Dip in Table Saw--Should I send it back?

[John Crea]

Good straight edge and feeler gauge

John

[hamrdog]

i've read most of the replies and the posters seem to concentrate on the lack of precision you'll have, as well as what your financial situation is. :-)

personally, if i was running boards through a TS and they "get caught momentarily on the resulting ridge", i'd consider that a safety hazard and return the saw immediately. you are asking to lose a finger with a problem like that.

andy b.

[Montyhp]

My guess is, if you complain loud enough to grizz they will send you a new table.

[Bay Area Dave]

Not if they claim it's "in spec". I had a similar conversation with Delta, only the discrepancy on mine was much less, but since it was my first expensive TS, I thought I'd inquire.

dave

M> My guess is, if you complain loud enough to grizz they will send you a new > table. >

[Montyhp]

I guess I would have to look at their web page to see if they guarantee satisfaction. I wouldn't be satisfied.

Montyhp

[Bay Area Dave]

You are right; if they "guarantee" satisfaction, then they'd have no way to refuse just because it's within their specs.

dave

M> I guess I would have to look at their web page to see if they guarantee

[Larry Jaques]

On 8 Jan 2004 09:07:58 -0800, [e-mail] (Caveman Lawyer) brought forth from the murky depths:

How long is the dip? 1"? 6"? A foot long? How wide?

Slap that telephone drone upside the haid, suh.

Take a picture and send it to Grizzly's QA manager with an explanation. If they don't respond, bondo (or lead) it in.

-------------------------------------------- Proud (occasional) maker of Hungarian Paper Towels.

Comprehensive Website Design ======================================================

[Tbone]

But they may make him pay for the return shipping unless that is also included in the guarantee. If such a small .012 dip is killing him, then I agree with the idea of sending it back and pay twice the price for what is really next to nothing. I myself would either file it smooth or tap the wing into place with a hammer and get to making dust. I am looking into upgrading my contractors saw next month and it will probably be a Grizzly.

[Tbone]

Woodworker, getting there, Lawyer!!!! How dare you. Next you will be calling my mother names :-)

[Montyhp]

I would try to just exchange the table top. The shipping will still be somewhat expensive.

I only say this because (so far) my Grizz 1023SL is "perfect." so I know Grizzly can make a good saw.

[B a r r y B u r k e J r .]

I know plenty of lawyers, and even several doctors, who are far from rich. They've got a lot of competition, and some of them finish school with hundreds of thousands of debt.

One of the women I know, a Yale and Stanford educated psychiatrist, who finished school with over $235,000 of debt.

Barry

[B a r r y B u r k e J r .]

They advertise "At Grizzly, You Can Expect Excellence! at .

Having to bondo or lead in the top of a brand new saw is unacceptable. I would calmly and respectfully move up the chain until I was satisfied. If all else fails, I'd photograph the problems, write up ONLY the facts, with no subjective commentary, and place it on the web.

I would send the first link to Grizzly, and again give them a chance to fix it. Next, I'd start posting the link to every newsgroup, bbs, and chat area where it was on-topic.

Barry

[Mark Jerde]

Maybe Griz would be willing to surface grind it.

-- Mark

[Larry Bud]

Unless I'm missing something here, how would a board get caught on the ridge when it would be running parallel to the direction the boards are pushed?

[Caveman Lawyer]

A little followup/clarification:

On the specs/tolerances, there was apparently some misunderstanding prior to my purchase. I had actually called Grizz before ordering the ts and was told that their tolerances were .006 per foot. To me, this means that over any 12 inch section there will not be a discrepancy greater than .006. To them, as best as I can understand from their phone tech, it means that over a 2.5 foot table, they accept variances of up to .015 at any point across the table surface. Therefore they viewed the .012 dip as within tolerances whereas I viewed it as exceeding tolerances.

As for exchanges/returns, their email support was more forgiving than the phone support and after several emails, they have offered to exchange the table top. I have to haul the old one to UPS and they will reimburse shipping expenses if they agree with my measurements, so a bit of work for me but not too bad.

Finally, my previous experience with Grizz had been pretty good. They took back a bandsaw I bought about 4 years ago without complaint after I couldn't get the blade to track so I was comfortable with their customer service. And I'm very happy with a drill press I picked up from them several months ago.

Thanks for all the responses. Rec.ww has been a great resource for me.

[Bay Area Dave]

You are "comfortable with their service". That's great! But how comfortable are you with their products??

dave

Caveman Lawyer wrote:

snip

[Mark]

From their site:

Solid cast iron table is first heat treated to remove warpage, then milled perfectly flat and ground to a mirror-like finish

thousandths isn't perfectly flat.

Flex cast iron? Yeah, it's doable. A bottle jack, some chain, a few pieces of wood. Not that you need that much force but you would need that much control. And unless you glued it together with Loc-Tite (and letting it cure for a day with the chains in place) I wouldn't count on it staying. I'm not familiar with the webbing under either the Griz table or extensions so when pressure was released I don't know which would dominate.

This is where I scratch my head, the wings run parallel to the blade and the dip is 1/80th of an inch. If the gap were perpendicular to movement I could see it, or maybe your bearing down and gouging the wood??

Lastly I would like to know your method of measurement and your tooling. I don't know many people willing to cough up the $80 or so for a 2' Starrett steel rule, or even the $60 or so for a good combination square. I'm one of these jerks who pay forty something dollars retail for a forged steel square head.

[Brian]

This is not too terribly unexpected. People will say "you should have bought a XYZ instead." Baloney. Even Powermatic only guarantees .01" flatness. So you'd be 0.002" better off for $1200 extra. Hmmmph. And if you were to complain to Powermatic about a 0.01" dip, they'll tell you to flatten out yourself with a hammer. Seriously.

Now, I was curious about the Unisaws too (could this be a legit reason to spend the extra money on one), before I recently decided to take the plunge and purchase a G1023. So at the local junior college, I measured two Unisaws and found them to be within 0.010" and 0.011". Better than what Grizzly guarantees, but not appreciably better than your 0.012".

I think your issue is the wing alignment problem. Your dip, while within spec, is causing it. So I'd approach it from that angle with Grizzly rather than complaining about the 0.012" itself. When they spec "corner to corner" you make the assumption that imperfections will be gradual, and typically they are. "Corner to corner" also implies that front to rear should actually be LESS than 0.015" also. But in your case, however, there is a blunt imperfection and the end result is the alignment problem. I'd be very surprised if they were unwilling to address that for you, based on my own personal experiences with their customer service and most other people's as well.

Let us know what happens.

Brian.

[Brian]

Do tell. Afterall, the published flatness tolerance for the Delta Unisaw is also 0.015".

Brian.

[Brian]

Here is an article you should read that deals with flattening a new Delta Unisaw table.