New unisaw...broken trunnion

[CW]

[Tony]

Hi, I have a Yorkcraft 6" jointer, have had it for over a year. It was made in China, have had no problems with it at all, not a one. I'd buy again it a heart beat.

[Leon]

I don't doubt for a second that the Chinese could build that bolt just as good or maybe better than the $150 steel bolt. Economics would be the reason that the Chinese buy the $150 bolt vs. making ther own in the small quanitiies that they would need.

If you find a comparable Chinese plane to the LN plane you would would probably have to filter out "cheap". Where you error in your thinking is that you believe that no one else can produce products as good as we can.

It is the quality of materials dictated by the company marketing the product that you end up with. You can probably buy better quality Chinese steel in China. Not all of what comes out of China is their best. Probably most of the good stuff stays there. But comparing a Chinese and or Tiawan cabinet saw compared to an American built Unisaw you see that the Foreign steel may be better than that that goes in the Unisaw since it is the Unisaw trunnion that seems to have the problems.

[Leon]

CW, you have hit that nail right smack dap dead center on the head again.

[Leon]

I can tell you for a fact that a lot of Chinese steel is being imported for oil refineries. My neighbor is a cost engineer that over sees plant modifications and says that the imported steel meets ISO specs and is cheaper to buy.

[RKON]

When I was a youngsta, "Made in Japan" was synomonous with Junk. That is quite the opposite today. China is still considered a "Developing Nation" they have a long way to go until they would be considered a Developed Nation. With the high growth boom and their appetite for steel I would almost bet that the percentage of Chinese steel deemed as High Quality is much lower that of US or Russia. Yes, they can produce "Higher Quality" steel but not at our levels. They have been able to keep prices cheaper in the US because they have their currency pegged to the dollar.

Getting back to Delta and the issue of broken trunion's. Is it because of engineering? Well, has the design of the trunion in a Unisaw changed that much in the past 10 years? Is it a matter of quality control? Hmmmm. When a company like Pentair is looking to increase profits and up their profit margin what areas are impacted first? Customer Service and quality control. Look at their Income statement and their tools group saw sales grow 10% but their gross profit rose 2%. Not really good when they had 20% overall growth.

My take on this is that they don't give a hoot about increasing quality. They are under incredible pricing pressure from it competitors. They have to answer to the shareholders first and foremost.

Rich

BTW.. There was an interesting thread on the forum at woodnet about Delta muzzling one of the Delta CSR's and forbidding him from responding to questions posted there. Interesting stuff.

[DonkeyHody]

My first Unisaw arrived with a broken trunnion. It had a large block of styrofoam lying in the bottom of the cabinet which was supposed to have been wedged between the motor and the side of the cabinet. The slats on the shipping pallet were also split where the saw was bolted to it. It was obvious the crate had been mishandled, but obvious only after I opened it. There was no external damage. When I unpacked my second saw, they had obviously tried to correct the packaging problem. They had put a large plastic bag in the cabinet and filled it with expanding foam. The foam completely surrounded the motor. I spent at least an hour using a keyhole saw to whittle it into pieces small enough to remove from the cabinet. But my trunnion was intact. These were both factory reconditioned Unisaws, and I expect it's simpler to experiment with packaging methods with them since there are fewer of them. I'm still happy with my purchase, especially since my dealer (Redmond Machinery in Atlanta) gave me a couple of nice freebies (Freud blade and Bies. splitter) to make up for the hassle.

DonkeyHody " We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again---and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore." - Mark Twain

[patriarch]

[e-mail] (Charlie Self) wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Whatever it is, it is a customer problem.

Which has rapidly escalated to a marketing problem.

And if Delta were not for sale, maybe it wouldn't have become a problem to begin with.....

Companies, and people, in business for the long run, try very hard not to let these things happen, or to linger when they do.

Too bad all the wooddorkers are 'white, 65 and dying off', and 'there won't ever be a market for any more Unisaws...' (tongue firmly in cheek...)

Good companies don't let these kinds of problems linger. Give Delta a chance in the morning. We won't solve it here for them, or the OP, tonight.

Patriarch

[Leon]

"patriarch [e-mail]"

a marketing problem.

No, it is a company problem that has escalated to a marketing problem and is a big inconvience to its unfortunate customers. The customers are not the problem.

This was a problem 4 years ago and I don't think Delta was for sale then.

Totally agree, incompetency is the problem here. Who is to blame? It probably boils down to management trying to make more profit than the market will allow.

[patriarch]

"Leon" wrote in news:ER2qc.27523$ [e-mail]:

Leon, we agree. To clarify what I was trying to say, it is the customer's problem, but certainly not his fault. He is, unfortunately, involved in the solving of the problem, at a time when he would hope to be having what some marketers call "an excellent out of the box experience." Instead, he has this community all upset over his problem, and upset with a company which, at one time, was a standard on which woodworkers could rely.

I think that, were there an accepted alternative standard available, we, as a community, would have migrated to it. But some things move slowly, particularly when each of us pretty much has ONE (or fewer) experience with a new cabinet saw. It's not exactly like a router, or something similar. ;-) I mean, how can you be a true Normite, and use a Powermatic saw? (tongue FIRMLY in cheek.)

And we'd have to rename rec.norm!

You'd think that anyone at Delta, reading this thread, would sense the depth of frustration involved, and that something positive would happen. To let this go on so long isn't smart. Some folks in business management may be b*st*rds, but STUPID b*st*rds just don't survive very long.

Actually, neither do greedy b*st*rds.....

Patriarch

[cb]

Well, I contacted Woodworker's Supply this morning and they are shipping a new unisaw out. The broken one will be exchanged when the new one arrives.

To anyone that has concerns about ordering from Woodworker's Supply, they are top notch in my book. I left a message, and they promptly called me back, and performed an exchange without a hassle.

I looked at getting a saw locally, but Woodworker's Supply had a new customer 10% off sale, on top of no tax, no shipping charge and Unisaw prices already below that of any local dealer. Despite the delay and minor aggravation, it should be worth it.

Woodworker's Supply cutomer service folks said the Unisaws are shipped with a 'tilt indicator' ....a small plastic mechanism which turns red if the saw has been tipped. My saw did not have one, or it was removed. I'll make sure the next saw has one.

A large foam wedge was placed under the motor for support during transit. The foam was loose in the bottom of my saw. That should have been my first clue to look for a broken trunnion.

CB

[Upscale]

Please keep us apprised of how well the process of replacement goes.

[Unisaw A100]

Over on the ShopNotes forum there used to be a guy from Delta's technical department who posted under the nom de plume Delta 007. Recently Delta pulled the rug and told him he could no longer post there under that name and that he should keep his technical advice (advise in wreckspeak) to his 9 to 5 side of life.

Take from this what you will.

UA100

[Unisaw A100]

Used to be, at least from the 30's up until the 70's, Delta shipped the Unisaw with the motor in it's own carton. Later they switched to shipping it with a bent metal bracket that secured the motor through one of the table wing holes.

Foam.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! (tm BitchSlapBobZajicek)

UA100, who regularly gets asked, "what are the significant differences between the first Unisaws and the Unisaws sold today"...

[D. J. Dorn]

That's how my Griz came and am just now realizing that it not being broken is something that I shouldn't take for granted. It arrived perfectly - much like I'm sure it looked on the warehouse floor.

D> >A large foam wedge was placed under the motor for support during

[Wes Stewart]

|Ed Pawlowski responds: | |>No, it is not a shipping problem. If you shipped 100 widgets and they all |>arrive broken, do you blame the carrier or the way it is packed? You step |>back and evaluate to problem and correct it. You either make the part |>stronger, mount it better, or cushion it more for handling. |>

|> It is a design problem. Saws get shipped. Components must be made strong |>enough to withstand handling during shipping and be packed accordingly. | |I'd like to know a couple things before saying it's not a shipping problem: Has |the packing for shipping changed recently,

With a sample size of one, I can't say.

|because this is, AFAIK, a fairly |recent problem for Unisaws. The motor used to be pretty solidly bolted in one |place, reducing stress on numerous parts. Is that still the case? I know on a |lot of lighter--job site--saws with motors mounted, styrofoam blocks are used, |wedged in to keep the motor from jerking around. Has Delta resorted to |something similar for the Unisaw,

Yes. Mine arrived with a substantial block of styrofoam inside the cabinet. Scared the hell out of me at frist when I tried cranking the handles and the tilt hardly moved. I thought I had the dreaded broken trunion until I opened the cover a found the styrofoam.

|which might be the cause of the breakage (the |Unisaw 3 HP motor is a LOT heavier than the little motors used on the job site |saws--hell, the whole saw doesn't weight what the motor does on the Unisaw)? |Unisaws have never had major problems with trunnion breakage, IME, until |recently. Is it possible the trunnion was re-engineered to a price point? | |Is it possible handling during shipping with some companies has gotten rougher? |No saw should be expected to stand up to a 2-3 foot drop to a roadbed, or |similar surface, but I've been told that that kind of thing does happen on |occasion.

When the guys from the local Woodcraft delivered mine in the lift gate-less PU, the tilt indicator was bright red and there was a hole in the cardboard carton. I seriously doubt that Woodcraft did it. Fortunately, nothing was damaged, although there are plenty of other issues.

Wes

[DarylRos]

I don't think it is a company problem, nor is it a marketing problem. It is a money problem. When we bought things like this from local dealers, we paid more, but got things like service--something you can't get from the larger mail order companies.

Sure, they can be good guys, and send you replacement parts, but when you shell out two large for a heavy saw, it's nice if they put it in place for you (after testing it first). You save money when you order from Amazon, or Highland, or wherever. You get (from Highland anyway), good tech support from knowledgable people. You won't get any onsite service.

Goes with the territory. I always understand that things can arrive broken. Or defective. I had that with my Delta DJ-15. This large behemoth comes, is not tuned right, and the tech gives me info on the phone. Not when I need the info, but when THEY call back. Then I have to sit there and perform major surgery on a joiner. Never worked right, never could get even a Delta service center to come. Their answer was bring it. HOW?

So I learned from there, and only dealt with dealers, or companies that come to you.

[LRod]

No, I'm not the original poster, but I did reply on the thread that I was awaiting delivery of a Unisaw.

It arrived Thursday the 20th, and the driver ran it right into my gara^H^H^H shop with the pallet jack. There were a couple of minor dings in the cardboard of one of the (five) boxes, but no evidence of outright abuse, unintentional or otherwise.

Having heard of telltales on the container, I looked but found none. To cut to the chase, assembly went smoothly and I was able to manhandle the saw off the pallet and onto the mobile base (assembled previously) single handed without incident.

There was a big block of styrofoam supporting the motor and once I got the tilt wheel installed and cranked the arbor up, it slid out revealing no broken parts.

Everything lined up nicely with the extension wing, the rails for the Bies, etc. Well, the rest of the story is pretty much the same as anyone else's with a brand new Unisaw, so I won't go any further.

- - LRod

Master Woodbutcher and seasoned termite

Shamelessly whoring my website since 1999

[J. Clarke]

No, it's because they can. The Chinese are quite capable of making fasteners for aircraft--they do after all make their own warplanes, satellites, and spacecraft. But they don't have the detailed documentation that would allow them to make an exact duplicate of the particular fastener with the same alloy, same heat treat, same surface treatment, etc. And if the engine did come apart Pratt or Rolls would point at that part and say "sorry, not our fault". Incidentally, I've seen some pretty crappy American made stuff that has Pratt & Whitney part numbers stamped on it--set it side by side with the part that Pratt made and sometimes they don't even look like the same part.

Note that in a former life I was an engineer at one of Pratt's sister companies in UTC and did a certain amount of work for and with them.

Make up your mind, do you want cheap or good? If you want good you'll probably have to go to China and track down the individual craftsman you need--China doesn't export artisan work to any great extent. If you want cheap you're going to get cheap, which works out the same in any language.

[B a r r y]

I'm glad to hear you got all the parts.

Enjoy your great new tool!

Barry