Some Assembly Required

This last weekend was a red-letter day for me, I upgraded to a cabinet saw! I’ve been looking to get a new saw for a while now. I looked at just about every saw out there. I knew I wanted a cabinet saw and at least a 3HP motor. I also wanted a useable blade guard, riving knife and a decent mobile base.

I had narrowed my search to either the new Delta Unisaw or Powermatic PM2000. SawStop was always on the list, but at the time I was doing my research they only had the Industrial Cabinet Saw and the Contractor model available. So, I had decided on the new Unisaw. The PM2000 was nice machine, but I really didn’t like the built-in casters system it had. I wanted to love the PM2000, but the new Unisaw won me over. I was just about ready to pull the trigger on buying the Unisaw, but then the economy took a nosedive. With jobs hanging in the balance I decided to wait.

In some ways I’m glad I waited. During that time SawStop came out with their Professional Cabinet Saw (PCS). This new saw competes directly with the new Unisaw and PM2000, in price and features. I took a long hard look at the PCS. For about the same amount of money, I could get the PCS with similar features and the SawStop safety feature. It really didn’t take me long to decide on the SawStop.

There are those who “criticize” the SawStop feature, saying it will give people a false sense of security. I’ll only say one thing about the SawStop feature. When has any new safety feature every caused more accidents? This excludes the complete moron factor, which there is no protection for or from.

I had planned to take pictures as I assembled the saw, but that just didn’t happen. Once past the initial box opening, the camera was forgotten.

Assembly of the saw was pretty easy and straightforward. The manual and other documents that come with saw were excellent. There are some great thinkers at SawStop, because they think about the small stuff.  How they packaged their nuts and bolts is brilliant.

You can see in the picture, that each group color-coded and each item in the group is numbered. The instructions tell you, you need so many #5 bolts from the Blue section. I can’t tell you how many tools I have bought, that just some with a bag of stuff and you have to figure out which screw or bolt you need. How may times have you put something together and discovered you used the wrong bolt and have to take the whole thing apart! This didn’t happen with the SawStop.

I only encountered on problem while putting the saw together. When attaching the cast-iron extension wings, I couldn’t get a perfect alignment. The front and back of the wing would line up flush with the top, but center “dipped” down a small amount. My brother said you can “flex” that into alignment, with a jack or clamps. I looked at him with some disbelief. I never saw cast-iron as being “flexible”. I wasn’t too concern at that time, I thought I would just call SawStop and see what they had to say. Today I shot SawStop an email, and within 20 minutes I had my response. They sent me instructions on how to “flex” the wings into alignment. I sent my brother an apologetic email, saying I will never doubt him again. They aren’t off by much, I’ll try the alignment procedure this weekend. I also need to check the alignment of the blade and fence, then it will be ready for action. I did a few test cuts and the saw is smoooooth. I don’t think I could be more pleased.

After I get a chance to use the saw on some real projects, I’ll post an update on how I think the saw performs. Below are some pictures of the saw, for your enjoyment.