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New Table Saw Questions

2K views 18 replies 10 participants last post by  Franktank29 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
First…Howdy!
Long time lurker, first time poster here. Let me start by saying "Thank You" to everybody that I have not yet met, but learned greatly from, in many months of reading saw reviews and general forum browsing. Tons of great information here!

On to me. :)

I've been shopping for a new table saw for months, and just yesterday happened to catch a great sale price on Amazon. Picked up a Steel City 35618 for $1059, delivered. The price was so good, and the page said "1 Left", so I pulled the trigger before I even got final wife approval - luckily she's a keeper.

This saw looks to be pretty much everything I wanted, with just a couple of minor exceptions that maybe the good folks here can help me work through.

1. I'm not sure I have room in my basement shop for the long 50" rails. I was planning on getting a saw with the shorter rails since I don't anticipate the need for the longer ones, and space is at a premium, but the sale didn't include a similar machine with 30" rails. I figure one of three things will happen: a) I'll figure out how to squeeze it in the shop and make it work; b) I'll sell or trade the rails and guides to someone looking for the 50" and replace them with 30"; or c) I'll do a little rail surgery with a metal cutting saw and MAKE it fit. Thoughts on those?

2. I have not seen this saw in person, so I'm not fully clear on the blade guard arrangement. I currently use a riving knife (aftermarket) for a lot of cuts, but I don't know if the 35618 comes with a riving knife (SC lit says guard only), or if it can be retrofit? It looks like Leeway (Sharkguard) offers a knife for this saw, but does anyone know how it mounts and if it travels vertically with the blade?

3. Getting this monster into the basement looks like it's going to be a challenge. I live on a narrow residential street and off-loading the saw from a truck and then moving it down the basement stairs is going to take some planning. I stretched out the delivery until just after Christmas to get some time to sort out how I'm going to go about it, so if anyone has hints/advice please let me know. I'm even considering coordinating a pick-up at a truck terminal instead of dropping at the house just so I can tear it down even further, put it into a small trailer or pick-up, then bringing it to the house in smaller sections - thoughts on that? I figure at the minimum I'll need a heavy duty dolly - any other toys that might work? Hoist of some sort???

Enough for now. Looking forward to learning more from you all as time goes on.

Steve

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#2 · (Edited by Moderator)
Im fairly positive you could find someone who would trade you a 30 inch fence for your 50 inch and even throw you a couple bucks for the privelege. Either make it work or sell/trade it. I certainly wouldnt hack it up. Cabinet saw into the basement…. i dont envy you that job. Picture makes it look like an old school splitter, not a riving knife. looks like it extends down behind the table
 
#3 · (Edited by Moderator)
My brother was doing a lot of stuff on Craigslist for a while, and has hauled a lot of refrigerators, ovens, etc., up and down stairs. It's a 2- to 3-person job-in some cases, you should have even more people, but you just can't fit that many in a stairway. Most importantly, get a couple strong friends to go down the stairs in front of it, to help you ease it down the stairs. Make sure you're all wearing steel-toed boots and work gloves with good grip. And be careful!

If you're going to use a dolly to get it down to the basement, you can borrow or rent an appliance dolly from an appliance store or moving company. The appliance dolly will have straps to secure the saw, and tank treads on the back which will make it easier to slide down the stairs.

I don't feel as bad for you as I do for the sucker who might have to haul it back out of the basement someday-unless, of course, that poor sucker turns out to be you! :p
 
#4 ·
First off congratz!

1. I'm sure there will be someone happy to trade those long rails for shorter ones given enough time. I would think you could even have them pay the shipping/pick up from you.

2. Looks like the old school guards so I doubt you could retrofit anything that travels vertically. The shark guard looks like a good option. What did you have before with a riving knife?

3. Appliance dolly with minimum 1 more person to move it in two pieces. If you don't mind taking the extra time and don't have the help, I would have the delivery service drop it in the garage or somewhere like that and then remove the motor and top. That splits it up about as far as you'd want to go, but you have to deal with un-wiring if you remove the motor. I pulled the top/rails from the cabinet to fit my PM 66 in a suburban. It was ok with 2 others, but pretty hard with just one more. You might have to pull the top/rails to get it down anyway, if they even ship it in one piece.

Good luck!
 
#6 ·
Thanks for the feedback.

Rob, what you describe is exactly what I'm picturing. I've used that type of dolly before (straps and tank tread) and they work well for two people and if I recruit more help I can also put an extra person ABOVE the load with a rope to help belay the weight. I worked for a lot of years with industrial equipment and have a pretty good working relationship with moving heavy stuff. We'll be careful!

We love this house/location and hope to stay there for a long time - the only drawback is it's an old house on a small city lot so no room to add a workshop anywhere (even the garage straddles the property line so the neighbors have one stall and we have the other) so I think this saw is going to be down in that basement for a while.

Jay and Matthew, I'm going to do my darnedest to figure a workable layout with the long rails, but if I can't make it work it's good to know that there will probably be an alternative to do some horse-trading. My wife has already said she's not giving up any more room for doing her ironing so I'm going to have to be creative.

I guess I'll probably have to wait until the saw arrives to really sort out the riving knife/splitter question. The current saw that I retro'd is a Bosch 4000 on the folding frame.

If the delivery truck can back up the narrow alley to our single stall garage on the back side of our lot I might see about having it dropped there, then I can disassemble as much as needed to get it down to manageable pieces to navigate the stairs. I don't have a problem with pulling the main table or disconnecting wiring and pulling the motor if needed, and the garage would probably be a better place to do so then being rushed working on it while still on the bed of the truck, blocking the street out front of the house. :)
 
#9 ·
One other question (just one more, I promise! :) ) - This is a 101 year old home and the basement floor is not the most level in the world. When I move my workbench around I have to readjust the feet to get it to sit still (not rocking). As I said before, the space is pretty tight so I'm thinking one of two things will happen - either I'll manage to squeeze the saw in with the long rails, in which place it will probably stay in that location permanently and I'll shim as needed to level the saw; or I'll go with the shorter rails and the ability to move the saw and juggle equipment in the available floor space will be more feasible in which case I'd be looking at a mobile base.

What I'm getting at is, does anyone have experience with a cabinet table saw on a mobile base on a less than perfect floor? If so, how do you make it all work?

Thanks again!

Steve
 
#10 ·
I'm building a custom mobile cart for a saw with full length rails and side table so that I can push the saw in any direction and not have to parallel park it. The spot where I need to store it won't allow me to use off the shelf ones because of this fact.

In doing my homework for this project, I found a few people who mounted straight toggle clamps vertically to the bottom of their bases to stop the caters from rolling, perhaps this would be a convenient solution.

A 5 degree wedge would be my next suggestion.
 
#11 · (Edited by Moderator)
Your custom cart will have swivel casters at all corners? The standard ones have fixed casters at one end? Am I understanding that correctly?

I presume that the toggle clamps would have to be readjusted when the saw is moved to a new location?

What is the 5 degree wedge solution?

thanks again!
 
#13 ·
without making the wheels larger, i'm not sure you can. the relatively limited mobility of a delta unisaw on a delta 3 wheel mobile base is one of the reasons i recently sold my refurbished unisaw. i preferred the mobility of my emerson electric built TSs with their herc-u-lifts.
 
#14 ·
To get it in the basement I'm told an appliance cart works well. It has straps to hold the item on, and a little rubber track to go up and down staircases. You still might want a couple of people and some rope on the appliance cart. This is for the center section with the rails and wings not installed.

Sounds like you got a great deal.
 
#15 ·
New saw is in the garage. Now to get the pieces inside and down the stairs! I took the top off the center section and with that removed two of us were able to lift it off the truck tail gate (they didn't send a lift gate like they promised). I'm confident that an appliance dolly (heading there now) will allow me to get everything safely into the basement.

I got a call earlier in the week that the saw was at the frieght handler's terminal, but they had bad news. The main saw section was laying on its side! They sent some pictures over that showed the unit, which had had a light wooden frame around it and had been bolted to the pallet, had been knocked completely off the base. There was a good sized paint scrape on the black base area on one side, a few dings in the carton, and some of the other loose cartons had external damage as well. The rest of the main unit was still inside the carton and not visible, just the base sticking out. I made a trip to the terminal building to see it for myself, take some pictures, and try to determine if there were more damage.

Wood Gas Rectangle Packing materials Hardwood


Bottom line - I dickered with Amazon for a while because I couldn't see if there were any further damage and I didn't want to get stuck with unseen internal damaged parts. We went back and forth a little bit, and they finally offered a $200 refund to cover any and all damages (seen and unseen), with the option to return the saw for a full refund if the damage were too great.

I've got the main section out, all looks good so far, so I think I'm good to go! Bottom line, $859 delivered to my garage (plus a tip for the driver) and a paint scrape on the base. Can't beat that deal with a stick for a 3 HP cabinet saw with the long rails and the industrial fence.

Anybody have suggestions of things to watch for when assembling the saw? Anything that could be messed up that a visual inspection might miss?
 

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#17 ·
This is too funny, I kicked myself for not buying it once the price dropped. I have all the SC saws in "my cart" on amazon.com and price alerts set up on camelcamelcamel.com. Watched it all day at that price. Decided to wait for a different one to come in stock or a different one to drop.

Just told my wife about how I found the guy who bought "my saw" lol
 
#18 ·
That is funny Frank. I just kind of lucked into it, too. I spotted a local saw on Craig's List that I was strongly considering, and took a tour through Amazon as part of my fact finding to decide if the CL saw was a good deal or not. I saw this saw on Amazon, and almost pulled the trigger immediately. Instead I did a quick search on details for the saw and reviews and such, hurried back to Amazon and decided I'd better do it before it disappeared. Got lucky, for sure.

There was at least one other person on this site that saw that deal and when they went back it was gone. :)

I be lucky on this one.
 
#19 ·
Yeah I'm about done with CL. Been on there for months, I send emails with screenshots and links to where I can buy their "great" deal cheaper brand new. Seriously used stuff priced more than brand new, no tax, shipped to my door in 2 days. I laugh in anger. Think I might start posting right after them how/where people can buy new for the same price right after their posts from now on.

I'm in a similar situation on the saw…. I want a 3hp, 50" fence saw but I need a 110, mobile base, and fit in my garage with my 2 vehicles while not in use. So I'm leaning towards the 35950 for the 110 capability, moblie base, and fit in my garage.

I passed on yours bc I'd rather get that or the 35905 (last one left) @$950 or less. It was $908 on 12/19/11 so I'm hoping they drop it back down since its on close out and they have the new ones coming in. I figure for $950 then I can justify $60 more for the moblie base, and $150 more to add 220 in my garage.
 
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