Just thought I’d let you all know, I got my first hands on with a new 3hp SawStop cabinet saw today. If nothing else, it is beautiful. The fit and finish is the best I’ve worked with in a long time. They’ve even gone the extra mile in the crating to avoid shipping damage.

Right of the bat, I noticed that it would be difficult to find a mobile base for it,  (I like to put the display saws on mobile bases so I can move them around the store). I read through the manual and found several notes about keeping it on a sturdy and level surface so I have to assume that mobility is not something that is intended. I never thought it made much sense to put a cabinet saw on a mobile base in a shop anyway so I wasn’t upset that the the curved bottom cabinet didn’t look like a good fit for the universal bases. It is something that my customers will question I’m sure.

I really liked the way they indexed the table wings. Obviously they were as tired as I am of trying to hold them in mid air with one hand and bolting them on with the other. Just for info, the trick to doing it on other saws is to hold the wing vertically and install the center bolt first then you just pivot it flat and put the other two bolts in. 

After I got the crate off of it and all of the protective poly wrap I put the wing on and checked it for flatness.. Dead on the money !!!. I then pulled the rails out of the box and put them on.. Not only did they fit perfectly but they went on easier than any other saw and were dead on without any adjusting. The black powder coat finish is a nice touch too!

The table legs are rock solid and can be adjusted both for height and at the mounting flange so you can actually get them straight. Very thoughtful.

Now that the primal portion of assembly was finished I thought it might be a good time to take a good look at the manual.

FINALLY…… A manual that has not be translated to English from another language. Either these folks did some fantastic proof reading or they wrote a separate manual for each language. My guess is the later.

Anyway, I moved it out to the showroom and started tinkering with it. Everything you expect to be there in a cabinet saw of this price is there. The dust collecting actually has a chance of working and is completely different than any other saw in this price range. The quick change, toolless guard to riving knife system works great. The blade alignment is straight forward and the procedure is in the manual!

I must admit, when I first looked at the fence I had my doubts but once I put it on and did a minor alignment, I found it to be rock solid.  At the far end with 50lbs of side force, it moved only 1/128th of an inch. By the way, I always wondered who came up the idea that you would ever put 50 lbs of side force on the far end of a saw fence. Well, the answer is…… When ripping a full sheet of Plywood (if that really is ripping), there can easily be up to 50 lbs or more of side pressure at the end of the fence. I know this to be true because I tested it with a fish scale. No, not the one from my tackle box that’s seems to be just a little off most of the time? I used a new one and I did see forces in excess of 50 lbs. Different methods would obviously flaw my experiment but lets just say that the fence passed my test with flying colors.

Of course, my understudy immediately remarked about my putting the blade on backwards.. He likes to think he knows everything I do but in fact he only knows what I’ve taught him. I informed him that if he would look around the showroom he would find that all of the display saws have the blades on backwards. This is so the customers that don’t know squat about safety and like to run there hands over things don’t cut themselves. With this saw boasting safety, I’m sure they are going to try the hand rub thing on the blade. I almost didn’t put it on but decided that it didn’t look like a real saw without it.

So, anyway, its all set up and running finally. This saw has a maze of switches to get it up and running. As far as safety goes this is a good thing but once you go through the drill you find the short cut and so it really makes no difference anyway. It is however, the one shortfall that I found in the saw. The paddle style OFF switch is too sensitive. A mere bump and the saw shuts down. I did not like this and can see it being defeated if it was in my shop.

Power is a just as you would expect from a 3hp saw. I have since learned that for the small amount of extra money, the 5hp saw is the only way to go so I would opt for that if I was buying one.

All in all, its a 5 star saw in my book.

By the way, putting the blade on backwards and using the saw is a no no. This can damage the saw. This was done only for safety purposes while the saw is on display.

Steve

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Edited 12/22/2005 11:22 pm ET by WhatKnot