Hello All,
New to the fine woodworking site, I’m hoping someone can help me out. I recently happened upon a large group of wood working tools for a good price, buyer take all situation. Among the items was a Sears Craftsman digital table saw Mod. No. 113.226830. The thing is full loaded with the Exact-I-Rip Fence and Table Saw Routing Extension. From what I can find online, this seems to be a unicorn. I read “heard of, but never seen one”, “rare”, and “minimal production”. It’s been a challenge finding and solid literature, history, or value around this saw. I still have yet to even find a picture of all the attachments mine came with. Does anyone have any information, know of any one that would, or can lead me in the right direction to keep digging?
Any help would be appreciated, I have pictures, I’m going to get it all cleaned up, pictures are in the state that I got it. Unable to up load here do to file size
Replies
I’m afraid this is a case where being a rare unicorn does not equate to being more valuable. The saw was introduced by Sears in the mid 1980’s. Is had a premium price tag (about $700) as compared to other top-of the line Craftsman table saws (in the $400 to $500 range). This was the era when everything from tooth brushes to toilet paper was going digital, so the hand wheels for blade elevation and tilt were replaced by servo motors and digital controls and readouts. This made it “so simple” to accurately set up the saw.
However, there were some practical operating issues these digital controls created. First, the saw needed to be plugged in so that it could be calibrated to a “0” setting (blade retracted to just below table top and blade set to perfectly vertical) before use. There was a 6 button shutdown procedure to return to the “0” point before quitting for the day, but if there was a power outage or if the saw was unplugged, it needed to be re-calibrated. Changing blades (think dado stack) also required re-calibration of the blade height.
Not many were sold due to the cost and the calibration issues. Hence the rarity of the saws today. Speaking of today, good luck finding replacement parts if that control unit or a servo goes south. Sears Parts still exists for nuts, bolts, screws, washers, etc. but not for major components for these vintage power tools. It might be possible to pull the servo units and replace them with and wheels if need be.
If you need an owner’s manual see:
https://data2.manualslib.com/pdf2/50/4943/494290-craftsman/113226830_owners_manual.pdf?40eaca8a4d7583ed7b0bb7f4228d534f
Also, another source of info might be the Reddit sub ‘Craftsman 113 Owners Community’:
https://www.reddit.com/r/craftsman113/
Yep, I remember being in the new product development meeting at Sears. It was a rainy Monday, and those of us in the meeting were split into basically two camps. The main buzz was around joining the digital age and coming up with a digitally controlled tablesaw. A few of us countered that what would be really cool would be a tablesaw that couldn't cut off your fingers. Automobile airbags had come out 10 years earlier, and disc brakes were replacing drum brakes, and we thought that combining those two technologies might make such a beast possible.
We were outvoted.
Cool story — preserving digits vs. pushing digital.
Digital was easier to sell, and the marketing folks always win that fight.
Hey Jay,
I really appreciate the insight on this, very informative. That's unfortunate about the calibration issues, I thought the thing was pretty good from a setup standpoint and how it operates.
My goal with this is to fix it up and re-sell for what I can. the controls and everything look to be in decent shape with everything moving as it should, there is a lot of surface rust and loose or missing hardware throughout the saw. I was getting caught up in the rabbit hole of how rare it was. I'm not going to be as concerned about adding new hardware now that I know it doesn't have a really high price tag in the present day.
When I started woodworking there was no internet, no Craigslist or ebay, and only one Woodcraft store in the whole country. Sears was about the only place most of us could go for tools.
Sears really helped screw things up for themselves by doing fancy crap like the above saw. What really bit them in the butt was making their tablesaws run on a flex shaft rather than belt drive. Those things were horrible, and made a lot of woodworkers look elsewhere.
I was still using my Craftsman radial arm saw at the time.
Yes, Craftsman and Craftsman Industrial hand tools are still covered by a Hand Tool Full Warranty, at leaast those that are labeled as such in their warranty heading.
Kroger Feed
Thank you all for your input, I enjoyed reading the history around this saw. Hopefully, I can get this cleaned up and off to someone that would enjoy it for what it is.
I have one of these, the calibration is a no brainer if you take a moment to zero the settings before shutting off the power.
Love the saw, got it new in the mid 80's.
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