I am finally getting the new table saw set up. It was delivered last Thursday I think, might have been Tuesday.

I put the base together first, then waited for some help I thought was going to happen over the weekend to put it onto the saw. That didn't happen so I put the dust collection bottom on it and the base yesterday and managed to stand up the whole 265lb saw by myself.

Almost had a problem the first time as I didn't have enough room to stand it up where I tried and when I set it back down my fingers got caught between it and the styrofoam. And of course I had my pocket knife in that side's pocket so I couldn't even try to cut away at the styrofoam...Finally got it loose, pulled the saw back, grabbed it differently and just pulled it up instead of trying to push it up.

A little more than I should have done by myself and the doc probably won't be happy, but I didn't want my Wife attempting to help me with it as She already has a sore back from sitting in a chair too many hours this tax season.

The whole thing went a lot easier than I thought it would considering the amount of work it took to get the first one into the house.

This morning I put the extension plates on and started with the fence rails. I have the front rails on loosely and will do the back rails later today or tomorrow and then start to check things out on it.

She ordered a dial indicator for me several weeks ago from some place on Amazon, but it hasn't arrived. So ordered a different one from Harbor Freight this weekend along with some clamps and a router plate so I should also be able to do the router table top soon if this weather keeps up and doesn't rain on the weekends. Supposed to be 70F today, or so they said yesterday.

Very excited for when I have it all set up and trued to the blade and the table extensions flat so I can finally finish the cabinet over the dust collector area over a month after I started it.

I understand the anticipation, Derek... I laminated up the BB plywood for my RT base in January and am still working on it. The good part is I wasn't waiting on others to deliver things... the bad thing is the frustration with having some many outside commitments that I can only spend an hour or two a week working on it.

It doesn't help the frustration factor that I've got some Veritas BU planes setting in my tool drawers awaiting blade honing, pending getting the cabinet to the place I can attach the top.

I've started the wiring though, and that's my last significant step precluding attaching the top. Just do as I do and repeat to yourself... "Soon.. soon". Oh yea, and remember back to when we were kids and the anticipation of Christmas was part of the fun!!!

Congrats! I really happy you got your saw. I can't imagine how frustrating this must have been for you! I think you are being smart by taking your time with it. Once you have it up and running you will be so much happier with it then your previous saws.

Congrats Derek! Take your time and make it right. You'll be happier in the long run

Happy days Glad Yuh got yer cutter upper thingy.

Got it all finished up today

Took a very long time to align the riving knife so it didn't either hit the blade while fully up or fully down. Finally figured out to put one extra tiny washer underneath the bolt and plate on the blade side. Tried two and three washers and washers under both bolts, but for various reasons they didn't work out.

I still haven't used the saw as I don't like to do it alone, especially the first time with a new saw as the very first time I used my first benchtop table saw I had terrible kickback causing me to end up with a huge hangnail type thing hanging off of my left thumb.

I will miss the laser light that matched up with the right side of the blade, but I assume I will get used to not having it.

The last thing I had to do was move the left side rails and extension just so. Otherwise the fence was not moving freely once it was onto that extension. Now it slides back and forth smooth as can be. Haven't tested how it is locked down yet (soon, maybe about 15 minutes or so).

I don't have the dial indicator and the holder for it yet Arriving tomorrow, so will have to just use the combo square to make sure every thing is nice and parallel to each other.

Oh, forgot, I have to sweet talk my wife into laying down and attaching the dust collection hose to the spot under the base. I wasn't thinking before I turned the saw upright. Would have been much easier to attach then, but would have had 10' of hose in the way when I was spinning it around so I could reach this or that part from my chair.

Ooooo a laser light thingy. My god what in the world did us old timers do before light was invented?

Ya guys cut thrice and measured 5 times

It is only for some misc little things I will miss it, like seeing exactly where it is going to cut when I do a miter cut. I will get used to doing without as I only had it for two months and not had it on the previous one.


I have made some saw dust with it tonight. Learned I need to move the riving knife over just a sliver to the left.

Finished cleaning up the cuts that I was doing the night the safety guard flew off and hit me in the chin and knocked me down and then did the cuts to make the bottom for the cabinet after that. Stopped then as I was tired and starting to hurt too much as I did too much moving around today.

The sound of it compared to the old one with the direct drive universal motor is wow! I didn't even think to put on ear protection. It was quiet enough I could probably have been playing a radio or tv and heard it.

I am hoping this saw is the 2nd to last one I ever own. Next stop up is a cabinet saw, hopefully one with Saw Stop tech or whatever else has been invented in the years until I finally get one.

Now I really need to get my motivation back after over a month of down time. I even had a bit of a problem remembering what other pieces I need to cut and I completely forgot the measurements of what the cabinet is supposed to be. Lucky it can only have a little leeway in size because of where it goes and the clearance needed around it.

I need to makethe router table to make the dados in for the shelf too, so it should be enough different things that I get back into doing it all. At least the nice weather I have been waiting for seems to be here so I can route the melamine/mdf top outside.

Congrats! It is amazing the difference a good saw can make! I bought one from craigslist. Even though it is as old as I am in, its performance is so much better that my old bench saw doesn't even compare.

My dial indicator shipment now says it is arriving Saturday. Fedex shipment. Didn't know they did home deliveries on Saturdays.

Mike,

I saw a few saws that met that description on Craigslist when I was looking around, but all were either over the budget or looked like something my limited skills wouldn't have been able to fix up or make look nice. Plus I sort of needed to go to Sears as a lot of the money involved in the purchase of the first table saw was from duplicate Christmas presents that we only got store credit from. And then when that saw was returned it was store credit again, so thus this saw which was extra cheap because some one had taken hardware bag 4 from it.

If you followed the earlier threads on it, you might already know that one came home with a broken main trunnion and it took a while for sears parts to admit that the part wasn't lost in transit, but that they actually couldn't get the part. So I had to wait that through and then wait until a day they could schedule two guys from the MyHome thing to deliver it.

One of the craigslist ones was even a nice looking unisaw for $475, local to me, but missing the rails and fence as the guy was keeping the upgraded ones and had gotten rid of the originals a long time ago. That was the saw I really wanted, but was way over budget. Though I can just imagine the problems we would have had getting that into the basement if a 265lb saw gave us problems.

It has been too many years since jr high and high school shop so I forgot what a good table saw sounded like. I also had such a fear of them back then (about the only fear I had then) that I normally stuck to using the radial arm saw for the cuts I did and let others stand in line for using the table saw. None of the other students seemed to like the radial arm saw so I would get to use it whenever I wanted, no waiting. We never used a router in any of the classes I took, so it wasn't until 20 years after high school I first used one and that was one that had been sitting new in the box for years that my brother had gotten for Christmas from a friend.