Pulled the Trigger on a Hybrid - Trouble in Paradise

[glenn bradley]

Alright Craftsman haters. . . get it out of your system. My next shop project was to be a table saw / RT workstation to house my 1950 C-man/Emerson but . . . . The C-man/Orion was on labor-day sale plus Craftsman Club and other 'secret' discounts.

I've been hovering on a step-up saw for about a year and had finally made peace with adapting the 1950's saw body. I figured I'd spend about $300 on materials for the workstation to get what I was after. So, when I could get the 22124 for $700 delivered I took the plunge.

I know that for a few hundred (or so) more I could've gone to another level. So many folks here seem to be happy with their OR35504's (so many names for one machine) and the reviews have been so consistent (with the occasional exception to prove the rule) that I felt OK going this way at this time. Does that sound like I am pathetically trying to justify my actions? Hmmmmmm.

All this is moot as without pics we know it never happened anyway. Delivery is Wednesday; I'll appease the picture police once it arrives.
For those interested, If I didn't find a good used Unisaw or equivalent, I had narrowed it down to the Orion or the Griz in my 'not to exceed' price range based on watching real people's posts on the other hybrids and their experiences with them. Just my 2 cents worth.

There are several fine saws in this category but the Craftsman seems to have the least of the hybrid evils. And yes, I have been watching for a good used CS. This deal came along and the timing was right. Pics to follow delivery.

[Matt Meiser]

Congratulations! After looking those over at Sears (in Mall of America, killing time while LOML and SIL were shopping), I know I'd seriously consider one if I was in the market for a new saw.

[scott spencer]

Congrats Glenn! I'm looking forward to hearing about your experience with the 22124 as time goes by. I've been really pleased with mine for ~ 17 months now.

It's not uncommon for the Biesemeyer laminated extension table to have a bow in it....it's common with that table regardless of which saw it's on....appearst to be a design issue. They'll replace it if you like, or you can build your own. The Leitz blade is pretty good for a stock blade...not good enough to replace my WWII or LU88, but not too shabby either.

When you align the table top to the blade, be sure to loosen the bolts to the table and not the trunnions. (see pic)

Have fun!

[glenn bradley]

Thanks for the tip Scott. That would be a bummer to have your blade to miter slot, etc. almost aligned and blow it by twisting the wrong bolt, ha! Did you try solving the bow problem by installing a stiffening rib or some-such?

I'll keep all posted once the beast arrives.

[Mike Cutler]

Nice Saw Glenn. I've seen the comments on it, here and on other forums. It seems to be very well recieved.

Don't let the Anti Craftsman rhetoric get ya'. The wood has no idea what color the saw is that is doing the cutting. It still comes down to the person running the saw.

Nice gloat.

[Bill Borchardt]

Congratulations on the new toy . . . er . . I mean saw.

I bought one 20 months ago and it's performed well - I added a Shark Guard with dust collection and the overall dust collection is very good. (Less so with a zero insert plate . . )

Take your time getting the top / blade aligned - mine was off quite a bit as delivered.

The Biesemeyer fence is a real pleasure and definitely worth the few extra $$ to up from the next lower model.

Make sawdust, have fun, be safe . . .

Billbo
Smyrna, GA

[Corey Hallagan]

Excellent Gloat! Congrats on the new saw. Enjoy it.

corey

[Scott Donley]

Nice gloat :D I think you will find you will like it as much as I do mine :D

[scott spencer]

...Did you try solving the bow problem by installing a stiffening rib or some-such?

Nah....I solved the problem by setting the extension on a shelf, sliding the rails 10" to the right, and building a 25" deep router table. :D

[Ed Bamba]

Glenn, before you put the wings and fence assemblies on, check the blade-to-throat plate clearance with the blade set all the way to 45 degrees. On my TS, the blade was touching the plate when the blade was tilted all the way. I had to elongate the cabinet mounting holes for the table bolts, to get enough adjustablity and gain more clearance. If yours needs the same abatement, it will save you lots of time with all the add-ons still off the TS table.

Best of luck and congrats on the new saw,
Ed

[Michael Adelong]

I've had mine since March of last year and I have been extremely pleased with its performance. No complaints at all.

Michael

[glenn bradley]

A man after my own heart Scott. I looked up your old thread about your router table and fence but the pics are gone (I assume archived or removed after some period of time[?]). Could you post a pic with your router table here? I currently run a TS extension RT and find it great space-saving-wise and I get yo use the TS top as extra room for the RT. I plan to integrate the RT onto the 22124 as well.

[glenn bradley]

Ed, thanks for the tip. This is one of the real benefits from this forum; real world experience sharing. I'll definitly check out the clearance as correcting will be a lot more pleasant if I DON'T have to take the ext wings and fence back off to do it. :o

[scott spencer]

A man after my own heart Scott. I looked up your old thread about your router table and fence but the pics are gone (I assume archived or removed after some period of time[?]). Could you post a pic with your router table here? I currently run a TS extension RT and find it great space-saving-wise and I get yo use the TS top as extra room for the RT. I plan to integrate the RT onto the 22124 as well.

Sure...I'm not proud! :D

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y203/hewood/RT/NRT3.jpg
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y203/hewood/RT/1b84239e.jpg

[glenn bradley]

Well its in the garage anyway . . . Some pics:

A nice clean spot waiting for the delivery truck.
The saw in two boxes.
With this metal pallet you would have to really try to bang this thing up in shipping.

Alas, I fly out for Stanford Univ. first thing tomorrow for work and have a full weekend afterwards that does not include shop time. I'll need to con my neighbor into helping me heft this thing off the pallet and into its planned resting spot . . . . beer maybe?

[lou sansone]

best wishes with the new saw. I am sure your going to really like it
lou

[Guy Germaine]

I agree with Scott and the others. Throw the cheap extension away before you even bother with putting it on. (I actually kept mine and use it to glue sandpaper to when I need a large "semi-flat" surface). Take the time to build your own extension table for it. You won't regret it.

http://www.fototime.com/75B8D696C096675/standard.jpg

http://www.fototime.com/048C18E6E3A4596/standard.jpg

[John Abell]

Glenn, I have been considering the very same saw and keep reading about prices that are much better than I have seen at Sears. Do you mind sharing some of the, "Craftsman Club and other 'secret' discounts" that you mentioned in your first post. Thanks John

[glenn bradley]

For Labor Day the saw was on sale for $799. I went on line and saw the same price. I added the saw to my cart and presto; an additional $100 off. Just to be sure I wasn't missing out on anything I called to inquire about the 'secret' discount. I was told it was an online special going on but I could go ahead and place the order with the man I was speaking to if I wanted. He was very helpful, explained about the extended warranty and gave me a break on shipping as I have a Craftsman Club account even though there was no CC club sale at the time. This seems a little subjective so be nice, maybe something good will happen.

I can relate to your confusion as I see folks get this saw from $800 to $650. At $700 I thought it was a good deal. With our outrageous California tax and the break on shipping plus the warranty I still ended up under $800. If the saw would have started at $800 I would have waited or looked at spending a few hundred more for something else.

I will have to exchange the table as it has a problem. This was not shipping damage. The right edge where the extension table will mount was dinged from the side in such a way as to create an upward thrusting dimple (reverse dimple?). I could file this down carefully but, there is also an .02-plus" dish along the right of the blade throat which I find to be a little too far off to accept. The combination of these issues warrants an exchange in my opinion. I have another thread on the saw top issue which I will close so that I can continue to document my goods and bads here.

Aside from the items mentioned, the saw is quite impressive when compared (just looked yesterday) to the Delta hybrid (Rockler sale $799 right now). There are areas of fit and finish on the Delta that are better (front of table chamfer is machined to a finer finish on the Delta) but, I do love the Biesemeyer fence and some of the other bells and whistles on the 22124.

[glenn bradley]

Great looking table Guy. Scott's is very nice too. I use the RT on the left due to shop configuration so I may experiment with using both cast iron extensions on the right. I agree the Bies ext table is really a token attempt. My current saw's extensions are home brew and worked out great so I'll probably go that direction.

[glenn bradley]

Apparently the cure for the problem with the saw table top is a swapout of the whole saw(?). New saw to arrive Thursday.

[glenn bradley]

Just a quick update on CS. The Orion folks called and the person I spoke with said if she hadn't been on vacation, I would have a new top by now. Seeing as I've already re-palletized the saw and re-packed EVERYTHING she recommended going ahead and receiveing the new saw tomorrow.

She was very polite, sincerely concerned that I had a problem and gave me her direct number in case anything else is a problem now or in the future.

Side Note: Orion's tolerance for this saw top is .01" over the area of the surface but the ding on the side of the mating surface for the extension was unacceptable to her and required replacement.

[glenn bradley]

Replacement saw arrived and I must say a thanks to all who posted the things they experienced with their's. This gave me a laundry list of things to check right away. Getting the replacement was the right thing to do; top has one small area that will take a .003" feeler the rest is just right. I'll cease the one-man post syndrome till I get her up and running.

Thanks to all!

[glenn bradley]

I'm getting the feeling that Orion's QA has slipped in an effort to keep up the demand for this saw. The new saw arrived with extension wings that were damaged prior to packing them in with the saw. Again, Orion was very nice about sending out new ext. wings.

One of the new wings went on as you would expect. The second required some file work to dress up the contact surface where the extension meets the saw top. Again this damage appeared to have happened at the factory but they packed the wing and shipped it with the saw anyway(?).

The wing that should have failed to pass inspection also required shims to compensate for a poor 90* machining job on the same surface that had been dinged. But the wings are on and boy am I happy (for about 5 minutes). I've got the table and wings flat, true and leveled the saw body to old-man gravity.

I moved on to the next step which is to bolt on the front rail of the fence. With the rail bolted on to the saw top loosely, I found I couldn't get the bolts through the rail and into the extension wings. Closer inspection revealed the hole in each wing to be about 1/4" too close to the saw top mounting edge (at least they're consistent as checking the originally defective wings reveals this problem also). Closer inspection seems to confirm it is the wings and not the rail that is wrong as the reinforced section of the casting has the holes drilled way off center in the direction of the error.

If the holes were off an inch or so I'd just drill new holes and get on with it. However the amount that the holes are off would result in an overlap of the original holes and the new holes creating a slot. I don't think I can live with that.

At this point I'm running out of my 30 day return window and am ready to return the saw and wait for something else to come along. I'll call Orion in the morning and see what their take is on this.

P.s. Sorry about the blur on the close up.