Ryan Hellmer]

Tools that are ready to go out of the box are certainly availabe. You buy a $14,620 Northfiel No. 4 and you can bet your @$$ that it will come from the factory ready to go with no need for tweaking. I'm a firm believer in getting what you pay for (I buy things in delapidated condition for pennies on the dollar expecting a lot of work).

Ryan

[Derek Arita]

All I can say is, if I were a manufacturer putting out a machine, I'd want to send it out with everything dead on to start with, rather than leaving it to the customer to tweak my machine to get it right. It may cost more, but it seems only right and if it costs way more, then something is def wrong in the manufacturing process and it's time to fix it...IMHO.

[John Borger]

Kinda like leaving your reputation in the hands of someone who may or my not have the ability to make things right.

[Lornie McCullough]

John, I think that can be said of most tools...they require a little work to get them "right". I love my G0691, but I had some issues at first too. I ended up having to take the top off and ream out the mounting holes in the base. Not a big deal, and in the end I'm glad I did it because I learned a lot about the saw that I would otherwise not know. And if a problem ever crops up, I know how to go about getting to it to fix it rather than come here and moan, which I guarantee you I would do. So keep your chin up. You will get it where it needs to be, and you will be better off for it. Jim.


This is one of the best statements I've read here.....

Lornie

[Ole Anderson]

Is it possible that in shipping and installing the machine that some adjustments could get out of whack? I don't know, just asking.

[Joe Hillmann]

All I can say is, if I were a manufacturer putting out a machine, I'd want to send it out with everything dead on to start with, rather than leaving it to the customer to tweak my machine to get it right. It may cost more, but it seems only right and if it costs way more, then something is def wrong in the manufacturing process and it's time to fix it...IMHO.


Adjusting machinery like that at the factory could easily double the man hours it takes build it on tools under $1000-$1500. And then there is no guaranteeing it won't take a bump in shipping and get out of alignment. I know when I buy more expensive machinery there is $600-$1000 added to the price of the machine that includes 6 hours of set up and very basic training. That extra cost just doesn't make sense on machines under a certain price point.

Also a good manual usually shows how to make the adjustments necessary.

[Jim O'Dell]

Ole touched on this...You can set a unit up perfectly and then load it and drive home, unload and put into position, and it could/would be out of adjustment. I would think the store should know that. Makes me wonder if they don't say that to help justify their prices. I would rather one say that they want to put it together to verify that all the components are there and basic measurements taken but that it would need to be gone over after it is in it's final working position for 2 weeks. It could be tweaked moving it across the room. Floor could be slightly different that could put a stress on the cabinet and tweak the unit causing it to be out of alignment. Otherwise, why would any of us buy set up tools, to the tune of several hundred dollars, if they would only be used once? And I bet most of us check our tools at least once a year, and maybe before each new project. Heck, I check my TS blade at 90 degrees before each cut after beveling it. Tune ups on equipment are just a normal part of maintenance if we want our machines to perform as we want them to and think they should. This reminds me, I need to check my SCMS.......Jim.

[Jim Underwood]

Yeah... but some of these things are not "adjustments". Many of these things are just sloppy machining. When it comes to miter slots, they should be dead on. The are the reference lines for the whole damn saw, and if they aren't right, nothing else is ever going to be right.

There's no excuse for a sloppy miter slot.

[Joe Hillmann]

Jim,

What is your idea of dead on? More accuracy cost more money. And once you get to a certain point more money doesn't make a difference. If you have a custom machine built you can specify any degree of accuracy you want but if say it need to be accurate to +/-.005 the machine will be much much cheaper then if you say it needs to be accurate to +/-.0005.

And since you are working with wood which expands and contract a lot at some point more accuracy in the machine won't make any difference.

[Jim Underwood]

Right. And if you want to cut exact miters on frames? Just figure close is good enough?

I am NOT of the opinion that a woodworking machine can be +-1/32" and be good enough. And if your miter slot is .021" off, then that's darn near a 32nd of an inch. I am sick to death of these manufacturers that can't seem to get closer than that.

I think this thread has made me aware of my disatisfaction with the sloppiness of manufacturers, and now I'm going to ditch my Rigid TS and buy a SawStop instead.

[Joe Hillmann]

Right. And if you want to cut exact miters on frames? Just figure close is good enough?

I am NOT of the opinion that a woodworking machine can be +-1/32" and be good enough. And if your miter slot is .021" off, then that's darn near a 32nd of an inch. I am sick to death of these manufacturers that can't seem to get closer than that.

I think this thread has made me aware of my disatisfaction with the sloppiness of manufacturers, and now I'm going to ditch my Rigid TS and buy a SawStop instead.


But the .021 off was able to be adjusted out, it was where the wing bolts onto the bed of the saw. So even if it was adjusted perfectly when it left the store if when it was being moved force was applied to the wings of the saw it wouldn't have been accurate anyways. You said that the machines should be dead on, what is your idea of dead on?

[Jim Underwood]

I'm not talking about things where bolts can be loosened, then can be adjusted. I'm talking about things that are machined. If you have a miter slot that is wider in spots than at others (my Rigid TS for example), or they are not in alignment with each other then it's not adjustable is it? If your table isn't flat and dips or sags in spots, then how do you adjust that out?

I have three tailstocks for my Jet 1642 lathe in my shop, and nary a one of them will make the centers to line up. And no amount of adjustment would take that out. The area representative told me that specs on those things were +-1/32...

That's what I'm talking about.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Jim,

You will pay a lot more for your SawStop than you did for your Ridgid.............and you should get better quality......

[Ken Fitzgerald]

The old adage "You get what you pay for"......had better be true......otherwise why would someone pay more?.....


Take your Jet lathe.......buy a Robust......a Oneway.......a Serious.....you will pay several times more for one of those manufacturer's products and it had better be a higher quality or you have been taken a bigger advantage of........


But beware......we have seen delivery problems with most manufacturers.....even the taunted SawStop had a reported failure on delivery by a fellow Creeker a few months ago. No manufacturer will produce a product that will 100% every time. If it's manufactured by man, it can fail. And SS isn't US made.....

I repaired machines for 34 years, manufactured by 2 different US companies...products manufactured and assembled in the USA ......most cost between $1.1-$2.2 million dollars and they failed on installation....some caused by vibration issues due to shipping across the US by truck.....but....if it's made by man it can and will fail regardless of where it's manufactured


More inspections, tighter material specifications, longer seasoning times of metals and additional production steps, added hours of alignments cost money in either materials or labor or both. That drives up the cost of the product.

Most woodworkers, by far, are hobbyists and either can't justify or won't justify spending the added dollars to pay for better quality.

You want a good table saw......US designed and manufactured Northfield.....their basic T/S without any options....$14,000....... It should be a higher quality.