# A Great Saw...But Fence is lacking



## longgone (May 5, 2009)

I am glad you are satisfied with your grizzly hybird saw. Grizzly tools provide very good quality. I have the older version of the Grizzly Hybird saw…the GO478. Bought it back in late 2007 when starting to buily my new shop. Like you, I had the Bosch jobsite saw since it was portable.
My grizzly saw has preformed flawlessly and I added the Incra LSTS fence to upgrade the stock grizzly fence.
I am hoping my setup keeps on ticking because i really like it…even though it has no riving knife in my model.


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## gfadvm (Jan 13, 2011)

I have had my Grizzly hybrid for a little over 2 years and am still in love with it. I wax my front rail and that plate in the fencethat grips the rail pretty often and it really makes locking the fence smoother with less movement as the fence is locked. I had to dimple the edges of my miter gauge with a center punch but there is no slop now. Good review and we appreciate your waiting to post it rather than writing a review the day you got it as so often happens.


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## WoodWorkWarrior (Sep 21, 2012)

Good call on the miter gauge dimpling…I'll have to try that (I still use the stock gauge for quick, "I don't need a perfect edge" cuts). I'm glad to have Grizzly. I actually have two more Grizzly machines that I've purchased since buying this TS. The dust collector I mentioned in the review and a drill press. I'll get to those reviews soon.


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## MattinCincy (Oct 7, 2009)

Nice thorough review, Jason. I've heard many good things about this saw and I'm glad you're happy with it. Before you replace the fence, though, read on….

I've owned 4 tablesaws with t-square style fences (my current is a Jet 3 hp cabinet saw) and all of them had lots of slop when they weren't clamped to the rail - this isn't a flaw, but rather a result of the travel of the cam lever. If you have the fence adjusted such that it's so tight to the rail that it remains parallel to the fence without being clamped to the rail, then I doubt you will be able to fully engage the cam lever to tighten the fence and lock it down. I haven't measured the travel of the cam on the lever on my saw, but I guarantee that if I adjusted mine to not have any slop when the lever is loose, I'd never be able to fully lock mine down. What really matters is the straightness of the rail that the fence rides on - this will ensure that the fence remains parallel to the blade throughout the range of the fence travel. As long as your fence locks repeatably, then thats all you can ask for.

If you want better accuracy from your fence rule, make a new cursor with a finer line on it than the one that came with your saw and install it so that there is very little space between it and the rule to minimize parallax error. I did that to mine and it's incredibly accurate.

Looking forward to your other reviews!


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## crashn (Aug 26, 2011)

I have the same saw (and love it), but do not have the same defect in the fence that you have. Mine does not deflect when locked down. Have you contacted grizzly? The could/would possibly replace that part for you.


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## WoodWorkWarrior (Sep 21, 2012)

I did contact Grizzly and they sent me a new fence…the twist was less, but still there. It works fine and I can make great cuts.

@MattinCincy, the only other full size table saw that I've used is my dad's Delta with a unifence. It's got a little slop, but not as much as mine. The cam size certainly has to come into play when adjusting the free running condition of the fence on the rail. I played with that quite a bit when this problem came up.

Perhaps my aerospace engineering hat needs to come off and I just have to live with it (I live in a world where dimensions toleranced to .001" is normal!) Although, I rather like applying some of those principles to woodworking. In fact, I have a couple ideas…perhaps a bit extreme for woodworking, to make the fence perfectly aligned, no slop in the free running condition, and easy to move along the rail. Perhaps If I attempt one of them I'll post it on LJ for fun.


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## MattinCincy (Oct 7, 2009)

Ah, Jason - A man after my own heart! I design and build minimally invasive medical devices and am a machinist by trade, so I too live in the world of thousandths (and tenths), so I know where you're coming from. My point was that there is no need for the fence to remain perfectly parallel to the BLADE (I misspoke in my previous response) when adjusting it. It only matters that it's parallel when locked. If you want to use the fence as a reference to align the blade with a mark on your board all you have to do is get it close and quickly lock the fence with one hand while observing how far off you are , and then unlock it and bump it a little one way or the other to dial it in - I do this all the time, and I suspect many others do too. The only fence that I know of that is designed to remain parallel when in its free state is the Incra fence, which seems to be really nice, but for what it costs, I'll stick with my Biesemeyer clone.

Since you're an Aerospace engineer, maybe you can confirm this - I've heard that the SR71 Blackbird would leak fluids while sitting on the tarmac due to the tolerance required to make it's seals effective at supersonic speeds - the faster it flew the hotter the components got and they would expand to tighten up the seals and it wouldn't leak. Any idea if this was true? If so, it's kind of like the same idea with the fence on your saw - It can have loose tolerances until it's put into service and has to perform it's primary function of remaining parallel to the blade when locked. Kind of a lame analogy, but a thought none the less!!


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## WoodWorkWarrior (Sep 21, 2012)

MattinCincy, sounds like you have an interesting job! The method you described for getting the fence in position is exactly what I've been doing. You're right in that it's not THAT big of deal…hence the reason I've haven't done anything different yet.

As for the blackbird…a lot of people have heard about the fuel leak thing from a couple movies that's it's been in…and yes, it's true. Operating a Mach 3 speeds induces incredible heat into the fuselage of the plane. That heat transfers to all parts of the plane, so at "cruising" when everything has settled into position due to thermal expansion, the fuel tanks are at their designed "no leak" shape. Unfortunately for ground operations this means leaks (not massive leaks, drips…). Another interesting tidbit is that because of this same thermal expansion problem, the engines are actually canted 5 degrees (ish) inward when on the ground and they straighten out once at cruising speed. The wings don't expand uniformly because of their shape.


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## knotscott (Feb 27, 2009)

Great job with the review….it's always nice to hear the honest pros and cons as opposed to unabated tool lust! I've owned several t-square type fences, and just use the bump method to tweak them in…to adjust the fence, I lift the handle completely, slide the feince within range, then by leaving the handle and cam lock only partially engaged I can pretty easily nudge into it to within a gnat's whisker of where I want it to be without much movement. It's never going to have the incredible repeatability and precision of an Incra, but they typically work fine for my needs.

Interestesting read about the complexities of Mach 3….back to my boring job now! ;-)

Enjoy your saw!


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## pendledad (Sep 5, 2012)

Thanks for the review and recommendation on my post. I'm leaning towards this saw because it seems hard to beat for the price. I'm impressed you setup the saw with your own strength. Are the Freud blades thin kerf or does it match the size of the stock blade with the saw? I read reviews that the knife doesn't work with think kerf blades.

Did you think about a ZCI from Grizzly or perhaps making your own?

Thanks again for the review.


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## WoodWorkWarrior (Sep 21, 2012)

Freud blades are thin kerf, just like the blade that came with the saw. The riving knife really only works with thin kerf.

I plan to get a ZCI…probably will use it as a template to make several more.


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## asloanie (Dec 15, 2012)

Follow-up to this posting thread… 
Jason:
Now that you have had your saw a year and a half..

1) Do you feel like you still made a good purchase? Any flaws come out now that you have used the saw for a few months?
2) Would your opinion of the saw change if you had to run it on 120 vs 220?
3) Has the lack of a table extension on the right side of the fence (compared to some other saws) impacted you at all?
4) Any new upgrades you have added on that you wish you had gotten from the start?

Thanks,
Andy
-long time listener, first time caller-


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## Bullet (Apr 14, 2009)

WWW - have you had any issues with changing blade runout at different heights? I see a lot of threads across the web with differing opinions. I really want to like this saw but I don't want a headache if I buy one!


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## WoodWorkWarrior (Sep 21, 2012)

Sorry for the late response. Got a new baby which makes 2 little rascals. So, on to the questions:

Yes, it was a great purchase, I still feel that way. Again the only real flaw is the fence but once I figured out how to deal with it it's very consistent at least. In the end, I will get a better fence, but for now, it works.

I run the saw on 220. In theory, 220 should give more torque. I used to run a Bosch table saw on 110 and it did just fine so I would assume (again I haven't run it this way) that the Grizzly would do excellent on 110.

I do wish there was a table extension for the full length of the fence rail, but honestly it has not negatively impacted any work that I've done by having the "dead space" between table and fence when making wide rips. There is still plenty of table to support the work.

I haven't added anything on yet, but I still have plans to. First thing is a router table extension (cause I need a router table mostly, but also because it fills in aforementioned dead space in the table). I've made several other jigs but none that are unique to this TS.

bullet - I've not noticed any issue, with the caveat that I set runout once and it's seems to hold. I've not re-tuned it yet at different heights so it's tough for me to say.

-jason


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## Kentuk55 (Sep 21, 2010)

Thnx for your review of this saw.


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## MadMark (Jun 3, 2014)

Love the G0715P with the Incra miter gauge and LS-III precision fence.




























A couple of digital indicators give easy precision.



















Can't beat the combo for the price anywhere!









M


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