Admiral Miter Saw Issue

[Michael Wallen]

Several months ago I felt confident enough to upgrade from my Skil 10" miter saw to the larger and more powerful Admiral 12" dual bevel sliding miter saw from Harbor Freight. Just a few hours after I bought it I was in a traffic accident and have spent the last several months recovering, so I didn't get to even take it out of the box until just a few days ago (therefore, it's past the return window). Anyway, I followed the procedures for setting it up and squaring the blade and fence but I cannot seem to get it to make a straight vertical or horizontal cut. It travels at a 1/8 inch angle front to back and from top to bottom, making precision cuts pretty much impossible. The only way I can get even a nearly straight cut is to set the miter to +1 degree from 0. It seems that the stops are 1/8 (one degree) from where they should be, which would account for the front to back cuts. However, vertical cuts have the same issue. When using a digital angle guide to set the blade to 0 vertical it still comes out at 1/8 off. I put a different blade on it (96 tooth) and still have the same problem. I have spent the past three days trying to square it up to within acceptable tolerance but to no avail. The whole unit just seems...off. Perhaps a calibration issue during casting or assembly? I can still use it for rough cutting fence posts and such where precision isn't overly important, but it is useless for precision cutting as it stands now. Any suggestions or should I just go get a new (and another brand) of saw? Thanks!

[glenn bradley]

Glad you recovered. Not much help here as I suspect . . .

A) Damaged in the accident (not likely)
B) Functioning to HF specs (more likely)

Harbor Freight has some diamonds in the rough but I avoid anything that is supposed to work at any level of precision. A HF saw for framing a house? Sure. Building a coffee table? Not so much.

I know they are trying to raise their status with new labels and series names. They definitely have levels of quality within their brands. I have a few HF tools that I bought to get through one job. 15 years later they are still running. I always expect every use to be their last but, they just keep going. Noisy with lots of vibration but, functional within the rough job at hand.

P.s. If you have evidence of the accident dates I would plead my case to your local store manager. It should be pretty obvious that the saw has had only minutes of use. They have a reputation for being very customer oriented.

[William Chain]

I think Glenn is right in that they might exchange it, they do like to make people happy in there, but I suspect your next saw from HF won't be any better. As Glenn said, I have some HF stuff that got me through this and that job on the house, but I generally avoid anything with a moving part at HF if accuracy is your goal. It's pretty hard to screw up a wrench or a pliers or a screwdriver, but the vast majority of the saws, etc. are just not great. They can slap whatever new label on the saws that they want, but its never going to be a Kapex or a Bosch Glide.