Attention! Steel City cabinet saw issue

Hey Speed,
Having professionally dealt with metal failures in the distant past, I can see what happened.

The pale grey section is the piece that broke when you tightened the nut. The darker section of the break area was a lamination in the steel even before the thread was machined on the arbor. This fault could have happened during the forging of the blank, or even during the pouring of the molten steel – both of which would have been before Steel City received it.

This fault would have been near impossible to see with the naked eye, and I can only assume that no x-ray, dye penetration or ultrasound tests were done during the manufacturing process.

I’m not surprised that they took this seriously, and I’m sure they will be having some intense discussions with their material suppliers to ensure that more thorough testing is done in future.

You were lucky!!!

-- I may be schizophrenic, but at least I have each other.

thanks for posting this, i think i will call a former coworker and have him LPI (liquid penetrant inspect) my saw.
it’s really an easy process. and if manufacturers are not doing it. i would rather do it myself, than find a flaw the hard way.

-- Junior -Quality is never an accident-it is the reward for the effort involved.

Oh my god! can you imagine ( no I rather not) if this would have happend at full RPM. I can only picture Ninjas stars stuck in the shop walls.
If this was the first time you used a dado set it was probably the first time that “part “of the arbor was stressed because the nut was further away from the base of the arbor.

I am sure SC will have a few choice words with the suppliers.
Thanks for posting.

-- All bleeding will eventually stop.

Whoa!!!! Glad you caught this one before the stars stuck somewhere or they could have easily missed the wall. Curious to see how Steel City proceeds.

-- - Michael [..for God's glory." 2 Cor. 10:31] Over 300000 species of trees, yet we take the credit for their beauty...

Wow that would have been like a scary movie if that let go at speed with a full dado stack…thank god it broke when it did. Sounds like your getting good customer service from SC.
Aside from the problem, how do you like the saw? I have been considering buying this saw..

-- David, South Windsor, CT "I love the smell of sawdust in the morning"

So far the saw run really well. I spent many years running a 3hp Unisaw and this saw seem to hang in there. I haven’t run it to much yet as I am setting up a new shop and lots of fires to fight. If you buy one the very first thing I suggest you do is check the granite top to be sure the miter gauge slides in the slot! (Needless to say I had an issue with this too) SC service jumped at this problem as well. I guess the bright side of this is I now have a nice granite surface plate that matches my table saw. I will try to write a full review of my experience in the near future.

looks like they used granite for the arbor too!!!

hardy har har!!!!

holy cr@&.... Thanks for sharing, I dont even want to think about the possible scenarios this could have had.

-- When in doubt - There is no doubt - Go the safer route.

Maybe someday the Chinese will find out how cheap it is to use eddy current for inspection.

I wonder if Delta integrates anything like that for the Unisaw.

Frankly outside of setup cost for the machine/ programming eddy current cost next to nothing if integrated into manufacturing correctly.

It is best with saws to buy from American source or British or European not chinese junk.And now you will see why this looks like a bad casting with a long term crack in it the light grey metal is what was holding it together nothing else.Your health is too important to trust to bad manufacturing and couldn’t care less quality control. in other words not fit for purpose this should never have been let near any human being at any time.Mistakes happen but I wonder how many more like this have slipped through.You were extremely lyucky old chap.Alistair

-- excuse my typing as I have a form of parkinsons disease

LOL! Steel City, now made in China. Why? Well, because the quality is the same, only the price is cheaper because of lazy Americans! Yeah, you can bet there will be some serious discussions with those Chinese suppliers… right up until they find that American quality will cost just about the same as “made in America”, then it will be dropped!

Makes me wanna run right out and buy some of Miki’s Chinese plywood. Yeah, the only reason we get crap is because we demand it!

-- "Find out what you cannot do and then go do it!"

Crazy scary wow

-- Jim from Heirloom Woodshop, custom furniture ,maker, woodworking school, heirloomwoodshop.com

I had this same type of failure on a brand new Steel City table saw this past May. I am a university professor in metallurgy and took some time inspecting the failure, including examining the fracture surface using a scanning electron microscopy. The failure appears to have occurred as a result of embrittlement during the tempering process. The scary thing here is that such tempering is typically done in batch processes, so it is likely that many other arbors out there are also affected. The store I purchased the saw at had seen at least one other failure like this on a saw they had sold. While Steel City offered to provide me with a new arbor, they were unwilling to provide me with any information that indicated they 1) understood the problem and 2) had taken steps to rectify the problem. So, I did not have any confidence that a replacement arbor would be any better. Given that, I choose to return the saw rather than risk a potentially life threatening injury. I

Well, my arbor snapped on Friday. I tried installing my dado set and when I snugged up the nut it broke! I’ve used the dado stack atleast twenty times in the ten months I’ve owned the Steel City saw. I called customer service and had to leave a message; I’m waiting for a call back.

Pickles,

Your failed arbor looks identical to mine. The very large pre-crack area and the much smaller rapid failure area. I think this is a real safety issue, but I haven’t seen a recall on these saws yet. I did see a government ordered recall of the Ridgid R4511 saw for the same or similar problem. I thought that Steel City had something to do with the Ridgid saw, but the distributor is listed as One World Technologies, so I am not sure. Anyways, glad to know you weren’t hurt.

FYI The Ridgid R4511 (steel city product) did have a recall for this very issue. And I’m sure one world technologies is the distributor. It may be the same arbor. I would lean on them hard, they already know about this.

-- Tim: Remember, if it doesn't say Binford, someone else made it.

I sure am glad I dont own a chinese saw. Mine is American and built when Americans actually cared about quality products.

-- My job is to give my kids things to discuss with their therapist....medic20447@gmail.com

Yeah, that could have been really bad. I see a lot of blame on the Chinese, possibly well directed, but I know things like this can happen anywhere. That arbor, with the pre-existing flaw and more recent crack, looks almost identical to the front axle that snapped on my dirt bike years ago and that was a Can Am, Canadian made at the time before they moved production to England. I don’t know where the steel was made, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t China at that time.

-- Dale Manning, Carthage, NY

I still haven’t heard back from Steel City. The automated system says that they will get back with you in 8 business hours. Its been closer to 16. On the message I let them know the arbor broke, so I assumed it would be a high priority.

You may also want to contact the Consumer Product Safety Commission and let them know of the failure. I hear there have been other similar “accidents” on Steel City saws. They might issue a recall as was done with the Rigid

-- My job is to give my kids things to discuss with their therapist....medic20447@gmail.com

Well I called back and spoke to a service tech. He was very helpful and sent is sending a new arbor as-well-as new bearing. He did say that he was not aware of any other such problems.

Good news pickles, glad to hear you are getting the replacement parts.

-- Tim: Remember, if it doesn't say Binford, someone else made it.