Frank Pellow
03-26-2006, 4:58 AM
post #1 of 2:
(written by Gary but typed and submitted by Frank Pellow because Gary is currently without a computer. Gary tells me that he will use the internet at the library to respond to any questions posed in this thread.)
It took me a year to make the proper choice of a saw to complete the outfitting of my new shop. I got side tracked -- obsessed – with specifications. For six months, I deluded myself into thinking I could afford or would need a European Format Saw (EFS). I was wrong on both points.
But, by investigating two brands of EFS (see Paul Cresti’s excellent discussions here on SMC), I learned what I needed to make a balanced, appropriate decision. I visited the showrooms of Felder and Knapp, both here in California. Five owners of these Austrian machines invited me to their shops and discussed their work. The owners that I visited explained that a sliding table changed the way they work. First of all, safety is the prime advantage. You can effortlessly push a sheet of 4 x 8 plywood through the blade and be standing far to the left. By clamping the wood to the slider, the cut will be quite accurate because you are neither slipping it along the rip fence nor over the table top. The sliding table bears the weight and guides the cut.
On a true EFS, you can accomplish the same precision with rips because the sliding table comes right up to the kerf line. My General slider meets the cabinet 8 inches to the left of the blade.
About the same time that I realized I could not finance a $14,000 tool, a fellow in my woodworking club advised me to get any right-tilt cabinet saw and bolt on a Robland sliding table as he had done on his 12 inch Inca. He added that General made sliding table saws for about $3,000.
I guess that you could say that I turned into a “gear head” over this matter of saws. But, in the end, I learned a tremendous amount about equipment and its application. The General 350 is the right-tilt version of the more popular 650. It weighs 520 pounds, not counting the 5hp Baldor motor or the 240 pound slider and outrigger support.
The 350 came with a mediocre instruction booklet. A slightly more detailed (and misleading :( ) book covers the matter of the Beissemeyer fence. Had my dealer not provided his own “cheat sheet”, I would have gotten lost figuring out the bolt patterns on the guide rails. Thanks to Eagle Tools of Los Angeles.
A third manual dealt with the slider and its calibrations. This booklet is a superb tutorial :) . Had I known better and enlisted a friend, I could have reduced the installation task from four long days to six hours. In all fairness to the manufacturer, sliding tables are complex. Any brand must be aligned in three axes to exacting tolerances. Felder even offers the services of a factory-trained technician to visit your home for set-up and calibration. The online forums of Felder and Knapp are filled with stories of installation headaches.
The General-designed table is good because it provides some redundancies at alignment points. You choose among several bearings or track adjustments to true up the table.
So, why bother with all the fussiness? My first paying job will be to furnish about 200 running feet of 9 foot high cabinets for an aircraft hanger. Sliders provide an easy materials-handling advantage when working with sheet goods.
And, when that job is done, I’ll be able to look at the quality that shows on every inch of my Canadian-made saw. General even has their own iron or source.
Pictures follow:
1) Hi tech: A dial guage limits fore-and-aft run-out on the slider to .002 inches.
34895
2) Low tech: Checking squareness of the crosscut fence to the table.
34896
3) The ugly crate
(I did not get this picture from Gary -Frank)
4) Stretched out – Length from extension table to fully extended crosscut fence is 10’ 6”.
34897
5) Sliding table and outrigger arm weigh240 pounds. A European slider would weigh 1,100 pounds.
34898
(written by Gary but typed and submitted by Frank Pellow because Gary is currently without a computer. Gary tells me that he will use the internet at the library to respond to any questions posed in this thread.)
It took me a year to make the proper choice of a saw to complete the outfitting of my new shop. I got side tracked -- obsessed – with specifications. For six months, I deluded myself into thinking I could afford or would need a European Format Saw (EFS). I was wrong on both points.
But, by investigating two brands of EFS (see Paul Cresti’s excellent discussions here on SMC), I learned what I needed to make a balanced, appropriate decision. I visited the showrooms of Felder and Knapp, both here in California. Five owners of these Austrian machines invited me to their shops and discussed their work. The owners that I visited explained that a sliding table changed the way they work. First of all, safety is the prime advantage. You can effortlessly push a sheet of 4 x 8 plywood through the blade and be standing far to the left. By clamping the wood to the slider, the cut will be quite accurate because you are neither slipping it along the rip fence nor over the table top. The sliding table bears the weight and guides the cut.
On a true EFS, you can accomplish the same precision with rips because the sliding table comes right up to the kerf line. My General slider meets the cabinet 8 inches to the left of the blade.
About the same time that I realized I could not finance a $14,000 tool, a fellow in my woodworking club advised me to get any right-tilt cabinet saw and bolt on a Robland sliding table as he had done on his 12 inch Inca. He added that General made sliding table saws for about $3,000.
I guess that you could say that I turned into a “gear head” over this matter of saws. But, in the end, I learned a tremendous amount about equipment and its application. The General 350 is the right-tilt version of the more popular 650. It weighs 520 pounds, not counting the 5hp Baldor motor or the 240 pound slider and outrigger support.
The 350 came with a mediocre instruction booklet. A slightly more detailed (and misleading :( ) book covers the matter of the Beissemeyer fence. Had my dealer not provided his own “cheat sheet”, I would have gotten lost figuring out the bolt patterns on the guide rails. Thanks to Eagle Tools of Los Angeles.
A third manual dealt with the slider and its calibrations. This booklet is a superb tutorial :) . Had I known better and enlisted a friend, I could have reduced the installation task from four long days to six hours. In all fairness to the manufacturer, sliding tables are complex. Any brand must be aligned in three axes to exacting tolerances. Felder even offers the services of a factory-trained technician to visit your home for set-up and calibration. The online forums of Felder and Knapp are filled with stories of installation headaches.
The General-designed table is good because it provides some redundancies at alignment points. You choose among several bearings or track adjustments to true up the table.
So, why bother with all the fussiness? My first paying job will be to furnish about 200 running feet of 9 foot high cabinets for an aircraft hanger. Sliders provide an easy materials-handling advantage when working with sheet goods.
And, when that job is done, I’ll be able to look at the quality that shows on every inch of my Canadian-made saw. General even has their own iron or source.
Pictures follow:
1) Hi tech: A dial guage limits fore-and-aft run-out on the slider to .002 inches.
34895
2) Low tech: Checking squareness of the crosscut fence to the table.
34896
3) The ugly crate
(I did not get this picture from Gary -Frank)
4) Stretched out – Length from extension table to fully extended crosscut fence is 10’ 6”.
34897
5) Sliding table and outrigger arm weigh240 pounds. A European slider would weigh 1,100 pounds.
34898