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the miter gauge is excellent. this machine is very accurate. If you have little space and money like me this is the saw for you. i had to do a little tweaking to it but was very simple to put together. i can finally cut edge joints as good as my jointer can. fence is very solid.
Since it was bowed in the middle, I threw away the aluminum fence face and replaced it with a cherry face plate that I jointed flat. The 30" standard fence has a steel rail which is much more substantial. A week later the new saw came back. I left that call thinking "this is an example of the worst customer service I've experienced in years".
Invest in a calibrated plate and dial indicator. Well kind of. Blade angle and height controls work very easily.The table surface is adequately flat within.002 but the wings did require substantial shiming on both machines to keep them in line.You know, it's a price point item in the eyes of the manufacturer. Yep, stepping up for the bigger bucks and looking forward to it. Whatever worksThe blade guard is a major pain to remove and replace, requiring tools to remove two bolts out back and removing the throat plate to get to a socket cap bolt. For those looking to save some bucks look at Steel City. All my Grizzly machines are going to new homes. I am currently purchasing a new Laguna.
They decided to replace it as it could not be repaired. I agreed to send the saw back for repair or replacement at their discretion. I'll save money where I can but for my thinking, the money invested in this product could have been much better spent on anything else.There is much more but rather than bore you with all the details, I'll finish by saying this. Do we have a little QC issue. As much as I felt that they should have taken responsibility for their workmanship and for this type of defect, replaced the saw without question, that was not going to happen. I received a call from a representative the next day who was concerned with what he had heard and told me if I sent this saw back he would personally see to it that what I got back was hand checked and adjusted.
So much for hand checking. When I loosened the trunion for adjustment the measurement sprung to over.090 and could not be adjusted in. Yes they shipped it to the, you guessed it, wrong address. Simply adjust the table and cut away. I had to build a pallet so off to HD to pick up materials and of course spend the better part ot the day disassembling my router wing, roller out feed and other items off the saw.
Hmm, there is hope yet. Like so many others, it sits on a shelf.I had to drill out the holes on the roller stand for the extension wing because the holes did not match and blocked the bols from threading in.Fit and finish is pretty marginal on all the peripheral items except for the roller outfeed which is manufactured by HTC and a pretty nice addition at a reasonable price.The motor does produce enough power to cut through 8/4 hardwood stock with relative ease. There was a parallelism issue from the start but it wasn't enough to deal with right away. I was angry to say the least.Amazingly the the statement, "This call may be recorded for CS etc." seemed to come true.
of course I was wondering, how did it make it out of the factory in the first place. Obviously the trunion was forced and tightened in manufacturing, stuffed in a box and patted on the rear on the way out the door. In all the direct questions asked, I didn't receive a single satisfactory answer. So far though I'm down for half a week. If they paid some attention to the product and thought of it in a better light, they might have produced a saw that could capture a viable market. I'm told they have a cabinet mounted trunion in their hybrid the same as actual cabinet saws.
Happy Woodworking Blade parallelism and run out are critical for a good clean (and SAFE)cut. Over the next few months the problem became progressively worse so out came the calibrated plate and dial indicator. we don't mention his name told me they don't check every one of them. Other side note issues:The Aluma Classic 50" fence is pretty cheap, a marginal Beismeyer knockoff at best and another regret in purchase. There was no hope.
Almost as good as the guy kick starting his table saw. I began woodworking with my Dad at age 5 and at 56 you'd think I would have learned a few things. Let me begin by saying that I own/ed several Grizzly products and for the price, they have performed reasonably well. How can you not check a product for its most critical adjustment. The Grizzly will sit in the back yard as a planter or something. That would make a great You Tube film.
Quality of construction is only so so. For those that currently own one of these saws, check them. To top it all off, the new saw, as much as it was adjustable, was out by.006 the opposite direction and run out is almost.010. This experience has been a customer service nightmare and no amount of savings is worth the aggravation. Certainly no customer service. This saw however has proven to be the bane of my woodworking existence. Are you kidding.
You get what you pay for. I called Grizzly support and that's where the real problems actually began. They insisted it had to be sent back stripped. I purchased this saw in the Fall of 2008. I had to shim the T bracket on one side to adjust the fence 90 degrees vertical from the table. When I asked directly how this saw ever made it off the line I was told they don't check every one of them. I hope this helps. I'm not even going to bother calling them again.
That's blade wobble for those that don't know. OK we are converging at the back of the blade by.011 inches. I'll stand on the other side of the room and watch the carnage. It's pointless. Customer service was an absolute deal breaker for me. There's a reason why it's less expensive. Thank you Fed Ex for remembering the original mistaken bill of lading and calling me before dropping it on the wrong doorstep.
Imagine that, a shipper the size of Fed Ex doing a better job of keeping track of my repair than the manufacturer. Uh, excuse me but I want to see this yahoo take a piece of 12/4 purpleheart and stuff it through a saw converging by a 64th at the back of the blade. Oh, that's right customer service guy Mr.
You will likely be the only one that did. Their Customer service rep, (I won't mention any names here) could not, or refused to give any manufacturing spec except to say that they like to see them within 1/64 of an inch in parallel. Hit 12/4 though and well, you'll be smelling smoke from a low feed rate.
That's apparent. At one point I was told and I quote, "well it is just a contractor saw with a cabinet around it." After hearing that from a customer lack of service rep, what more is left to say. They managed to send a bill of lading with the wrong address and that took another day to correct but hey, Fed Ex showed up on time.
So it wasn't wasted - but it is not staying on the table saw.The performance on 110v with a DEDICATED 110v circuit with the specified 20 amp continuous / 30 amp start up breaker is impressive. Be sure to get the correct ones for this saw model. They obliged and we added a lift gate to get it to the ground without a forklift. From there on I just took it apart and moved it in components to the garage on a hand truck (though a friend to help steady the larger cabinet is useful).Set up took best part of three hours to get extension tables exactly level. Grizzly do a few and they are different - guess who got the wrong one first time out. But it was just fine. It flexes out of adjustment against the retaining screw. They were EXTENSIVE in their emails to make sure I understood the terms of carriage / what the driver would do / what I needed to do.
Dear Grizzly,Just to let you know this saw arrived just fine on Fri - the most UNMARKED packing case I have seen in YEARS. It has a steel core inside the aluminum fence sides. As I am planning on using the zero clearance plates this will not be an issue. I demoted the Grizzly one to my bandsaw. They do flex ever so slightly (by a few thou') as you do the studs up tight but careful working back and forth and pulling the studs up a little at a time kept the whole thing level and flat. A torque wrench helps make sure that your final pulls are the same across each stud - but is not mandatory. Penn's driver was extremely helpful and we were unloaded and on the curbside in 5 mins flat.Set up over the weekend and a few test cuts with a Forrest blade. The wood came out polished and though the saw is on a portable base - with a little leveling it passed the nickel test on start up and run.
The motor DOES rewire - the supplied Mag switch does NOT.- Zero clearance inserts. Though I tried very hard I could not get it to flex enough to spoil a cut. To be fair to Grizzly - the recent Fine Woodworking (issue 195) review of a range of hybrid saws stated that all saws reviewed suffered from this and the answer was a home made zero clearance insert.I was a little concerned about the Shop Fox Aluma Classic fence (Biesemeyer knock off) but it is a lot more ROCK solid than I thought it might be from looking at it. Though Fine Woodworking rated it one of the better ones supplied with Hybrid saws. Clear instructions are provided for shimming the tables level but there was no need - mine were square and true out the box.The saw arbor was square and parallel "out the box" as the manual suggested it should be.
It is not a Lincoln or Cadillac but it is a very good Chevy.You HAVE to add to your purchase list:- a blade(s) - none supplied - that's OK - it's a matter of choice.Optionally:- if you are planning on 220v then you need to add the 220v Magnetic Switch from Grizzly. :-)- Shop Fox wheeled base if you need to move it around much.Like I said to Grizzly - I'm looking forward to years of furnitue making. I haven't bogged it down yet with some tough rips in HARD wood.FOR THE PRICE and if you are short on space and having to compromise with a hybrid - this is good. Needed very little setup and everything was square and true as "factory adjusted" and outlined in the extensive manual.Thanks for this item - years of furniture making planned.---------------------------------------------Grizzly must have been burned in the past with saws arriving at people's workshops or garages and no forklift to get it off. The scale and magnifier are very clear.Miter is OK but nothing like the standard of my Kreg.
Instructions are supplied in case it is not.The supplied insert throat plate (and dado throat plate) are of too thin a steel, flex and are tough to get level - even with 4 adjusters on each corner. I specified a small delivery truck and NOT an 18 wheeler in our narrow colonial streets. Doing it in the early morning in the cool and in the shade prevented the sun heating the wings and possible distortion.
The saw stands up to the nickel test every time I move it. I wired it for 220 and have it on a mobile base to free up some floor space. A wonderful deal for the money. This saw has been a pleasure to use. I have built my shop around this saw and it has not let me down.
the saw performed perfectly, not bogging down at all at any point, and once again, vibration was almost indiscernible.So - while I envy those of you who have shops wired for 220 - I don't feel like I'm missing much with my G0478 running on 110. This is a big, heavy saw and has almost no vibration. I purchased a Forrest Woodworker II thin kerf blade to go with the saw (the saw does not come with a blade), and this combination of saw and blade cuts fantastically.The Biesemeyer fence system is rock steady and the miter gauge is quite adequate for my needs, so far.The saw's stiffest test to date was cutting some big dadoes (using Grizzly's 8" stacking dado blades) into a pair of sistered together 2x4's. I got my saw from the Grizzly showroom in Springfield, MO. This is one HECK of a saw. with one wing needing to be shimmed to make it true. I've had it a few months now, and while I haven't been able to use it as much as I'd like to, every experience cutting with it has been a pleasure.Setup was fairly easy (I did it by myself, except for lifting the saw off my truck and lifting it onto the Shop Fox base). I'd like to re-stress the advice of another reviewer who said to pay attention when installing the wings, because I also got my wings installed and got to the step where you install the power switch only to discover that I had installed the wings backwards - This is not well covered in Grizzly's setup instructions.Everything else about the saw is great.
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