Just purchased a G0623x 2 weeks ago and it arrived last Thursday. Figured I'd post a review on it since there's a lot of debate on it's quality.
I'm going to skip the basic "unpacking and assembling" part, since I don't think it was anything special. It took me about 4 hours to assemble, (10pm-2am, yes I was excited lol). I did it all myself. The slide is heavy, but not super heavy for an average person. The only thing is I used my forklift to get it off the pallet and onto the mobile cart. After that it was quite easy.
-- Overall summary --
Overall it feels as if there wasn't a big enough budget to make EVERYTHING perfect. But what Grizzly did was take the majority of the cost and put it into the slider. The rip fence doesn't slide the smoothest, the sheet metal extensions are finicky and not perfectly flat. The cast iron top is small and also not perfectly flat (At least mine wasn't). However the slider is beautiful. Zero play even with some force on it. Smooth for the price range. Easy (and plenty) of adjustability. The crosscut fence is solid and easily set to square.
No you're not going to get everything with this saw. But if the majority of your work is done on the slider, you'll be happy.
-- In-depth summary --
Some things I don't like about the "ripping" side of the saw
- The sheet metal extensions aren't super flat (I never expected them to be though, they never are). The larger one has about a .015 dip, and the smaller one a .013 dip.
- The cast iron top is not great. If I take my straightedge and hold it down on one end, the other side sticks up .043! That's over 1/32". Keep in mind it's also only 27" long. I've contacted Grizzly about it so we'll see what they do.
- The rip fence is decent, but I had a Besimeyer fence before and that was definitely better. The lock felt more secure, although maybe it's negligible. The aluminum fence is nice and almost perfectly flat, which was nice. You can adjust the squareness to the table by raising/lowering the rail. One review I read said their fence was "not square with the table" but I don't think they knew you could adjust it.
Things I like about the "ripping" side of the saw
- The rip fence slides forward and backward, so you can set it up to sit behind the blade, and use it for referencing on the slider. I think that's a nice ability.
- Everything is pretty adjustable, so if you get it and something isn't perfect, you can usually tweak it and get it pretty close to perfect.
- The crosscut fence on the slider can be slid about 12" left of the blade. So what this means is the majority of the time ripping stock and some plywood, you don't need to remove it. The only time you'd need to remove it is when your offcut is wider than about 12". I was under the impression that literally anytime you wanted to rip anything longer than the slider, you'd have to remove the crosscut fence. This is not the case. And since I use almost solid stock almost exclusively, I'll probably never have to remove the crosscut fence.
Things I like about the motor and blade drive
- The motor is very smooth and quiet. Starts without a "shudder". Plenty of power without drawing a lot of amps. I actually have mine on a 20 amp circuit until I can replace the breaker to 30.
- Changing blades is pretty easy. A decent amount of room to maneuver. Spindle lock is decent.
- Scoring blade is easy to adjust, although it would be nice if it was toolless. It does require a hex wrench.
- I modified mine for a Sharkguard which was super easy, and I love it.
Things I don't like about the slider
- It sits above the cast iron top by just a hair, and it came this way from the factory. It'll mess up the angle on your rip cuts slightly. This can be adjusted very easily so I'll probably drop it sit level with the top. I understand this is to minimize friction, but I'll just keep it waxed. I don't see the purpose of keeping it higher.
- I don't really trust angle guide on the crosscut fence.
- The scale on the crosscut fence is almost useless since the whole fence easily slides left to right depending on how close you want it to the blade. You can't adjust the scale. If you set it up to measure perfectly from the blade, it would probably work great, but then you could never really move it for rips, etc.
Things I like about the slider
- I love it! It's incredibly versatile. The first few cuts it immediately felt more natural than a miter sled on a table saw.
- Mine was setup wonderfully from the factory (except for the height, but that's just a factory setting).
- Runs smooth. It's not like sliding on butter, like a 50k slider might be, but it's very easy to push.
- The length stops on the fence are rock solid.
- The fence is easily adjustable back to square, thanks to the adjustable 90 stops. It was setup almost perfect from the factory too.
- It fits a Incra miter gauge! The factory miter gauge is alright, but the Incra is great. You just have to add a few washers to drop the bar below the T-slot, and since the actual T-slot tapers it self-centers itself.
- Dust collection is pretty good. Some people have complained about this, but I think it depends on your dust collector. I have a 5hp Cyclone and with the sharkguard, I can cut MDF almost dustlessly. The internal dust collection tapers to 3", which I think is stupid, but at least it gets very close to the blade. It's better than typical cabinet saws that just have a hook-up at the base.
Overall for the price it's an excellent purchase. Are there better sliders? Sure, but dollar for dollar, this one is definitely a good value.
(It was on sale to $2999, and I did have a 10% coupon, so I got it delivered for $2850)
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Originally Posted by Stewart Lang
