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SawStop

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tablesaw
11K views 43 replies 19 participants last post by  a1Jim 
#1 ·
The Arrival

I finally got fed up with my cheap General hybrid table saw. It's been a good saw for the money but I was a professional wood worker long enough to know the difference between it and a good cabinet saw and I was never very happy with it. I ordered the SawStop Professional cabinet saw from my local WoodCraft store a couple days ago and it arrived today:

 
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#4 ·
Congratulations on the saw, Don. It is always exciting when we add a new tool to the shop but a new tablesaw seems to really get the adrenaline rush going. This is a quality saw and will be a wonderful addition to your shop.
 
#8 ·
Thanks everyone.

Dennis, yes I plan to blog everything you suggested. I started unpacking it last night and hope to start assembling it tonight after work.

David, it's really tempting to try the hotdog test myself but the entire brake and saw blade have to be replaced when it's activated. That makes it about $150 per hot dog cut…
 
#9 ·
This is Hilarious. One would think that people that invented "SAWSTOP" being saftey concious and all, would send there saws out completley ready to go. What if someone from say " Columbia" that is unable to read the setup directions, because they are written in English" sets this saw up incorrectly, then some unknown worker uses this saw and CUTS himself, thinking this was safe technology.(Parts left over or somthin)
I would hate to read about a lawsuit against SAW STOP for cardboard cuts .
SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE----run with this one !
 
#11 ·
canadianchips, it would be extremely difficult and impracticle to ship something like this completley ready to go. The resulting single package would be way to big to handle and protuding parts like the handles and safety gaurds would be highly susceptable to breaking. It would also add significant cost to the saw to have someone else assembling all that. It's not like I have to install the breaking system, I basically just have to attach the wings, rails, extension table, handles, and a few other misc things.

If SawStop is available in Colombia then I'm pretty confidant it comes with instructions translated to Spanish. The assembly instructions that come with it are very well written and anybody not capable of reading and following them isn't going to be able to read and follow safety instructions either and shouldn't be using a table saw anyway.

Also, SawStop makes no claims that this is "Safe" technology. It's just "Safer" but it is still quite possible to cut yourself on it and they say that. No one who has cut themself on any table saw can blame anybody or anything but themselves for not following basic safety rules.
 
#15 ·
Hey guys;

Congrats on the new saw purchase.

These are really well made saws.

When my Unisaw bites the dust, that's probably what will replace it.

(I would feel like I'm replacing an older wife with a new young one if I replaced it now, and I'm sure if I did either, my "old wife" would kill me).

Lee
 
#17 ·
Unpacking

I got most of it unpacked last night after posting the first blog. The instructions said to get a buddy to help roll the cabinet off the pallet and stand it up but I managed to do it alone. It's heavy but doable alone if you know the right way to lift and follow the instructions.

First Impressions:
- It is really well packed. I'll be surprised if I find anything that was damaged during shipping.
- The instructions are very well written with color drawings. Even I'll be able to follow them without a problem.
- All the little loose parts like bolts and washers are not stuffed into a llittle bag leaving the user trying to figure out exactly which part is supposed to part #42B. (See photo below). This is a really nice touch.
- The cabinet actually looks slightly smaller than my cheap General saw but it's much sturdier. The General saw feels like sheet metal. The SawStop cabinet feels rock solid.
- The handle on the hand cranks for adjusting height and angle actually rotate. Maybe that's normal for other saws but not that I recall and I would have never noticed if they didn't. It's another nice touch.
- It came with an extension table with legs. I thought I would have to build that myself. I'd actually prefer to have built it myself and got the price knocked down a bit but it will be nice not having to do that.
- It came with a combination saw blade. That's nice but it looks pretty cheap and I already have plenty of saw blades. I would have prefered to have the $20 or whatever it's worth knocked off the price.
- The stock miter fence fits the tracks so well it might actually be usable, unlike my General saw which had so much slop I rarely even used it for rough cuts.
- It comes with a big push stick. I thought those were supposed to be obsolete with a SawStop :).

First Dissapointments:
- No levelers. Nearly every table saw I have ever used was in an existing shop and already setup so I have no idea if this is normal but the idea of having no means to level it is seems silly. Since my garage floor is out of level by about an inch over a few feet of space right where I'm putting the saw I'm going to have to build a small platform with some kind of levelers.
- The plug type isn't the same as my 220v outlet. Not a ding against SawStop since they can't possibly predict what type of plug I have but it's still annoying that I'm going to have to make a trip to home Depot to get the right socket type and do some home wiring before I can use it.



 
#29 ·
The Assembly, Phase 1

Last night I got the main part of the saw assembled including the extension wings, rails, and extension table.

Getting the extension wings on by myself was a bit tricky. They are really heavy and I had to hold them up with one hand and get the bolts threaded with the other. I almost asked my wife to come help but then I remembered the last time she helped me in the shop. (Good thing she doesn't read my blogs :) )

If anyone else does this, do not put the motor cover on when the instructions say to. It gets in the way of bolting down the wing and can easily be put on later.

More impressions:
The insert is really well designed. It's a solid half inch thick, unlike the sheet metal insert that came with my General saw. It should be real easy to make my own zero clearence inserts with the way this is designed. I especially like the bracket that is used to remove the insert and to lock it in place.



The inside of the saw is also really well designed. I'm not a mechanic by any stretch of the imagination so I'm really qualified to asses something like this but the parts all look a whole lot beefier than anything in my General saw. And the way the dust hose is a solid connection straight to the thing that wraps the blade (whatever it's called) looks like there will be virtually no sawdust going into the cabinet. When the blade is set to 90 degrees, the motor is almost completley out of the cabinet which should reduce the amount of dust getting onto the motor and if I ever do have to do any repairs they should be real easy.




The extension table looks a little flimsy when you see it upside down. It's only a 5/8 inch top with 1 1/2 inch pine ribs. It would be a whole lot beefier had I built my own. It feels much stronger than it looks though so we'll just have to wait and see how well it holds up. It does have levelers on the legs though!

Here's the whole saw so far. The unblemeshed cast iron top is really a site to see. I think it only took me a few weeks to accidentally drag a screw across my general saw top and put a nice scratch in it. I hope this one lasts a little longer:

 
#38 ·
The Assembly, Phase 2

It took less time to complete the rest of the assembly than I thought. The directions really are amazingly well written and the saw is well designed for easy assembly. I still need to move it into it's final position and I have work to do building a new crosscut sled and outfeed table but the saw assembly is complete and it cuts like a dream.

Some observations now that I've actually cut something:
- It's the smoothest running saw I've ever used.
- The saw blade was perfectly parallel with the miter track and by looking at the docs it should be real easy to adjust if I ever need to. My General saw was out when I bought it and I've had to adjust it about 4 times over the last 4 years.
- The saw blade that it came with is a decent blade. I still like my Freud combination blades better but it did a decent job of both ripping and crosscutting some 8/4 Hickory.
- The fence is really solid, better than any Besmier I've ever used.
- The fence has has 2 gauges, one on each side for cutting on both sides of the blade. And the rail has markings on both sides.
- The 52 inch rails will actually cut 53 inches.
- Even without a dust collector hooked to the safety gaurd and the guard removed it does a significantly better job of keeping dust out of my face.
- Even without the braking system, this saw is worth the extra money.

Number of trips to Home Depot to get the correct plug: 2.
Apparently there are 2 sizes of 3 prong locking plugs and of course I got the wrong one on the first trip. I'm glad Home Depot is only a mile away.

Number of head bumps: 1
That's pretty good considering how many times I had to get up and down from the floor. All I hit was a piece of plywood sticking out from a shelf so it was pretty minor and no blood.

Number of times my wife freaked out when she found empty bandage wrappers in the bathroom: 1.
When I took the safety guard off I slipped and my finger hit the spring loaded teeth that are there to stop kick backs. Considering how sharp they are I think they'll work pretty well.

Here's a photo of the saw fully assembled:



Now I just have to move it into it's final place, build a new outfeed table, build a new crosscut sled, buy some more dust hoses and adapters, hook up the dust collector to the safety guard, get the mess cleaned up, and figure out where the remaining bolts were supposed to go…
 
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