Perhaps you are right. The first reconditioned Unisaw that Redmond sent to me arrived with a broken trunnion. The shipping crate didn't show any signs on the exterior, but the inside had evidence it had been turned over. Yes, the experience of returning the saw for another was frustrating at the time, but I don't fault Delta for not building it strong enough to take such abuse. Your car would be damaged if you turned it over too. Redmond did everything in their power to make it right, and in the end, I was very satisfied with Redmond and Delta too.
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
More than likely not. Any that came back with that much damage were not reconditioned but parted out in recon, parts reinspected. Difficult to determine what hidden damage there might be or how hard a lick it took. Vast majority of recons that make it to sales started as inventory resets, or minor cosmetic freight damage.
But I'm talking about a different time frame. What is done now is different and I can't talk intelligently about it.
If DH's machine came to him normally boxed, it would have been done by B & D. In my era we would recon, test, strap it to a heavy pallet mostly assembled, and Redmond would have to pick it up with their own truck. That would eliminate the cost of tear down and rebox after test, and the heavy pallets were free, we had to pay to get rid of them.
Redmond good people to deal with. They held our recon lead in high regard, tried to hire him when the plant closed.
I bought my saw in early 2004. The saw which arrived damaged was bolted down to a pallet with a sturdy cardboard box wrapped around it as I recall. There was a single chunk of styrofoam lying in the bottom of the cabinet that had obviously been wedged between the motor and cabinet. The slats on one side of the pallet were broken where the bolts attach, which told me the box had been tipped over. The replacement saw arrived in a similar box, but they had taken extra precautions. They had put a large plastic bag in the cabinet and filled the bag with expanding foam. The motor was completely surrounded by foam. It took me the better part of an hour to carve it up into chunks small enough to remove.
DonkeyHody "I'd rather expect the best from people and be wrong than expect the worst and be right."
I never tried to upgrade mine because another problem was keeping the pulley on. You'd be in the middle of a cut and suddenly the blade would stop and you would hear the pulley flying across the shop floor. I tried everything short of welding it and it would never stay on. I was glad to get rid of that piece of junk. I think I'll stick to my original plan of buying a good quality cabinet saw even though the savings are tempting. A lighter duty saw would probably do everything I want it to do but why take the chance. Give the kids more to fight over when I'm gone anyway. :-)
The only regret I have about purchasing my cabinet saw is that I spent
14 years cursing my contractor saw before I upgraded. Maybe those 14 years weren't wasted because I appreciate the quality of my cabinet saw a lot more than I would have if I'd started out with it.
DonkeyHody "There's a difference between doing things right and doing the right things."
I have the Jet cabinet saw with the (I believe) HTC fence. One of the nice features of this fence is the ability to pop off the standard fence and place a custom fence on it with a few taps of a rubber mallet.
I've made a few - with a slot that runs all the way down, that holds a featherboard or two. I like this, and normally have this fence installed.
"DonkeyHody" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@x30g2000hsd.googlegroups.com...
I bought my saw in early 2004. The saw which arrived damaged was bolted down to a pallet with a sturdy cardboard box wrapped around it as I recall. There was a single chunk of styrofoam lying in the bottom of the cabinet that had obviously been wedged between the motor and cabinet. The slats on one side of the pallet were broken where the bolts attach, which told me the box had been tipped over. The replacement saw arrived in a similar box, but they had taken extra precautions. They had put a large plastic bag in the cabinet and filled the bag with expanding foam. The motor was completely surrounded by foam. It took me the better part of an hour to carve it up into chunks small enough to remove.
When I got my Jet cabinet saw about 8 years ago it came on a standard sized pallet, about 42-46" square. The larger pallets tend to be difficult to tip over and the pallet was pretty HD as pallets go, all Oak. Along with that precaution the motor had a removable steel bracket that securely cradled it in the event the pallet was banged around. I guess the care taken to insure no damage on the high seas worked well. The fact that Delta is/was manufactured in the US and traveled shorter distances might be a partial explanation as to why as many arrived damaged. I was deciding between the Jet and the Delta when I bought but the numerous broken trunion stories and the one in the store with a broken trunion was what swayed me towards the Jet. IF I knew that the Delta was in inventory and could be inspected before that 1 mile trip to my home I probably would have gone with the Delta. But both very close vendors had to order the unit I wanted. Apparently back then the right tilts were still the models that were in stock and the left tilts would have to be ordered. I was not willing to take that chance. Either way the Jet has been a machine that I give little thought about any more. It continues to do what it is suppose to do with no compromises. When I first got it I considered it a bit dull and non exciting. No burns, not stalls, no crooked lines, no problems. ;~) My Jet and Swingman's Unisaw are apparently in perfect tune with each other as when we team up to build kitchens, 3 plus a partial one so far, the results work well. I cut all the large plywood panels for sides and bottoms and Swingman makes the face frames with dados on the back sides to fit the front edges of the cabinet panels The accuracy needed for the panels and the dados has to be dead on. If either was off, the cabinets would not go together. I totally depend on the fence rule to insure accurate measured cuts. From that point on drawers and doors can be measured to fit the results of the cabinet construction.
Several years ago Grizzly customers were witnessing their TS being delivered tipped over and even upside down.
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