Sawstop, Part 2

It’s been a few weeks since the new Sawstop arrived at Pigeon Point. As I detailed in my first post, it was a dramatic entrance complete with a military vehicle driving up my sidewalk and Crisco-greased 4x4 skids to slide the 640lb saw from the truck bed to my shop entrance. Since then I’ve used the saw to mill a bunch lumber for our kitchen cabinets, specifically the plywood carcasses for the upper cabinets, and fir for all of face frames. The cuts involved were largely rip cuts in ¾” fir and ¾” maple plywood, dado cuts, and cross-cuts for sizing door panels.

When we set up the Sawstop on the first day we immediately noticed two minor issues. The first was a ding in one of the extension wings. The ding was about 1/32 of an inch in diameter on the edge of the iron wing, and it had a burr on it that would have scratched any wood that passed across it. The initial solution was to take a punch and bang it flat. This worked to flatten the burr, but still I was disappointed at this defect. The same wing also had a minor warp in it – it wasn’t perfectly flat.

The second problem was worse: the hardware shipped with the saw for attaching the rear guide rail (for the fence) was not the correct hardware. The bolts referenced in the manual were of a different type than what was supplied with the saw, and the supplied bolts didn’t fit the rail. Perplexed, I went to the hardware store and bought some bolts that would work.

The following day I went back to Woodcraft where I bought the saw, and where the Sawstop rep was camped for the weekend doing hotdog demos. I pulled him aside and told him about my experience thus far, and he said Sawstop would make everything right. He explained that they had recently updated the rail hardware and this had happened before. (In fact, the ultimate conclusion was that Woodcraft had botched filling my order – they didn’t correctly pair the rail hardware with the saw. They must have had both “older” and “newer” Sawstops in inventory and mis-paired the saw to the rail. Some other customer presumably had the reverse issue that I had.)

In any event, the sales rep instructed me to contact the service center, which overnighted me a replacement wing and replacement hardware for the fence. The result is I’m very satisfied.

Other than these two issues, setting up the saw was a breeze. I had to install a 240V circuit to my shop. The manual for the saw recommends hardwiring the cord to the circuit but I opted to use an industrial receptacle and plug, paired with a 10’ cord to the saw. This gives me some flexibility.

I don’t yet own a dust collector other than my shop vac. I bought an adapter that allows me to plug the vac’s 2 ½” hose to the 4” port on the saw. This is working well so far, but I do intend to get another system soon that would be more or less permanently attached to the saw.

The best things about the saw so far are its power and accuracy. This is the first saw I’ve owned where you could adjust the gauge on the fence and confidently use it to set cuts accurately to 1/32” of an inch or better. And I’ve made a few 3” deep rip cuts in old-growth fir (pretty dense stuff, but not oak…) so far that haven’t bothered the 5hp motor.

One “learning” experience I had with the saw happened when the saw suddenly shut down in the middle of a 45-degree rip. We looked at the control panel and saw that it was blinking a light that means “check the brake-blade gap”. The manual clarified that the gap between the brake cartridge and the blade must be within a certain tolerance, ideally the thickness of a nickel (1/14th of an inch). Mine was adjusted outside of the tolerance, and at a 45-degree tilt there was enough play in the brake to make it go just enough out of tolerance to stop the saw. Using a hex wrench included with the saw (and a nickel from my pocket) I adjusted the brake to be closer to the blade and didn’t experience any more problems.

I also used my dado set with the saw. The dado set requires a special brake cartridge (the blades are smaller diameter, 8”, and wider, which requires a different sized brake), and I used this opportunity to learn to change the cartridge. It is really easy – I would say it takes less than 5 minutes including the time to check the brake-blade gap. The dado set cuts great – much better than my old Craftsman radial-arm saw which really didn’t have the horsepower to sling that much steel around.

So here’s the report card thus far:

Setup: B- (wrong hardware, dinged table)

Service: A+ (overnigted correct hardware, new table – no questions asked)

Power: A+ (5hp model – no complaints)

Accuracy: A

Learning Curve: A-

Easily my favorite tool…