You sound like you are a materials engineer or metallurgist.
Appreciate the information
You sound like you are a materials engineer or metallurgist.
Appreciate the information
$3-4K. Suspicions confirmed.
Thanks Peter, it's always interesting to see how things are done differently elsewhere.
Rick Potter
DIY journeyman,
FWW wannabe.
AKA Village Idiot.
Aerospace usually rewards lightness and corrosion resistance, woodworking machinery often rewards mass for its vibration damping properties. Mass market woodworking machines don't have a lot of component balancing I think.my day job I design aerospace equipment and we make extremely high performance accurate equipment and fixtures from Aluminum.
Couldn't agree more but not all aerospace equipment flies. Designing to environments, sometimes very extreme, is a huge part of the process. Vibration, heat, cold, blast, EMP. All that we do but if we designed a table saw just the trunion might cost more than a top of the line Sawstop with all the bells and whistles
The one I was looking at seemed limited for rip capacity but I didn't see a number or look very hard after seeing the price.
That is a good number for thickness but probably has more to do with the trunion design and not so much the table material. New designs are great because it pushes others to also up their game and the consumer/woodworker win
Cast iron equals sound control....
In a table saw top aluminum is vastly inferior to cast iron for a number of reasons, particularly durability.
"Anything seems possible when you don't know what you're doing."
I know of no saw with a cast STEEL top. Cast iron? Yep! Big difference in material.
On the other hand, I still have five fingers.
The OP posted that they are made from cast steel, not cast iron. The way steel is recycled, causes a lot of the cast to be cast steel, not cast iron. And cast steel is really a better material than cast iron, not nearly as brittle, and if something happens, cast steel can be welded.
I miss spoke
They are both magnetic is my excuse and I am sticking to it...
Yes I know there is a difference.
Cast iron is more rigid than aluminum, it is also more wear resistant and better absorbs vibrations. I like aluminum for many things but not table tops where material will be fed over it constantly.
Bumbling forward into the unknown.
My Inca Alum top held up well for 30 years with no noticeable damage other than discoloration, at one point i had 3-5 guys using the saw for 5-7 years I even had a power feeder bolted to the top to run a huge amount of trim for Holiday inn... well huge for me I think it was 15k-20k lnft a few times...
However the trunnion was aluminum and that got snapped twice trying to get it to 90 deg...
Mark