Hey everyone,
I didn't take pictures or anything (yet) but I just wanted to give my initial impressions of the exaktor ex26x. The product is full of heavy components. The manual is adequate but not incredibly descriptive. You have to be somewhat mechanically inclined to get it right. I would not recommend leaving the extension wing on the saw as the distance from the table to the blade is already less-than-ideal without it. I can't imagine an additional 8" or so being tolerable unless I was only cutting very large panels.
1) I had to cut the fence rails on my unisaw to accomodate the exaktor. This is true with most sliding tables so I wasn't too upset. I never really rip to the left of the blade anyway, so whatever.
2) I bolted the exaktor to the middle and rear bolt holes initially but after I realized that the crosscut capacity with the fence in the default positition was around 20", I moved it back. The rails now project about 11" in front of the saw, but this isn't really noticable or a problem. I find myself accidentally bumping the legs of the sliding table more often than I find myself bumping the rails.
3) The instructions make it appear as if the rails are supposed to be coplanar. This isn't really the case. They are supposed to be in parallel planes, but the left rail (the one that the bearings glide on) is actually a few inches below the right rail. This was confusing as I spent a significant amount of time wondering if the instructions were wrong.
4) Adjustment of the leg height and mounting plate height is somewhat tedious. I opted to reverse a few parallel clamps and use them as spreaders against the floor to level the table and set it in plane with the table saw. After this, I then secured all the legs and bolts.
5) Adjustment of the tracking is somewhat tedious as well. It requires setting a few of the bearings, testing, loosening a component (like the crossmembers), retightening, re-setting the bearings, sometimes even re-setting the leg height, etc.
6) Ultimately, if you put steps 4 and 5 together, the majority of the install is fine-tuning the thing. Using spreaders for leg height is preferable as the whole process is very iterative and each successive attempt gets you closer to an ideal setup.
7) Once setup, product usage is excellent. I frequently crosscut 96" long panels without a problem. With the fence in the "normal" position, I can crosscut a 30x96 panel easily.
My two gripes:
A) The fence, while accurate and stable typically, should not have a clamp mounted to it. When in use, the clamp has a tendency to warp the fence as much as it holds down the material. This is a noted problem - I think I may seek alternative ways of building in toggle clamps. Anyone with ideas here? Maybe mounting directly to the table instead and removing if necessary?
B) Once set up, it's fine, but the legs should have levellers instead of just set screws. and maybe a couple of optional leg cross-members might prevent the errant kick?
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Originally Posted by Brian Backner
