Friends –

A few years ago, I set up my shop in the basement of our old (1930’s) house.  There is one set of rickety wooden stairs which takes a right angle turn at the bottom.  Without any other egress and a very narrow door opening, I’ve been limited to mostly smaller/contractor versions of the “big” tools. as I’ve put my shop together.  The biggest thing that’s made it downstairs has been the 14″ Grizzly band saw, and getting that into the house and down those stairs was a real PITA.

As a workaround, I’ve built a workstation for my Dewalt table saw that is integrated with a router table and also serves as the outfeed for the saw and my Dewalt planer (see attached photos).  Everything is level and co-planar, and with a squared-up auxiliary fence for the saw (the stock one was WAY out), I’m able to do some pretty decent projects.  That being said, I learned woodworking at a school that had a couple of large Saw Stops, and I know what the difference is, both in terms of performance and safety.  Just having more power, a completely flat saw table, and a square fence would be a big improvement.

Anyway, I’m ready to move up to a Saw Stop, but due to the limitations of my space, I feel that the best solution would be to get the Contractor saw with cast iron tables, chuck the OEM stand and simply rebuild a similar setup around the new saw.  This will also let me keep my current Jessem lift and all of the storage underneath. Anyone here know this saw? Has anyone tried this approach, and are there any aspects of that saw that would make this setup problematic?  Anyone making fine furniture on this saw?  Thanks!