|Hey all, | |My new (and first) 3 HP Unisaw should be here by Thursday. I got the 50" |commercial Bies. fence. I don't expect any issues or problems assembling or |setting up, but it'd be great to know of tips or tricks any of you have |encountered before I dig in.
I actually wrote the following a few months ago but never posted it. Perhaps it will be useful here:
I used to own a 15-year old Craftsman contractor's saw. With a little adjustment, the blade was parallel with the miter gauge slots, the two open rib cast iron extension wings were perfectly flush with the table top and the arbor run-out, measured at the base of the blade gullets was 0.003". The fence sucked but I learned to compensate and live with it. With only one hp, rip cuts on hardwood were---excuse the pun---hard, but doable. Being completely open, dust was a big annoyance. Nevertheless, using the saw I built a 1200 sq ft addition to my house, a few cabinets and all the other little things a home handyman does.
Recently I've become more interested in doing some simple furniture building and some kitchen and bath remodeling so I figured I could factor the cost of new tooling into the *alleged* cost saving of DIY.
Thus I succumbed to the siren call of the CABINET SAW and decided to buy one. But which one? Using comments in this forum, product reviews, etc. etc, I decided for various reasons to buy American and get me one of them Unisars.
In other threads I railed against what I perceived as lousy quality control and the fact (in my mind) that manufactures didn't sell saws, they sold saw kits; a bunch of parts that needed to be finished by the sucker-err---buyer, to complete the construction. I gotta a lot of flack over that one so without further ado or editorial comment follows the ongoing story of the Delta Unisaw...
- Decided to buy locally (glad I did) from Woodcraft during their March 10% off sale. Went with a 30" Biesemeyer fence and Delta mobile base. Paid all of extra for home delivery.
- Week later, saw arrives. Two Woodcraft guys deliver in PU truck with no lift gate. Call next-door neighbor over and four of us skid it down a couple of 4x4s without incident. Tilt indicator was bright red before unloading and big hole in box but no apparent damage. Sell Craftsman saw to neighbor for hundred bucks.
- Manage to single-handedly get saw off pallet onto mobile base. Work stops here during three-week trip.
- Back home, back to assembly. Options are: open all boxes and do inventory and then lose parts before they are needed; or, wait until parts are needed to open boxes. Choose second option.
- Assemble left-hand cast iron extension wing. Doesn't line up. Make it flush with the table front and rear and it sags 8 thou midway along the joint line although one inch back from the front, the extension is proud 4 thou. Left front outside edge of extension droops 20 thou.
- Call Wendy at Woodcraft. She says Delta will drop ship replacement to me. Work stops for a week.
- UPS man brings new extension wing. This one is worse than the original! The finish is horrible. On both wings, it appears than when the grinding wheel was introduced to the iron there was a lot of chatter. The first couple of inches bear witness to this by being very rough and showing the wheel marks. If I eat enough Wheaties, I can turn this thing upside down and use it as a wood rasp. Say to hell with it and reinstall original extension wing. Determine that part of the misalignment is an artifact of the main table having a high spot at the left front edge. Aligning the wing to this spot creates misalignment along the rest of the interface. Use flat grinding stone to hone this high spot down and fiddle fart around until I figure it's good enough.
- Install front and rear angle supports. Instructions say that front support that holds rip fence rail must be installed to exact dimension of 2 27/32" below table top. No way in hell will this happen without enlarging mounting holes in table top. Start elongating holes with rat-tail file. Slow going. Decide that since angle surface is too low, another option would be to add shims between angle and fence rail. Bolt on fence rail using ¼" flat washers as shims. Works dandy.
- Time to mount the laminate extension table. Manual says, and photos show, mounting of "Z-bracket". No Z-bracket to be found in boxes. Call Woodcraft. They say they will call Delta and call back. Next day after not hearing from Woodcraft, I call Delta. Guy says, "Oh, the Z-bracket isn't used with Beisemeyer fence, the manual is wrong." While I have him on the phone I mention misalignment of fence rail. He says, 'Be glad that it's too low, that way you can use shims for alignment, some of them are too high then you have a real problem." Lucky me! I also mention extension wing problem. He says he will send another.
- Ten days later, UPS man comes with extension wing. The box is completely shredded and it is obvious that somewhere along the line, the extension has exited the box and landed on a corner against a hard object. Besides the bent corner, the finish is as rough as the others. Unless Delta sends somebody out to retrieve this one, I now have a heavy-duty surface plate of questionable accuracy.
Otherwise, after four months of steady use, I'm happy.
Enjoy. It's still a great saw, and once adjusted, the fence is right on. It's a joy to set it to the desired dimension and have the cut right on that dimension without fuss.
Wes