Free Hitachi C10FL. What are the plus/minus on this saw?

[Dick Brown]

Friend gave me a Hitachi table saw the other day as well as an old 6"Craftsman jointer. Jointer and saw both look like they sat outside for a long time by the rust on the tops. Saw and jointer both run fine. Put in about four hours cleaning the top on the saw and it looks fine now. Other than the rust, saw looks pretty good. I sure don't need it but wondered what the general feeling is about this saw so have an idea what to ask for it. Offered the jointer for $35. on C.L. but no
calls. May put it in the free list if I don't get a call soon.
Dick

[Steve Demuth]

It's basically the same saw as the Porter Cable PCB270. I bought one of those new about 8 years ago for about $450. Not a bad saw, but like most imports, it wasn't ready to go out of the box. Took some real horsing around to get the blade / miter slot alignment right because the trunnions are mounted directly to the table and it doesn't really have the right adjustment capability to align them. Plus the riving knife mount didn't work at all well until I re-built it. It's also got a just plain stupid blade insert, so making zero clearance inserts is a pain in the a**, and it can be tough to get them rigid enough to be safe. The 90deg stop on the blade tilt was flimsy and useless, so I had to make one of my own. Finally, the rack for the tilt is a fiber composite, not steel or bronze, so it's a potential early point of failure if you adjust tilt a lot. But for all that, the saw has adequate power for small scale woodworker, and the one I got at least was well machined, other than the fit and finish things I've mentioned - .001" or so run out on both the arbor and flange, smooth operation of the blade lift, good tight and reliably square fence. Never really had any trouble with it after I got the initial kinks worked out, and I got a lot of mileage out of it. I'd think it's worth a couple hundred $ used, but not much more.

[scott spencer]

Lowes sold the C10FL new in the $500-$600 range. It's a hybrid style contractor saw with a belt drive induction motor, and a full size cast iron table. IIRC, the down sides were the lack of a true riving knife, steel wings, and a plastic elevation gear (keep it lubed). Fence is light duty but works ok.