New Ridgid Tablesaw

[Mike Marlow]

On Sat, 14 Mar 2009 17:40:00 -0500, Leon cast forth these pearls of wisdom...:

Nope. No requirement for any "routine maintenance".

[-MIKE-]

Coin on edge?

[MikeWhy]

I have a Delta contractor saw with stock pulleys and belt. Except immediately after sitting unused for long periods, it starts up fast and smooth. The nickel doesn't fall down until well into its wind down after powering off. It probably helps that it's running on 220V. Start up is close to immediate.

[MikeWhy]

Sheesh. It seems obvious. Buy tools made by someone you trust, rather than from the huckster trying to make the sale with warranty promises they knowingly won't honor.

Do you have an expectation that the 15 year old motor dies due to hidden manufacturing defects? What's your understanding of a warranty against defects in material or manufacturing?

[Puckdropper]

-MIKE- wrote in news:gphrg4$q03$1 @news.motzarella.org:

Mine [3560] passed the coin on edge nickel test at start up. However, it wouldn't take much more during start up to knock the coin over.

Puckdropper

[J. Clarke]

Uh, what would be the point otherwise?

[Leon]

I may have been a "bit " mistaken in the name but here is where I bought my compressor parts, good to know anyway.

you Google Jack's small engine, you will come up with several possibilities. Most of the ones that come up in my search have different web pages however the Logos associated with the name are the same.

I am on their e-mail list and IIRC it comes in as Jack's lawn mower service, but is not the one you are referring to.

[Leon]

As is the case with ANY product that you buy. Fortunately "that guy" is not the end of the line, there are other service centers and others up the chain of command that can authorize the repair. With a Life Time warranty that replaces batteries and any part that simply wears out or is found to be defective you have to admit that the warranty is as good as it gets and is probably going to protect you as long as you won the product. Having been in the service business for my entire career I can assure you that if the work gets turned down the repair shop looses out on revenue. They don't save money by turning down warranty work. With that understanding, if you bring in a tool with more than one "unrelated" broken part the tool was probably abused.

What's the likelihood that, should my motor

Worn out is covered also.

FWIW, I have a Wayne Dalton Garage Door and Opener. The door has had to have a spring replaced at my cost as the door was out of warranty as far as the spring was concerned. No problem, I understood that. Later the motor on the opener started to go bad several years after the initial warrany expired. I looked at the warranty I noticed that the motor has a life time warranty. I called the manufacturer up and describe the problem to the woman and she UPS'ed me a new motor and appoligised for the inconveinence.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Funny how businesses evolve. I recently had a new high efficiency oil boiler installed. It was done by Southbridge Tire Company. Yes, they still sell tires too, but oil is the big part of the business today. FWIW, it is saving my money, about 32% last fill-up.

[Leon]

I am kinda confused on the issue also. The company in question has a pretty good reputation for building good tools and has one of the best warranties in the industry. If after making a compairison of features and it was a toss up between 3 or 4 brands, the better warranty is the one that gets the nod.

AND Defects in Materials and Manufacturing aside, simply being used so much that they wear out is covered also. Now if that motor had hammer dent marks, modified wiring, had been subject to the wrong voltage or hit by lightning, I can see the warranty being voided.

[J. Clarke]

My favorite is Sprint. More precisely SPRInT. Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Telecommunications.

[Leon]

I suspect that would be subject to the specific tool. I recall an ad on their worm drive circular saw. They were showing a chart of how you might expect the tool to hold up at several thousand hour intervals. Something like 5,000 hours, 200 homes framed, 10,000 hours tool brought in for free service and hypoid oil replaced, 15,000 the tool......

From their site, and with registration you get the extended life time warranty. It does state that the tool must be properly maintained, which I understand to mean that routine maintenance would be required. The saw I mentioned above does cover in the maintainence section of the owners manual, checking of the oil level and replacing the oil. Now If I had the saw and burned it up because it ran low on oil I would not expect it to be covered under warranty, but maybe they would.

WHAT IS COVERED UNDER THE LIFETIME SERVICE AGREEMENT:

The Lifetime Service Agreement on RIDGID® Hand Held Power Tools, Stationary Power Tools and Pneumatic Tools covers all worn parts in properly maintained tools, including normal wear items such as brushes, chucks, motors, switches, gears and even cordless batteries in your qualifying RIDGID®Brand hand held and stationary power tools; and replacement rings, driver blades and bumpers on RIDGID® Brand pneumatic tools for the lifetime of the original owner. This Lifetime Service Agreement does not apply to other RIDGID® Brand products.

[Leon]

It is ONE of the obvious "fixes", A blade that does not spin true or has a chipped tooth can add vibration. All moving parts add to the vibration. The simpler solution IMHO is simply to dampen it rather than build the "perfect" machine that has no weakest points.

[Leon]

Great, I had a Craftsman iron top that passed the nickel test, but IMHO the nickel test is a starting point indicator that you are headed in the right direction in dampening vibration. My cabinet saw passes the nickel test with less movement than the old saw and I get better results with this saw over the Craftsman. The less vibration you have the better the cuts, all things being equal.

[-MIKE-]

I was asking what the "nickel test" was?

[Nova]

The places in your area look like my kind of stores.

The one thing that struck me odd when I looked for Ridgid's authorized service locations is that there are four within 100 miles of my location. Only two are less that 50 miles from my home. I'm familiar with the big name players in my local area that perform warranty service and sell parts for the majority of power tool, appliance and automobile parts. Most of the major power tool manufactures all use one of three places in my area. I've never heard of the two Ridgid uses, and have driven past both hundreds of time and never even knew they were there. One looks like a small mom & pop hardware store, the other looks like a commercial garage. It doesn't appear that either of them sell Ridgid tools?

[-MIKE-]

I guess my point is... so far the only advantage anyone can offer for having a granite top is to dampen vibration. So why would you give up all the advantages of a magnetic top, just to dampen vibration caused by faulty or poorly designed parts?

The obvious fix to your specific cause would be to return the blade that isn't spinning true or buy a new one to replace the chipped tooth. Somehow I can't see one chipped tooth causing enough vibration in a decent table saw to matter much. Of course, I've done all of my work on a -$200 Ryobi with a $100 blade, so I probably wouldn't notice. :-)

[Larry Blanchard]

Of course, there's always the question of the company still being around

10-20 years from now. That's never a given, but in today's economy....

[Leon]

Yeah, unfortunately none are near me. I was desperate for compressor parts and came up with Jack's through Google IIRC.

[Leon]

True but unless you "know" a company is about to fold you cannot make a decision on what might be.