tablesaw General vs Shopfox

[Thomas Little]

Looking at getting either a General International 50-275 (which I seem unable to find any reviews of ($1,799)) or a Shop Fox w1819 ($1841.90 shipped) (amazon.ca) which is the Grizzly 690.

What I have now is a Bosch jobsite Saw GTS1031 . it works okay but with what I do, the fence is too small, the table in front of the blade is too short, Rip Capacity is always too small. The finish on it likes to rub off. The plastic ZC inserts flex and make ripping thin stock almost pointless unless you love gouges and burn marks. Its a hard start 5000 rpm and the thin kerf blades always flexed on start up chewing up the zero clearance.

What I do. well I am mostly a toy/model builder. I also build furniture, boxes, urns, sculptures and other woodworking projects. I need a fence that stays true, a blade that stays true no matter where I raise or lower it. easy adjustment of the riving knife or blade guard. I can just cut a 8 inch wide then rip half a dozen 1/8 strips. My current saw you have to take the insert off raise it all the way up, use a wrench to unlock as the finger lever broke off after 2 weeks and never was able to get a replacement. sawdust gets in there and moves the riving knife slightly causing problems. so I just never use the guards. actually the guards on the Bosch are flimsy and have caused more danger then prevented.

Reasons for the General well the dealer is 1 hr drive away (on sale right now for $1500). can not seem to find any reviews except for comments from 2010 to buy the 350. I will be in Thursday to get medication and will have a look in person. 1 year warranty I also own the industrial 14 inch bandsaw that has done a lot of work, and General Mortiser not as much work as I was hoping.

Reasons for the Shop Fox lots of reviews, cheaper, easy to remove/change the riving knife, lots of potential addons. I might want to add on to cut capacity later. the w1820 is $1100 more for a 50" instead of a 30 which seems crazy to me. Craftex sells the same saw as the cx201 and the 50 is the same price as the Shop Fox 30 but too wide for my current shop and that is before shipping. 2 year warranty



Reason for not buying used. I always have had bad luck buying used. I do not look constantly but when I do see them on Kijiji its a 5hr round trip just to look at it given their size and my arthritis I need one or two people to go with me, or they have been in a storage shed for... years and rusted covered top. or and almost always not a cabinet saw.

I have looked at getting a saw stop but $2000 vs $4600. anything will be safer then my current saw.

Business is really picking up here and I do not have time to spend tinkering with an oldie ( though I wish I did would love some table saw you needed a drive belt and a stationary engine for)

[Ernie Miller]

Unless you live near a ShopFox dealer, I would go with the Grizzly version. You can only get ShopFox parts through a dealer. They're not available on the internet or through Woodstock.

[Scott Brandstetter]

Thomas, the decision is obviously yours so I will only give my opinion. I am expecting a Grizzly 3hp 50 inch saw this week. I did a lot of research and your post is very similar to my thought process earlier. At the end of the day, I decided to go with the grizzly based on many reviews, private messages to owners that have had theirs for many years, and the reputation of great customer service from Grizzly. I really wanted the Sawstop but just couldn't justify it (don't mean to suggest we should start debating the cost of an ER Visit). I will be setting up my saw this weekend and if you want, PM me and I will give you an honest initial review of the saw. I also have an 8 inch jointer and 22 inch lathe on order, so, I guess you could say I'm all in on Grizzly.

[Chuck Hart]

It is my opinion that the old General stuff is built like tanks. The stuff they put out now is poorly made and their service is non existent. I get the impression you are in rural area. Can you not get Grizzly where you live? Grizzly is your answer. There seems to be more going on here. Need more input

[Marty Barron]

Thomas, it sounds like you are near a Busy Bee Tools store. The Canadian Woodworking and Home Improvement magazine has forum on their website and in it a swap meet section. There is a General 350 in St. Thomas, ON going for $1200. There have been a number of 350's and Delta unisaw's that have been listed for $1500 these have been in excellent condition.

Hope this helps

Marty

[scott spencer]

You can view the exploded pictorial schematics in the online manuals for visuals. The GI 50-275 saw you mentioned appears to be a bit lighter duty than their 50-270, and the Shop Fox W1819/W1820 and nearly identical G0690/G0691/CX200/201....that'd explain some of the weight differences. Dunno if it's a plus or not, but the 50-275 appears to have an arbor carriage that raises vertically vs the swing arm type on the other saws. All have cabinet mounted trunnions, but the trunnion brackets of the 50-275 attach to the cross-braces vs spanning all the way to the corners of the cabinet....it's more like the setups on some of the better hybrid saws.

[Thomas Little]

I live in a Rural area towards the west in Alberta Canada. Red Deer is the closest at a 2hr round trip. KMS tools is the dealer with General and Saw Stop on display. He can order King but again it is without seeing it first. Shop fox and Grizzly are both owned by the same company and as far as I could tell the only difference is paint and warranty. Amazon had it all priced out with delivery (or at least to the local town). I wish I did live in Ontario as the selection is amazing. There was a 16" jointer I wanted. ha ha.

I sent General an Email asking them to add some photos and maybe even a Video of their equipment.... well what started off as a suggestion became a rant. Side story I have their air filtration unit and I have been waiting 5 months for the interior 3 pouch filter to be delivered. I owned their small 40-913 cnc machine and 4 months in the spindle became loose they said they shipped the part. a month later I ask where it is and it was never shipped they admitted to lying. That machine lasted 1 year. They fully refunded me and I bought their 40-915x that lasted less than 1.5 years and I spent 6 months with a machine that would not work properly causing 3-6 hour jobs taking 20-30 hours. with the promise of 4-5 different parts being sent and never were. That is there CNC division so I was not holding it against the whole company.

Why can you not put Grizzly Parts in a Shop Fox.

Thank you all for the input and experience. This is my first Cabinet Saw so how things are mounted is something I have no experience in knowing which is better.

[Phillip Gregory]

Looking at getting either a General International 50-275 (which I seem unable to find any reviews of ($1,799)) or a Shop Fox w1819 ($1841.90 shipped) (amazon.ca) which is the Grizzly 690.

What I have now is a Bosch jobsite Saw GTS1031 . it works okay but with what I do, the fence is too small, the table in front of the blade is too short, Rip Capacity is always too small. The finish on it likes to rub off. The plastic ZC inserts flex and make ripping thin stock almost pointless unless you love gouges and burn marks. Its a hard start 5000 rpm and the thin kerf blades always flexed on start up chewing up the zero clearance.

What I do. well I am mostly a toy/model builder. I also build furniture, boxes, urns, sculptures and other woodworking projects. I need a fence that stays true, a blade that stays true no matter where I raise or lower it. easy adjustment of the riving knife or blade guard. I can just cut a 8 inch wide then rip half a dozen 1/8 strips. My current saw you have to take the insert off raise it all the way up, use a wrench to unlock as the finger lever broke off after 2 weeks and never was able to get a replacement. sawdust gets in there and moves the riving knife slightly causing problems. so I just never use the guards. actually the guards on the Bosch are flimsy and have caused more danger then prevented.

Reasons for the General well the dealer is 1 hr drive away (on sale right now for $1500). can not seem to find any reviews except for comments from 2010 to buy the 350. I will be in Thursday to get medication and will have a look in person. 1 year warranty I also own the industrial 14 inch bandsaw that has done a lot of work, and General Mortiser not as much work as I was hoping.

Reasons for the Shop Fox lots of reviews, cheaper, easy to remove/change the riving knife, lots of potential addons. I might want to add on to cut capacity later. the w1820 is $1100 more for a 50" instead of a 30 which seems crazy to me. Craftex sells the same saw as the cx201 and the 50 is the same price as the Shop Fox 30 but too wide for my current shop and that is before shipping. 2 year warranty



Reason for not buying used. I always have had bad luck buying used. I do not look constantly but when I do see them on Kijiji its a 5hr round trip just to look at it given their size and my arthritis I need one or two people to go with me, or they have been in a storage shed for... years and rusted covered top. or and almost always not a cabinet saw.

I have looked at getting a saw stop but $2000 vs $4600. anything will be safer then my current saw.

Business is really picking up here and I do not have time to spend tinkering with an oldie ( though I wish I did would love some table saw you needed a drive belt and a stationary engine for)

I don't know why the W8120 is $1100 more than the W1819 for you, it normally retails for about $150-200 more is all. I have the W1820 as at that time I lived a mile and a half from a woodworking store that was a dealer for Woodstock's stuff and 600 miles away from a Grizzly showroom. It's a very nice saw and I would highly recommend it unless you live close to a Grizzly showroom- in that case the G0690/G0691 are a little less expensive if you pick them up in person. The fence stays true, it has lots of power, and is easy to work with. About the only thing to think of is that the saw does not like thin kerf blades very well because the riving knife is set up for full-kerf blades. (This is in the manual.) The dealer I bought it from sells a LOT of tools and they sold Shop Fox, General International, Delta, Powermatic, and Jet. They said they mainly sold Shop Fox and Powermatic tools. The guys with the big budgets bought the mustard-colored tools and everybody else bought the Shop Fox equipment. A few guys would buy a Jet tool but the place sold essentially no Deltas or General International equipment. They were going to stop selling Delta tools when they depleted their small inventory, which they anticipated would take a while as it moved exceedingly slowly.

I believe you can put Grizzly parts in a Shop Fox saw but I haven't tried. I haven't had to do anything but remove dust from my saw, wax the top with some paste wax, and change blades in the three years I've had it.

I have ripped 1/8" wide strips on my saw for picture frames but that is really a task much better suited to a bandsaw. It stinks to lose as much wood to the kerf as you are keeping for your project!

[Jim Dwight]

For what you describe, my little Ryobi BT3100 would be ideal. I use it for furniture but it is about the size of your Bosch but it has an excellent fence, a blade that goes up and down straight and will cut narrow strips properly - no burning and no divots if I guide the wood correctly. But Ryobi doesn't sell them any more, so you'd have to find one used. New, I paid about $300 for mine. It's belt driven but has a universal motor, like a hand held tool.

I don't think it would solve all your problems but I've decided to downsize my table saw, in my case remove the extension rails, and use a tracksaw for ripping up sheet goods. You do not mention that need. But the Festool track saw (the most expensive brand) has a parallel guide setup that lets you rip thin strips consistently and well. A couple big things I like better about a track saw is they do not require as much shop space and they are safer - you hand never goes close to the blade. Even the most expensive track saw is about what you're looking at for a table saw, maybe even a little less.

[Don Quan]

Thomas, I purchased my Grizzly G1023RLW back in the fall of 2012, based on feedback from members on Wood Central and Canadian woodworkers across Canada that had already bought the same saw. At the time I got an excellent saw delivered to my driveway in a rural Ontario town, all in for $1500 Cdn, and that included the dreaded HST. At the time the dollar was on par, and I had a 10% coupon. Unfortunately, today the exchange rate is not working in your favour - you would be looking at adding 22% to the price of the saw, including the shipping charges. From a price perspective, that moves the Shop Fox, Craftex, General, and King ahead of Grizzly.

If your business is your day job, I would look hard at the KMS dealer in terms of support and parts availability for any of the saws they sell, including the King line since they are just down the road from you. If you are considering the General, make certain that it is essentially the same level of 'cabinet' grade saw as the Shop Fox , Grizzly or Craftex. I would also suggest posting on the Canadian Woodworking forum and seek out members' experience with the Red Deer store.

If Craftex is in the running, note that their saw carries a 3 year warranty, but again, check for feedback for the local stores, and the CX205 is the Grizzly G0609 in a different paint scheme. Some have had good experience (particularly from the staff at the Ottawa store), while other locations have varying feedback. The owner of Busy Bee (Craftex) does frequent the Canadian Woodworking forum.

While Amazon.ca does show the Shop Fox as qualifying for free shipping, I would call them to absolutely nail that down, as they do have this fine print on their website - "Certain oversize and heavy items aren't eligible"

Lastly, if you have thin kerf blades, and decide to keep them, you can get thin kerf riving knives for Grizzly, and Shop Fox and other saws from Leeway.

Good luck on your decision!

Don

[Thomas Little]

Well Sorry for the Late reply.
A drastic weather change caused swelling in the discs in my neck. pinching nerves in my shoulders and causing random weakness. So today was my first full day in the shop since the 1st. I looked at the General table saw there was a lot I just did not like about it. The clamp for the splitter and riving knife was in an awkward spot as there is a bunch of plastic right beside it. I could not get it to lift, the salesperson did but scratched up his hand on the blade. So I looked at the cranks and they were clunky and did not lift or tilt very smooth. I looked at both the 200 and the 270 ( the 275 is a 3hp 200) both had the same clamp set up and rough cranks. I did not like this as I am a huge stickler for precision.

My mother was with me as I could not drive myself that day to get my medication. She said why do I keep wasting money (as this would be tablesaw no.3 and there was still a No.4 to buy later on), I should get the saw stop…. So that is what I will be doing. There was plenty of space to work on changing blades and splitter, the cranks were smooth and effortless. It was also quite a bit heavier. I could get a discount of the 1.75hp as it has been on display for over a year. I will be going for the 3hp though. Hopefully the last saw I need for many years to come.

The Red Deer guys know me by name and have worked with me to fight with General to get parts. Even if I try phoning in they eventually know who it is. I come in and the one guy likes to show me his wood working projects and so forth. It is the same with the Lumber shop in Red Deer. Several of the people know me and they always ask what I am building. I could not check out the Shop fox or others in person and that was also a deciding factor.

The 1/8 strips you do get more material on the bandsaw but not the smooth finish. I do a lot of Model building for Companies and Truckers. so a little waste vs time and the sold price its not a huge problem.

[Don Quan]

Women, ---what are you going to do with them, eh?


Congrats on the SS. I'm sure you'll get a lot of pleasure from it.