Jet Table Saw Calibration accuracy

[Bob Davis]

I just purchased a Jet JWSS-10 (aka "Supersaw") 10" hybrid table saw. This is the first table saw I have ever owned.

So as I was unpacking it and admiring all the oiled heavy cast stuff, I found the factory inspection record. Jet obviously wants you to see this as its prominently packaged in its own plastic sealed envelope with the inspector's hand-written measurements.

Run-out of Arbor Flange Allowed 0.0008 inches Measured 0.0008 inches CHECK

Minimum blade height Allowed 3 1/8 inches Measured 3.13 inches CHECK

Parallelism between blade and mitre slot Allowed 0.0118 inches Measured 0.054 inches UH-OH!!!!!

Yep, according to the inspection record, the last measurement is 4.5 times greater than allowed. Now if this was a $99 eBay special saw, I wouldn't bat an eye. But I paid for a little precision here. I thought I must be misreading it, or it must not be that important. I called the dealer, who is also an authorized Jet repair shop. Their saw guy was speechless. He acknowledged it was out of tolerance. He has never seen the factory actually measure it out of tolerance and ship it anyway. Just to be sure, I scanned the inspection record and faxed it to the dealer. He agreed that I was reading the number correctly.

So hopefully we will get this resolved. Are there any wood tool engineers in this conference? Is this difference really important or is it splitting hairs?

Thanks, Bob

[Norm Underwood]

Did you measure it yourself? Maybe the guy forgot a zero at the beginning. You know, since everything is carried out to 10 thous and that's only carried out to thous...

[Rob Stokes]

Pack it back up and tell 'em to please coordinate pick-up when they deliver you your new saw.

Don't even mess with it....

Good luck Rob

[Dave Mundt]

*snip*

Hum...sounds like the fix would be for a tech to come out, loosen the bolts holding the trunnions to the table and, rotate the cutting mech a bit. Assuming you bought this puppy locally, it seems like the local dealer could do this in a couple of hours, onsite. Otherwise, perhaps Jet will have a tech come out and do it. Actually, this is the sort of thing that I would shake my head over, and, fix myself, as it is likely nothing more than the above adjustment. However, if you are not handy with tools and machines, it WOULD be a better thing to let a qualified tech take care of it. There is a lot of power in a tablesaw, and, mis-alignment can project wood back at you at frightening speeds, quicker than you can blink. Regards Dave Mundt

[Jamie Norwood]

It is probably adjustable, it is on every other table saw I have ever seen. Read your manual and see, if it is it will be good practice for the next time you have to remove the top. It is probably easy, just loosen the table bolts a bit, and whack it with a dead blow till it is right.

Jamie

Rob Stokes wrote:

[Rob Stokes]

I can adjust the hood alignment on a new car as well, but I don't think I should have to....

Rob

[Bob Davis]

Dave,

Thanks to you and others for your quick replies. I am pretty handy with tools, provided I have the right ones. I have nothing that would measure the calibration accurately. Since I posted my original message, the local shop told me they could come out and adjust it, if necessary, but they wanted to contact the factory first and see what their resolution would be. They said it takes a few hours to make the adjustment. They are as unhappy as I am that the thing inspected out of tolerance and got shipped anyway.

I found instructions in the manual that encouraged calling Jet directly for any problem, including shipping damage. So I did. The telephone went straight to WMF tools customer service (WMF is the merged Wilton-Jet companies). In 15 seconds, I was transferred to a technical service rep. I must say he listened intently and was very concerned. I am so used to getting "offshore" customer service these days, it was a real pleasure to be connected to someone with a deep Alabama accent.

When I told him I had contacted the local dealer, he said "I'm glad you called us because this is the kind of thing we want to be involved with". He said first thing he was going to do was pull two saws off the line and see if they had some kind of quality problem. He said they would do whatever it takes to make it right, including sending a new saw. As with any good customer service, he set my expectations that it will take a day before he can get back with a resolution.

I'll report back what happens.

Bob

[Lawrence A. Ramsey]

[Tom]

have you got a combination square and a set of feeler gauges? If you're good, you may not need the feeler gauges... Tom Someday, it'll all be over....

[Bob Davis]

[Bob Davis]

I faxed the report to the dealer and factory. The factory just called me and said that level of inaccuracy should never have been shipped. He said it was so far off, he wasn't sure that it could be aligned, but he said the solution was replacement. He asked me to coordinate with dealer for details. I spoke to the dealer and he agreed that replacement was appropriate. He said however, that the measurement was so far off that he wanted to come out and check it. He said the worst he has ever seen in dealing with Jet over 10 years was about 10% out of tolerance, not 450%. He said that if its out of tolerance, they will replace the saw.

He asked me if I had laid a combination square against the blade to check it myself. I laughed. I don't even have a blade for the saw. No one told me it came without blades when I bought it. I guess I was used to buying portable saws that always come with one starter blade.

Bob

[Bob Davis]

Here is the final outcome of my quest to confirm an in-spec Jet supersaw.

The owner of the dealership called me and set up an appointment to come to my house. He drove over himself and brought the equipment to check the blade parallelism to the mitre channel. Well, not only was it good, it was virtually perfect. There was no discernable difference in distance between the front and back edge of the saw blade. He said he had talked to the tech at WMH tools and the story of my calibration report was all over the office.

The conclusion is that the inspector was having a bad day or his/her mind wandered when they wrote down the numbers.

I am a big believer that negative experiences form the framework against which we measure good experiences. This was an unfortunate experience, but the factory and the dealership both acted honestly and professionally, never trying to cover up or hide anything.

FYI, the dealer is The Cutting Edge. The owners are Steve and Teri LeGrue. I have no affiliation with them - just hope to be a long term happy customer.

Best regards, Bob

[Dave Mundt]

That sounds like fairly admirable customer service to me. I have some contact with production manufacturing, and, while they make great efforts to ensure that stuff that is out of spec does not get out the door, it does happen. Like cutting your fingers off with a tablesaw, it only takes one lapse of attention for an item that SHOULD have gone back to rework to get put in the "ok" area. Once there, pretty much no one looks at the attached paperwork, as it assumed that the product has made it through inspection ok, and, is ready to go. It will go out whenever it floats to the top.

Yea, that is one thing about the "bigger" tools. The more industrial they are, the less likely they are to come with tooling. THere are folks out there who have entire businesses based on making tooling for industrial mills, saws and other forming tools. Regards Dave Mundt