General 50-185?

[Martin Shupe]

A buddy of mine is looking to buy a tablesaw at the Woodsmith store grand opening this weekend.

He does not want to spend the money for a cabinet saw, so he is looking at contractor saws.

He is leaning towards the General 50-185, due to the Beisemeyer fence and 2 hp motor.

He has asked my opinion, and with the current state of my Jet motor, I am not sure I can give him good advice. :( (I'll be taking that motor in for analysis this morning, but I digress.)

I would appreciate comments from anyone who owns this saw, either pro or con.

It seems like I have been asking for a lot of advice lately, and I sure appreciate all the help I have been given.

Thanks,

[Mike Mastin]

Martin,

We use a JET 10" cabinet saw in our shop and it gets used far more than the average hobbiest would by a good stretch and it has never failed to perform. It easily rips through 10/4 curly hard Maple (with a sharp Forrest blade :-)). Not sure which tablesaw your friend is looking at, but power and performance is something that we have never had with this JET tool.

[scott spencer]

Martin - I've been using the 50-185M1 since February. It's been great so far, and IMO is the best value in comparably equipped contractor saws. The Biese fence is terrific, and miter gauge is alot better than most stock gauges. Fit and finish were also excellent. It's doing wonderul things with a Forrest WWII blade.

I've compared the comparable Delta, Jet, and PM models very closely....they're very nice, but I just don't find enough advantage to justify the price increase....it's actually difficult to find any significant advantages even if they were equally priced (IMHO of course)...(the surface on the PM is nice). Plus the price of those units puts you into Griz cabinet saw range.

The Griz and the Bridgewood contractor saws are also decent saws, but they both had a couple of disadvantages that made the General an easy choice ( 1 yr warranty, no dealer, etc). I don't feel that the Ridgid or the Craftsman stack up well to the General, Griz, or Bridgewood (or the others) overall. If he's really penny pinching, the Ridgid 3612 at closeout prices may be worth considering if he likes what that saw offers, but it has a completely different set of features than the saws mentioned above, plus I'm not fond of the grated wings, aluminum fence, and cast aluminum trunnions, etc.

[Ed Falis]

That sounded like a resounding "Yes!!! He should buy it!!!"

- Ed

[scott spencer]

...Well, yeah...but I did forget to address the "cons" part:

- The owners manual is almost adequate ;-)
- The pivot pin in the miter gauge was slightly smaller than the pivot hole, which resulted in some play on the miter fence. They immediately sent a new miter gauge no questions asked.