I was in the reading room this morning going through the May issue of National Geographic and on page 137 I saw a full page ad for
Rich
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Not necessarily here, though. The overblown power statements from many tool sellers have been a nagging irritant for a long, long time. You'll notice, if you haven't already, that in the new Craftsman catalog, there are more usual HP claims for saws. Their new line of Craftsman saws have 1-1/2, 1-1/2 and 1-3/4 HP motors, according to the catalog copy. No more "max developed HP" horse hockey.
The top of the line saw (1-3/4 HP) comes with a full enclosed cabinet, a 30" Biese commercial fence and a 40T Leitz blade. I've been told, and will verify next month, that it has cast iron trunnions that attach to the cabinet, so is like a cabinet saw in that respect.
$850 makes it a decent deal if all is true and all is as stated. Because the person who told me the extra bits is trustworthy, and because I'll have a hands-on chance in 5 weeks, I figure it is as stated. Something of a victory for woodworkers.
Charlie Self "An unfulfilled vocation drains the color from a man's entire existence." Honore de Balzac
This is not entirely new. Back in the sixties when I was selling stereo equipment the ratings for amplifier power were outrageous. Tiny output transistors were being adverstised as hundreds of watts. The fine print saying that this was the "instantious peak to peak power". Of course, the transistor was fried within a millsecond but for that brief time it was working at it's advertised power. Government finally had to step in as I recall. Mike in Arkansas
JMWeber responds:
Peak power was a solid feature of the HP wars in various factory hot rods beginning in the '50s when the small block Chevy V8 came out. By '57, it was claimed to be pushing, in dead stock form (which did include 11 to 1 compression--don't try this on today's gasoline!--Duntov cam, some other features) 283 HP from 283 cubes.
By the mid-'60s, the BS was neck deep and rising fast. It came to a fairly sudden stop, IIRC, not because of the government, but because writers and editors of the various magazines started doing in-car dyno testing that was one helluva lot more true to life than the factory dyno tests.
Factory: Bare engine; super tune with way advanced timing; no fan; no belts; no water pump; zip. Rev it until it blows and take the reading AS it blows.
Car & Driver (or Road & Track or almost any): Tune the sucker, stick it on the dyno with even the stock tires, and rev it to redline. Take the readings.
Readings varied by as much as 100%, and some may have been off a bit more.
But the creep has begun again.
Charlie Self "The lust of avarice as so totally seized upon mankind that their wealth seems rather to possess them than they possess their wealth." Pliny
On 04 May 2004 12:32:39 GMT, snipped-for-privacy@aol.com (JMWEBER987) brought forth from the murky depths:
And now it's watts RMS @ % distortion @ frequency (usually 1kHz). Much easier to compare. Back in another life when I got Stereo Review Magazine, they had nice charts showing the actual power output of the reviewed amps from 20kHz. Very telling!
I hope Charlie isn't holding his breath on the Searz thing. I'll bet green castings abound until they realize that they're doing a
100% warranty return thing again. I don't think they learned their lessons from the late 70's/early 80's when they first started to outsource their Crapsman tool work to India/Pakistan/China (which cost me a literal pound of flesh and gallon of blood), -or- the auto center mechanical fraud thing of the 90's, -or-...----------------------------------------------------------- -- This post conscientiously crafted from 100% Recycled Pixels --
These days, there is one major tool manufacturer that does not use green castings in at least the largest percentage of their tools. And they do use them in many: That's General.
Get used to it. What gets seasoned, gets seasoned electronically. Most is not seasoned.
Charlie Self "The lust of avarice as so totally seized upon mankind that their wealth seems rather to possess them than they possess their wealth." Pliny
What are "green castings" ?
Donnie Vazquez Sunderland, MD remove NoSpam from address to reply
Donnie Vazquez asks:
Green castings are the castings right from the molds. As the cool, they shift a bit in shape and size. If left to stand long enough before final machining, most of the shifting that is ever likely to happen will have taken place. That's why so many iron casting businesses have large outdoor yards filled with rusty looking crap--it's not crap, it's unmachined castings seasoning in the rain, sun, heat and cold.
I'm told that there is an electronic method that works nearly as well.
Today, a lot that made of cast iron is made of parts machined with days of the actual casting. IIRC, the normal waiting period was a couple years for the better sdaw manufacturers.
Charlie Self "The lust of avarice as so totally seized upon mankind that their wealth seems rather to possess them than they possess their wealth." Pliny
The raw casting. Not aged, not heat treated or stress relieved. Ed
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