Delta miter saw-(gloat)

[John Miliunas]

After reading input here, as well as going over numerous reviews, last Monday I pulled the trigger on a new Delta CMS. The 36-255L, to be exact. It's the 12" version with the dual laser "guidance system". Either my eyes are really going goofy or I stare at computer monitors too long every day or both, but seeing that skinny pencil line on the board, just wasn't cutting it anymore. (Pun intended) Fact is, I was finding myself doing way too much "sneaking up" on the line and wasting time. :(

Not much to report on it, thus far. Just managed getting it setup this evening. Still need to check all the configurations to be sure everything is square. To this point, though, Delta has done a great job. Packaging was super, all the parts there, instructions are clear and the assembly was uneventful. Everything fit together nicely and the finish is beautiful. And, unlike an earlier post regarding Amazon, I was super pleased and surprised. Like I said, I just ordered this guy Monday and even then, it was late afternoon. It was in my shop this afternoon! That was with the "free shipping" option, no less! They done good. Here are a couple pics of the setup and I'll try to post a followup on how it was set in the factory and actual performance after doing some test cuts with it. Thanks for taking a peek! :cool:

[Jim Becker]

Veddy, veddy nice, John. I'm "attracted" to that one, too. You may have noticed that Norm switched over to this tool now, too, and retired the very old PC laser miter saw that's been on the NYW for many years. (He may be sporting the PC version, but it's identical to the Delta except for the stickers as far as I can tell)

[John Miliunas]

Veddy, veddy nice, John. I'm "attracted" to that one, too. You may have noticed that Norm switched over to this tool now, too, and retired the very old PC laser miter saw that's been on the NYW for many years. (He may be sporting the PC version, but it's identical to the Delta except for the stickers as far as I can tell)

To the best of my knowledge, they are identical physically. BUT, after all is said and done with the Amazon savings, as well as the Delta rebate, my net cost on the beast will be $275.00. If you go through Amazon, the PC version would net at $325.00. Plus, I believe the Delta carries a 2-yr. warranty as opposed to the 1-yr. on the PC. (I think.) :cool:

[John Weber]

John,

Finally you bought something from Delta, ok the sander too. Looks sweet! I have a Milwaukee CMS that my wife gave me, one of my first real tools, I think if I ever got rid of it she would kill me. Once my Uncle asked to borrow it, neither Kim or I was happy about that, so I picked up an old beater to use a my loaner CMS. Yes, I'm a bit anal on occasion but I hate to loan tools. Sorry to ramble, saw looks great.

John

[Joe Bourbois]

Very nice looking chopper there John. I have an old Hitachi 8.5 inch slider, and I'd love to have something bigger. But the Hitachi cuts so well I just can't justify it, especially when there's so many tools I want.

[Adan Madrid]

John,

Niiiiiiiiiice! It looks like you have it hooked-up to a dust collection system. Way cool! I'm still waiting for the wye branches before I can install my cyclone.

New toy . . . . new projects? :D

[Tyler Howell]

John Dude,

Did you plug the dust hood port?? DC sucks enough?? Just taking notes here for my own.

TX

[Waymon Campbell]

Been using mine now for about 6 months. Excellent saw. It was square and true out of the box from Amazon and I can report no problems so far. Lasers were dead on accurate. I especially like that you can turn the lasers on and off independantly of the motor. The only thing I did to mine was switch out the Delta blade for a Freud.

Have fun with yours.

Waymon...

[Mark Singer]

John Nice!!! Went a little smoother than the bandsaw purchase!

[Bob Lasley]

Good choice John. I have the PC version and I love it.

Bob

[Greg Heppeard]

One thing you might notice is the laser line is wider than your pencil line...I set mine to line up my pencil line just on the inside of the laser line...that way all my cuts are right on. I own the PC and it does a great job. As with all miter saws I've seen, dust collection needs improved, but it's still the most accurate thing I've seen yet. I think you'll love it.

[John Miliunas]

Thanks for all the positive remarks on it! I'm going to be "sighting" everything in on it today and let you know how it goes. I may be doing one major improvement on it, that being, order up a Chopmaster blade. I love the Forrest on my TS and I hear their MS blade is equally as good. Tyler and Adan, I'll let you know how the DC collection on it works out. I have yet to see *any* dust collection on a MS which is really efficient. I'll be happy if it gets the small particulate dust caught, so that it's not airborne. The bigger stuff doesn't bother me to vacuum up after the fact. Greg, I'll take a closer look at your suggestion. Might be worth the tweek! And Mark, yes, just a tad bit smoother transaction than the BS. :rolleyes: I'll let you guys know what I find through the rest of the process/use. Thanks again. :cool:

[Kent Cori]

I may be doing one major improvement on it, that being, order up a Chopmaster blade. I love the Forrest on my TS and I hear their MS blade is equally as good.

John,

It looks like a great CMS. I have the 10" without a lazer and use it all the time. Once dialed in, it is very accurate.

Like you, I have a WWII blade on my TS and wouldn't be without it. However, I have a Freud LU85R Ultimate Cutoff blade on my CMS that I am equally thrilled with. It gives truly glass smooth cuts and costs less than the Forrest. You might want to consider it too.

[Boyd Gathwright]

John,

That’s a nice saw, congratulations on your purchase. I am sure it will do all that you want it to do.

Happy mitering.

Boyd :)





After reading input here, as well as going over numerous reviews, last Monday I pulled the trigger on a new Delta CMS. The 36-255L, to be exact. It's the 12" version with the dual laser "guidance system". Either my eyes are really going goofy or I stare at computer monitors too long every day or both, but seeing that skinny pencil line on the board, just wasn't cutting it anymore. (Pun intended) Fact is, I was finding myself doing way too much "sneaking up" on the line and wasting time. :(

Not much to report on it, thus far. Just managed getting it setup this evening. Still need to check all the configurations to be sure everything is square. To this point, though, Delta has done a great job. Packaging was super, all the parts there, instructions are clear and the assembly was uneventful. Everything fit together nicely and the finish is beautiful. And, unlike an earlier post regarding Amazon, I was super pleased and surprised. Like I said, I just ordered this guy Monday and even then, it was late afternoon. It was in my shop this afternoon! That was with the "free shipping" option, no less! They done good. Here are a couple pics of the setup and I'll try to post a followup on how it was set in the factory and actual performance after doing some test cuts with it. Thanks for taking a peek! :cool:

[Byron Trantham]

I may be doing one major improvement on it, that being, order up a Chopmaster blade. I love the Forrest on my TS and I hear their MS blade is equally as good. Tyler and Adan, I'll let you know how the DC collection on it works out. I have yet to see *any* dust collection on a MS which is really efficient. I'll be happy if it gets the small particulate dust caught, so that it's not airborne. The bigger stuff doesn't bother me to vacuum up after the fact. Thanks again. :cool:

John, nice looking saw. I have the Delta 12" and cussed it every-time I used it because it made such a mess. After LOTS of trial and errors, I came up with a "down draft" system with a PVC pipe attached to the saw directing most of the dust to the big hole in the table behind the saw. The results are pretty good considering. Originally I connected a 4" hose the 1" exhaust. Not good. There wasn't enough air flow. The big hole is one of those Rockler "Big Gulp" dust hoods which is attached to a 4" hose. The PVC is attached to the stock exhaust via an interference fit. The pipe runs to the back through two 45 degree elbows. These joints aren't glued. This allows me to redirect the exhaust as I change the position of the saw.

The blade I chose was a Forrest Miter Master.

Here's a pic of the saw in place.

[John Miliunas]

Bryon, that's a might fine setup you have there! It's one, however, which wouldn't work for me unless I decided to pull the whole cabinet assembly another foot or so off the wall. It's in an area, which el's to another counter area, so that's out of the question. I did test my setup, though. Read on.

So, back out to the shop this morning, and I scheduled time for tuning up the saw. Well, looks like it duplicated my recent experience with the Delta drum sander and must've been made right along side of Waymon's CMS, because I ended up way "ahead of schedule"! No lie. This thing was spot on out of the box! The 90's, 45's and everything in between checked out right on the money. Even the laser marks were positioned perfectly for the pencil line, though I may do like Greg suggested and line them up to keep the pencil line just inside the laser. All the actions on the saw are smooth and definitive. The bevel lock lever is a bit hard to engage, but I don't use that feature a real lot, anyway. Because my base is real close to my DC inlet, I couldn't get "fancy" with that end of it, though I'm not sure I need to. I simply aluminum taped a deflector to the output dust port and it, in turn, directs the majority of the chips/dust toward the DC inlet and shroud area. Actually does better than I had anticipated. I just did a few test cuts, so there wasn't extensive use, yet. Guess I'll see how it does when I set out on a full fledged project. Bottom line: I'm very happy with the saw and would have no reservations recommending it to others. :cool:

[Dean Baumgartner]

Thanks for all the positive remarks on it! I'm going to be "sighting" everything in on it today and let you know how it goes. I may be doing one major improvement on it, that being, order up a Chopmaster blade. I love the Forrest on my TS and I hear their MS blade is equally as good. Tyler and Adan, I'll let you know how the DC collection on it works out. I have yet to see *any* dust collection on a MS which is really efficient. I'll be happy if it gets the small particulate dust caught, so that it's not airborne. The bigger stuff doesn't bother me to vacuum up after the fact. Greg, I'll take a closer look at your suggestion. Might be worth the tweek! And Mark, yes, just a tad bit smoother transaction than the BS. :rolleyes: I'll let you guys know what I find through the rest of the process/use. Thanks again. :cool:

John,
Nice saw. On the dust collection for my Makita LS1013 I found the best that I can do is build a box around the back of the saw and keep the openings as small as possible. I have a couple of hinged sections that I flip up out of the way when I need more room to move the saw and leave down for square cuts. The dust collection just kind of keeps dust from spitting out the front of the enclosure while the majority of the dust falls out in the enclosure.

Here's a pic:

[Anton Smolka]

After reading input here, as well as going over numerous reviews, last Monday I pulled the trigger on a new Delta CMS. The 36-255L, to be exact. It's the 12" version with the dual laser "guidance system". Either my eyes are really going goofy or I stare at computer monitors too long every day or both, but seeing that skinny pencil line on the board, just wasn't cutting it anymore. (Pun intended) Fact is, I was finding myself doing way too much "sneaking up" on the line and wasting time. :(

Mind if I gloat too? I just picked up my 255L :) Last day for the Delta rebate too! I checked every Lowes in Delaware, Phila area and Southern NJ. Finally located one in Delran NJ about a 100miles from my house. Needless to say I got me one!

[John Miliunas]

Mind if I gloat too? I just picked up my 255L :) Last day for the Delta rebate too! I checked every Lowes in Delaware, Phila area and Southern NJ. Finally located one in Delran NJ about a 100miles from my house. Needless to say I got me one!

Sweet, ain't it?! :cool: I do think I'm going to order up one of the hold-downs for it, as well as equip it with a Forrest. Heck, between the $25.00 Amazon savings, no S/H, no tax and the other $50.00 coming in from Delta, that about covers the Forrest! (almost...) Enjoy Anton and let us know how your unit checks out. I'm batting 1000 with my last two items from Delta! :cool:

[Don Henthorn Smithville, TX]

Whoa there, John. You just keep on buying new tools to fill up that new shop of yours. You gotta slow down, man. You are spending so much time assembling tools you don't have time to build anything. Of course I'm just green with envy. Enjoy your toys.

[John Miliunas]

Whoa there, John. You just keep on buying new tools to fill up that new shop of yours. You gotta slow down, man. You are spending so much time assembling tools you don't have time to build anything. Of course I'm just green with envy. Enjoy your toys.

You're absolutely right, Don! But you see, that's part of LOML's "Master Plan"! No really! I'm serious as a heart attack here! She's got this whole tool buying thing down pat. It's really simple, actually. You see, she keeps coming up with "special" projects. I, of course, don't have a (insert tool here) to complete the project with. She says, "Well, why don't you get a (insert tool here)?" Fortunately for me, she has such a wide range of projects, which absolutely *require* these tools. BUT, one of these fine days, I'm going to end up with all the tools to do *any* project for her and she *knows* this! No more excuses then. It will be, "nose to the grindstone" or I'll be building a new bed...For out in the shop! Can't let that happen.... :D :cool:

[John Weber]

John,

The Chopmaster is a killer blade, I have one on my 10" Milwaukee CMS, gives almost a polished finish. Very smooth, other then costing $115 I love it.

John

[John Miliunas]

John,

The Chopmaster is a killer blade, I have one on my 10" Milwaukee CMS, gives almost a polished finish. Very smooth, other then costing $115 I love it.

John

Hi John,

Yeah, me thinks that's the one I'm going to go for, except 12", of course. I've tried other brand blades and, although they have done OK, I didn't know what I was missing until I put the WWII on my TS! I'm even impressed with the job it does on crosscuts! What the heck...'Long as LOML wants to be sure I have all the "proper" tools for completing her projects, I might as well go with the best! (It's all HER fault, you know! :D ) I was going to just go ahead and order it, but I forgot that I plan on going to the WW show in Milwaukee next weekend. Never know, might find a decent discount on one over there. :cool:

[Mark Singer]

John,
I like your theory on saving money by getting discounts and the more you shop the more you save...you must have taken the same class as LOML.:rolleyes:..she has saved me a fortune over the years! The more she buys the more we save and therefore the more money we have....Logical ....yeah ...yeah:p

I have my Hitachi set up with the Fasttrack fence and stop....it is great!

http://www.prairieriverwoodworking.com/ProductDetail.asp?optionsid=160

[John Miliunas]

I have my Hitachi set up with the Fasttrack fence and stop....it is great!

http://www.prairieriverwoodworking.com/ProductDetail.asp?optionsid=160

Mark, that's similar to what I want to have setup, though I think I'm going to build my own extension/stop setup. My CMS is located on old, salvaged base cabinets. Between a very uneven floor and varying heights of the cabinets themselves, I'm going to need to do some "customizing" in order to get an even surface to line up with the CMS table. Same concept as the Fastrack, though. :cool: Oh, and you're right: LOML has been training me and teaching me "how to save" for better than 24 years now! :D :cool: