Janis Stipins
10-11-2013, 2:28 PM
Hi everybody, long-time reader, first-time poster...
I am setting up a small wood shop, and ended up going with a new G1023RL for my table saw. I initially tried a Ridgid R4512, but ended up with one of the really squirrelly arbors that basically shifted and reoriented the blade randomly as it went up and down. So I took that one back and decided to invest in something a little better built and a lot safer.
Out of the box, the alignment of the blade and table were right on --- blade perpendicular to the table, and within .001" of parallel to the miter slot, according to my Una-Gauge. The setting of the tilt stops were also right on. I installed both cast iron wings; one of them needed a slip of xerox paper as a shim, the other required no shimming at all.
Then I moved the arbor up and down, and panicked a little bit to see that the blade shifted left to right about .010" when I changed directions. I called Grizzly customer support, and the helpful guy assured me that that was not acceptable, and that I should tighten the gib a bit. So I followed the directions on that, and got it so that it moves up and down smoothly with less than .001" of shifting. All good there; the only thing I'd point out to someone who hasn't done this before is that they're not exaggerating about making *small* adjustments to the set screws... they recommended doing 1/4 turn at a time, but I ended up using 1/8 at a time to get it just right. Also be careful that when you're tightening the nut to lock in your adjustment you don't also turn the set screw as well.
So far so good. Then I put in the riving knife... and it wasn't really even close to aligned. Not a big deal, I thought, since it's also adjustable. Then I proceeded to spend an embarrassing amount of time contorted into a terrible position, trying to make blind adjustments to the mounting block, and trying to correlate the changes to the set screws with changes in the riving knife position. Finally I accidentally loosed one of the cap screws to the point that the whole mounting block fell out, and holding it in my hand it finally dawned on me how the adjustment should work. Probably this is obvious to people with more experience in a machine shop, but the quick way to do this adjustment is to loosen *all* the set screws until the mounting block sits flat against the other piece, then look at the position of the riving knife; if anything, looking from the back of the saw, it should be to the right of the blade. Then make *small* (as in, 1/16 of a turn) tightenings to the four set screws to push the knife to the left, into parallel, as needed. If you overshoot a lot, or just get things messed up somehow, loosen all the set screws and start again. It only (!) took about 45 minutes once I figured out how to adjust it correctly. This whole procedure took a very (very) long time in part because I didn't know what I was doing, but also in part because there is simply no good way to reach the mounting block and simultaneously see the riving knife.
But anyway, the saw is set up, perfectly aligned, and I take it for a spin... it easily passes the nickel test, and even the penny test, with the stock blade. So that's all good. Overall, I'm confident that this is a very solid and accurately aligned tool, and I'm looking forward to using it for the rest of my life or so. (I ended up going with an aftermarket fence/rail system, so I don't have anything to say about the included fence and rails other than Grizzly apparently will not give a refund if you don't want them.)
There are two negatives that I've noticed, though. The first one is that the dust collection is inadequate, at least in the opinion of a disciple of Bill Pentz. This is not a real negative against the G1023RL, though, since basically no hobbyist cabinet saw has adequate out-of-the-box dust collection by those standards. It will be fixed in part by drilling out the dust port to 5", removing the internal dust shroud (with its tiny 2" diameter hose!) and sealing the cabinet better with some magnetic sheets.
The second negative is a bigger one: the blade guard is a Shark-like behemoth that attaches to a big splitter that fits in the riving knife slot. There's nothing wrong with that in principle, but in this particular case the guard assembly seems to be much too heavy for its support: applying any force to either side of the guard easily pushes the splitter out of alignment with the blade. That seems like a bad design to me, and definitely a dangerous situation. I asked the Grizzly customer support guy, and he said he hadn't heard of anyone having this problem; but then, woodworkers are notorious for not using the blade guard at all, so that might be why he hasn't heard about it before. I don't think it's a case of me having a faulty guard, I think it's just that the guard as designed is too heavy for its support. In any event, I'm going to be replacing it with an overhead guard that includes some dust collection, so I'm not concerned.
Anyway, those are my first impressions of this saw. I'd be glad to hear if any of you have experienced similar things with the blade guard in particular.
-JS
I am setting up a small wood shop, and ended up going with a new G1023RL for my table saw. I initially tried a Ridgid R4512, but ended up with one of the really squirrelly arbors that basically shifted and reoriented the blade randomly as it went up and down. So I took that one back and decided to invest in something a little better built and a lot safer.
Out of the box, the alignment of the blade and table were right on --- blade perpendicular to the table, and within .001" of parallel to the miter slot, according to my Una-Gauge. The setting of the tilt stops were also right on. I installed both cast iron wings; one of them needed a slip of xerox paper as a shim, the other required no shimming at all.
Then I moved the arbor up and down, and panicked a little bit to see that the blade shifted left to right about .010" when I changed directions. I called Grizzly customer support, and the helpful guy assured me that that was not acceptable, and that I should tighten the gib a bit. So I followed the directions on that, and got it so that it moves up and down smoothly with less than .001" of shifting. All good there; the only thing I'd point out to someone who hasn't done this before is that they're not exaggerating about making *small* adjustments to the set screws... they recommended doing 1/4 turn at a time, but I ended up using 1/8 at a time to get it just right. Also be careful that when you're tightening the nut to lock in your adjustment you don't also turn the set screw as well.
So far so good. Then I put in the riving knife... and it wasn't really even close to aligned. Not a big deal, I thought, since it's also adjustable. Then I proceeded to spend an embarrassing amount of time contorted into a terrible position, trying to make blind adjustments to the mounting block, and trying to correlate the changes to the set screws with changes in the riving knife position. Finally I accidentally loosed one of the cap screws to the point that the whole mounting block fell out, and holding it in my hand it finally dawned on me how the adjustment should work. Probably this is obvious to people with more experience in a machine shop, but the quick way to do this adjustment is to loosen *all* the set screws until the mounting block sits flat against the other piece, then look at the position of the riving knife; if anything, looking from the back of the saw, it should be to the right of the blade. Then make *small* (as in, 1/16 of a turn) tightenings to the four set screws to push the knife to the left, into parallel, as needed. If you overshoot a lot, or just get things messed up somehow, loosen all the set screws and start again. It only (!) took about 45 minutes once I figured out how to adjust it correctly. This whole procedure took a very (very) long time in part because I didn't know what I was doing, but also in part because there is simply no good way to reach the mounting block and simultaneously see the riving knife.
But anyway, the saw is set up, perfectly aligned, and I take it for a spin... it easily passes the nickel test, and even the penny test, with the stock blade. So that's all good. Overall, I'm confident that this is a very solid and accurately aligned tool, and I'm looking forward to using it for the rest of my life or so. (I ended up going with an aftermarket fence/rail system, so I don't have anything to say about the included fence and rails other than Grizzly apparently will not give a refund if you don't want them.)
There are two negatives that I've noticed, though. The first one is that the dust collection is inadequate, at least in the opinion of a disciple of Bill Pentz. This is not a real negative against the G1023RL, though, since basically no hobbyist cabinet saw has adequate out-of-the-box dust collection by those standards. It will be fixed in part by drilling out the dust port to 5", removing the internal dust shroud (with its tiny 2" diameter hose!) and sealing the cabinet better with some magnetic sheets.
The second negative is a bigger one: the blade guard is a Shark-like behemoth that attaches to a big splitter that fits in the riving knife slot. There's nothing wrong with that in principle, but in this particular case the guard assembly seems to be much too heavy for its support: applying any force to either side of the guard easily pushes the splitter out of alignment with the blade. That seems like a bad design to me, and definitely a dangerous situation. I asked the Grizzly customer support guy, and he said he hadn't heard of anyone having this problem; but then, woodworkers are notorious for not using the blade guard at all, so that might be why he hasn't heard about it before. I don't think it's a case of me having a faulty guard, I think it's just that the guard as designed is too heavy for its support. In any event, I'm going to be replacing it with an overhead guard that includes some dust collection, so I'm not concerned.
Anyway, those are my first impressions of this saw. I'd be glad to hear if any of you have experienced similar things with the blade guard in particular.
-JS