Cabinet saw on its way

[Greg D.]

I've read it several times here...

Fed up of the contractor table saw... A trip to the tool store and yep, a new 3HP cabinet saw.

I finally picked up the General (the one made in Canada) over the Delta X5. They might be similar but when you look inside the General, you don't need a diploma to understand it's a _machine_ in its own league compared to the Delta.

Don't take me wrong, the Delta X5 is a great machine but there are a few aluminum or white metal parts mixed with the other cast iron steel parts in the mechanism. You get none of those in the General... Steel and cast iron and that's it. Everything is beefier in the General.

The cast iron table top is shining like a mirror on the General, the Delta is much left to desire.

It should be coming my way in about 3 weeks... Plenty of time to clean up my shop, wire a new 230V plug and the most important challenge: hide the real cost of this beast from SWMBO. If she ever knows, I'm dead...

Greg D.

[Mark & Juanita]

Good luck and best wishes (we won't tell about the price). I'm a 10-year owner of a Unisaw, but having seen the decline in Delta product quality, I'd look seriously at the Canadian General (not General International) or the Powermatic 66 if I were doing it again.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

[Dave In WA]

Congratulations...I have a Robland and it's better than your General. (I hope the Felder guys are sleeping)

Serious, the General is a very well made machine, enjoy.

[Dave W]

I hope you are as happy with your General as I am with mine. It is not cheap but on the other hand......it is not cheaply made. I made a splitter for mine, definitely a good move. Dave

[Upscale]

Details? Perhaps some pictures to abpw?

[Leon]

You will be amazed with the saw and will have to stop blaming the saw. :~)

[Kgorden]

Never looked at a General Saw, but then I have never seen a worn out or broken Delta Unisaw either.

I guess that might say something about the Unisaw's durability, my Unisaw is about 40 years and like new. I think it will be around for few more generations.

You won't go wrong with any of the cabinet saws , they will last forever unless you drop them off a truck while handing them down to the next generation.

Kevin

[Brian Henderson]

Way, way back when, when I first got into woodworking, Delta was the king of the hill and anyone who even mentioned things like Grizzly or General were laughed at for buying cheap tools.

My, how things change.

[Ba r r y]

You're confused.

Canadian-made General has never been cheap stuff.

General _INTERNATIONAL_ is similar to a lot of low-end Grizz stuff, some of it might even come from the same places overseas.

[Mark & Juanita]

Canadian made General was never cheap nor cheaply made. I replaced my warped-fenced Delta jointer with a General jointer about 8 years ago; I've never regretted that move.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

[Mark & Juanita]

... snip

That's one of the real problems with good tools that one has taken time to set up properly. When things go wrong, it's always the operator, never the tool at fault.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

[Dave W]

I have no idea what abpw is. It is really pretty simple; there is a machined surface where the (terrible) blade guard mounts. It has a threaded hole. I cut a piece of aluminum, a little thinner than my blade, to the shape I wanted and drilled a hole for mounting. The only downside is that to use a dado head or make other buried cuts, the splitter has to be removed. Upside is that the chance of kickback is greatly reduced. I was prompted to make the splitter after cutting a piece of plywood that had incredible internal stresses. The piece was spun around and came back at me at great speed. With the splitter, the plywood would bind, forcing one to recut the piece in the (same) kerf.

[Upscale]

alt.binaries.pictures.woodworking. It's the newsgroup that users here generally use to place binary files such as pictures of their projects.