I'm deciding on a new saw - any helpful words?

[John Piwaron]

First, I'm a hobby woodworker, my shop is in the basement of my house.

I'm looking at getting a new table saw. It's not very hard to look at the websites of different manufacturers, read the ad copy and look at the pictures. Besides getting features that I want and think I may find useful, I'm interested in learning about things that are less easily known. Things like the real quality of construction, support and availability of parts after the sale. Perhaps long after the sale.

I currently use a General hybrid saw. It's o.k., but it's time for better.

At this time I'm most interested in Felder (Hammer), the Unisaw and Sawstop. I know - Felder makes a very different kind of saw. But the sliding table it has would be a very nice thing to have. But the fence doesn't look too impressive and the blade is right tilt. That particular fact is a big negative to me.

The Sawstop and the Unisaw. Both look pretty good. I'm well aware of the Sawstops safety technology as far as touching the running blade goes. I'm looking beyond that - what about the rest of the saw?

I can go to the local Woodcraft store with my flashlight and mirror and look at the Sawstop and the Unisaw. But not a Felder or Hammer.

Questions:

I'm in SE Wisconsin. Is there anywhere with Felder and or Hammer saws on display?

What's the service like for any of them after buying? I mean answering questions that may come up, parts availability, delivery of the parts, etc.

Those things are heavy too - how'd they arrive at your shop/home? How did it get to where you're using it?

I thought I read in the manual for one of the Hammer saws that they do the installation and setup. Does that mean they'd carry it down to my shop? I'm o.k. with setup, I'm familiar with dial indicators, micrometers and so forth.

What about the quality of construction? Anything sketchy there? Do the materials they made the various parts from look appropriate? Any problems with flexing, alignment, not flat, not square and so forth? I mean where things are supposed to be flat, square and so on.

I'm sure there's a lot I haven't asked. I'll ask when I think of them. This is a large sum to spend. I'm not going to want to choose something just because it has a lot of shiny surfaces and cool buttons and levers. God knows I've done that before. This is too much money to let impressive looks or seemingly useful features drive my choice.

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi John, I purchased a Hammer A3-31 and a B3 Winner and love both of them.

The B3 I own has a small slider (49") with outrigger and scoring saw, as well as a stock feeder.

If you PM me your e-mail I'll send you an article on how I moved mine into my basement by myself.

The quality of construction is good, I went from General to Hammer with absolutely no complaints, I wish had gone to Hammer first.

The small format type saws are so versatile and capable that there's no way I could ever be convinced to go back to a cabinet saw.

Regards, Rod.

[Larry Browning]

Have you done a search in SMC? Table saw talk has to be one of the top 2 or 3 topics discussed here. Also, since you like the sliding table idea, you might want to consider an add on sliding table for the uni or SS. I'm sure that would be considerably less expensive than the Felder.
All of this is WAY out of my price range. I have Grizzly G1023SL and love it. I think I paid about $1000 for it. It is perfect for my needs.

Also, take your own advice and take a real hard look at what your needs really are. Would your money be better spent on a less expensive saw which would allow to buy a jointer and planer as well?

[Matt Day]

I agree with Larry. First I think you need to figure out what your needs/wants are, then do some digging here on SMC and the rest of the internet to research it. If you end up with a Felder/Hammer, your best bet might be to find a local ww'er in your area (I'd suggest posting back here with a "calling all XXX owners in Wisconsin area" thread) to put your hands on one.

Felder's site only shows locations on the East and West coast.

[John Piwaron]

Have you done a search in SMC? Table saw talk has to be one of the top 2 or 3 topics discussed here. Also, since you like the sliding table idea, you might want to consider an add on sliding table for the uni or SS. I'm sure that would be considerably less expensive than the Felder.
All of this is WAY out of my price range. I have Grizzly G1023SL and love it. I think I paid about $1000 for it. It is perfect for my needs.

Also, take your own advice and take a real hard look at what your needs really are. Would your money be better spent on a less expensive saw which would allow to buy a jointer and planer as well?

Absolutely. I'm definitely taking my advice. Examining needs, considering how I go about things now - what can a new tool do to take care of the sometimes kludgy methods I use. Yes, I'll examine an add on sliding table for a SS or Delta. I've looked at those before but most of them don't look too integrated. The one I liked the most at that time was made by Jessem and seems to have gone away. Maybe for good reason, I don't know.

I already have a Delta DJ-20 for my jointer. I'm very happy with that. That doesn't mean that if something came up that I wouldn't move to something else, but right now, for me that machine is awesome. FWIW, within the past week or so I reminded myself of why edge jointing plywood isn't the best idea anyone will ever have. It had to be done, but now I've got to sharpen the knives.

Anyway, some of my research is to think about how they're built and consider what might turn out to be "hidden" weaknesses/flaws. Like my Festool Domino.

[John Piwaron]

Felder's site only shows locations on the East and West coast.

Yup, saw that. Yes, I've read plenty on this site. I'll read plenty more before it's all over. As I said, this is too much money to buy just anything. To buy features or capabilities that for me might be marginal if useful at all.

[David Kumm]

Mac Campshure sold Felder for years and lives in Madison. www.airtightclamps.com I'm in central WI but you probably don't need to see a Knapp. MM makes sliders that are the equal of the Felder 500-700 series as well. Big difference in quality as you move up the felder series ladder. All true sliders will be right tilt as the blade needs to tilt away from the sliding table unless you go really high end. Sliders and traditional saws are very different animals. I use both but if I could only have one it would be the slider- even if a short stroke one. Dave

[David Nelson1]

John,
If your thinking slider, the Jessem might have been the same as the Luguna. I added one to my C man saw but it didn't go without a hitch because the C man cast iron table was not as beefy. After a mod it worked fine and I love it. See the details here. BTW the one I have came off of a Unisaw fit great on that saw.

[John Piwaron]

John,
If your thinking slider, the Jessem might have been the same as the Luguna. I added one to my C man saw but it didn't go without a hitch because the C man cast iron table was not as beefy. After a mod it worked fine and I love it. See the details here. BTW the one I have came off of a Unisaw fit great on that saw.

thanks for the Laguna link - I don't recall that the Jessem looked quite like that, but certainly not too far away. It's a nice photo, I'll check that out more thoroughly. I'm not sure care for the legs, but I design small mechanisms, perhaps if I put my "clever hat" on I'll think of something else. Or maybe not.

[Van Huskey]

If you are going to put a sliding table on a cabinet saw just do it right and get an Excaliber http://www.general.ca/site_excalibur...50-SLT60e.html

But then again you could just get a slider to begin with like you are considering.

[Chris Tsutsui]

I had a grizzly 1023SLX with the large excalibur and it worked ok, it just wasn't producing perfect results and I didn't like adjusting the excalibur, and I also didn't care for the fence indicator. I eventually sold my grizzly setup for $600 to some lucky guy who got all the blades, v-belts, and bells and whistles... The guy I sold it to was a senior Architect for Disney.

Keep in mind that there are two types of fences I think that come on the Hammer. The industrial fence uses a round solid steel bar, has a heavy piece of cast iron that rolls on the table with a wheel and locks down firmly onto the steel bar. There's a micro adjust that I use all the time, and the fence flips on its side for better access. This might be a price adder on the $3k model, or you should be able to negotiate a discount.

Right tilt is chosen because a majority of your cuts will be referencing the sliding table as it feels safer using the sliding table instead of a rip fence.

Most parts are readily available in Delaware, and the worse case scenario is you'd have to wait for Austria to ship a part over if something were to be damaged. Customer service is great, I still keep in touch with my sales rep and I'm even demoing my saw for somebody this Saturday.

I had my saw (1000lbs, 4x10 pallet) shipped via Estes Express through my own freight arrangements shipping it Class 55. It set me back a "cost" of $235 which included $75 for residential lift gate service. Though my cost of like 15 cents per pound was through a logistics company which finds the best rate for me. Basically the box truck can move the pallet using a pallet jack directly into your garage. Then the only trouble you have is sliding the saw off the pallet by building a small ramp or what I did was walk it off onto wood shims and slowly remove the shims until its at ground level using a long board as leverage for lifting.

The question you need to ask yourself is do you want a SLIDER or do you want a CABINET SAW. A slider allows you to clamp your work piece onto the table, and push the whole table to make a cut. You can make any jig you want to clamp onto the sliding table and the result is your jig moves in an effortless straight line. Watch some youtube videos about sliding table saws to get a good grasp on how they work.

If you decide a cabinet saw is what you want, I would look at Grizzly, Delta, and Sawstop for their pros/cons.

The only "con" I can add to the Hammer is: The tabletop may sag over time and will require adjustment from a support bracket under the cast iron. This sag will be a result of the heavy trunion. Don't expect a dead flat top unless you buy a Felder model. The felders have a different trunion mounting system that put the weight on the walls of the cabinet base, not the middle of the cast iron.

The blade gaurd can be a bit finicky to remove sometimes, but it does a great job and has a 2" port in the top for added dust collection.

Initial adjustment to get everything perfect on a slider is time consuming. This includes leveling sliding table (If yours is not within factory spec which it very may be ok out of the box). If you have trouble, felder is more than willing to help you out either by phone, or they can even send a technician to your house when they are in the neighborhood.

In conclusion I am pleased with the work that the Hammer puts out. A scoring blade makes a world of a difference on plywoods and veneered sheet goods and all the adjustments stay put. The industrial fence has no deflection and the saw blade has an electronic brake that stops the blade when you push the "off" button. There are safety features such as a kill switch tab when servicing the blade, there's more than one "off" button, and the dust collection is excellent with internal ducts. You can stand a nickel on edge, start and stop the saw and the nickel won't fall over.

The downside is the price and lead time... My saw took a couple months to ship after ordering and everything was manufacturered in Austria, with some final assembly and inspection in Delaware before a freight truck took a few days to deliver it.

I had no issues with the manual because pictures are worth a thousand words... no matter what language. \

Good luck with your decision and let us know how things work out.

My local Craigslist has a shop selling a 4 year old Felder K975 for a hefty discount. If I had a 3 car garage and didn't already own the Hammer, I would probably be gloating right now and asking people how to get 3PH power for a 7.5HP saw.

[David Nelson1]

If you are going to put a sliding table on a cabinet saw just do it right and get an Excaliber http://www.general.ca/site_excalibur...50-SLT60e.html

But then again you could just get a slider to begin with like you are considering.

Van, I looked hard @ he Excaliber and it just takes up too much area. The supporting legs on mine work just fine very stable.

[Brent Ring]

Remember that Grizzly has a slider as well. I really like mine!

[Paul McGaha]

I have a Unisaw. I bought it new about 2002. If I were to replace it I think the first saw I would look at is something from Hammer or similar. By all accounts that I've read they are fine tools and fairly affordable.

I'm really happy with my saw though, Not likely to ever replace it.

Good luck with it.

PHM

[Guy Belleman]

" I'm deciding on a new saw - any helpful words? "

Yes. Buy one of the Grizzly's, G0700 or G0623, you will be happy with it, and use the money saved to have some kids dig a ramp into the basement to carry wood in and projects out.