Shop Fox - W1819 10" 3HP Cabinet Table Saw with Riving Knife (Rating: 4)

I received my order neatly packaged in 3 boxes contained on a single pallet. I paid about $1500 which included lift gate delivery and an 8" dado blade set "valued at $150". Nothing was damaged and all parts and hardware were accounted for. Saw took about 5 hours to assemble and align with no helpers.

First thing that surprised me was the color which I don't think is accurately depicted in any online literature. It has an almond color that can only be described as something that used to be white (a sort of dinginess). My wife actually commented and said "I thought you said the saw was brand new" assuming that the off-white color was a sort of patina. The cabinet itself is well made and has a ramp underneath to aid in dust collection (not sure if the Grizzly G0690 also has this). The hand wheels are very robust and massive. However, the blade height adjustment wheel is extremely difficult to move when raising the blade and I'm a pretty big guy. The blade tilt wheel was pretty well adjusted out of the box, within 1/10 th of a degree at 0 and 45 (measured with wixey digital protractor).

The on/off power switch box came with a 6' cord which I believe is similar to the Grizzly G0690. This was not gonna do for me so I fabricated my own 15' power cord. The switch box was prewired with 14 gage wire which is odd because the specs called for a 20 amp circuit. Anyway, I chose to go with a 12 gage wire for my power cord.

The cast iron tops were very well machined and contained no burrs or quality defects. The tops were machined to a very nice finish. The only odd thing about the tops was the fact that the outside edges of cast iron were wrapped in some sort of vinyl sticker/wrap rather than being painted. In my opinion these will delaminate and expose the surface allowing for rust to easily form. The miter slots were aligned parallel within 0.003" of the installed blade when measured from either slot. This was excellent in my opinion.

The rails and fence are on par with a biesemeyer style fence and are massive! I was sort of able to square the fence but noticed that the face of the fence waves in and out about .005" and is caused by the screws that hold the face of the fence to the body. I think this is typical of most fences and for woodworking is something I think I can live with. There is one gotcha with my fence though. The front part of the T that rides the front rail was poorly assembled. The backside of the angle iron "T" has a flat bar that is riveted in place and has 2 pads of UHMW polyethylene (one at each end) that are pulled into the front rail when the cam in the handle goes over center. They serve to hold the fence in place once locked down. These pads are adjustusted in and out using large set screws which will A) increase the clamping and ridgidity of the fence when locked and B) move the fence in and out of parallel with the blade/miter slot when adjusted independently. Well, in theory if I back both set screws all the way out both sides of the flat bar and both pads should be dead even. That's hardly the case here and they are offset by about 3/16" which severely affects the fences ability to be squared. Sorry if that was hard to follow but I will add pictures to help the reader.

Other issues I discovered with the fence include the magnifying lens for reading the measurement tape was installed upside down, and one of the two rivet heads holding us the flat bar to the angle iron is completely missing.

My other gripe about the fence is the amount of deflection that can be witnessed when setting the handle to lock down the fence's position. Not sure if this is normal but my old Delta with T2 fence system never exhibited this behavior. I think it's OK because once locked down the deflection brings the fence to parallel with the blade. Maybe someone else can chime in on this I've got very little experience with this system.

As for vibration, I never even bothered with the nickel test as this saw seemed to vibrate a good bit which I assume is attributed to the 3 traditional belts which have memorized their shape after being set in the the same position for god knows how long.

All in all I am happy with my purchase with the minor gripes detailed above. I will probably contact Shop Fox about getting a replacement fence if I just can't make it work. I also purchased the D2058a heavy duty mobile base which is listed as an accessory for this saw. It seems that the foot print of the cabinet is smaller than the minimum dimensions that can be achieved with the base. I'll have to cut the base down to make it work I guess.

Do the folks with the Grizzly version (G0690/G0691) experience any obvious deflection when setting the handle on the fence? Is this normal?