Question on table saw features

[Stephen Saar]

I know there are a million different posts on this forum about which table saw to buy, but in this case I'll try to stick to just the facts that I'm most interested in. I currently have a 10" Craftsman Hybrid table saw. It's not a bad little saw, but I've become frustrated by a few things.

1. If I tilt the saw to 45 then move the blade up and down it tends to cause a +/- .2-.3 degree shift. At 90 degrees it still does it, but only by about .1 degrees, but I've noticed at 45 it gets worse.
2. The blade does not retract all the way down below the bottom of the plate. This is kind of irritating since if I try to make zero clearance inserts I can't put the insert on, then raise the blade up. I can work around this on 90 degrees by just hand dropping the insert on the blade while it's running, but don't feel to comfortable doing that. At 45, or pretty much anything past 90 I start running in to trouble. I can get around this by milling out the part of the insert that the blade would hit, but this is still kind of annoying, and I don't like having to have a thinner section right where the blade is. For reference, with my blade fully retracted it's only about 1/4-1/3 of an inch below the top of the table.
3. The saw isn't as powerful as I would like. Course guess you could say this of most any tool. :-)
4. I think I would like a riving knife, I've never used a TS with one so I can't be sure, but it seems like a very nice feature.

There are a few other odds and ends, but those are the main points. Now before someone jumps in there and says get a Unisaw, or a Felder, or Sawstop. I like all those saws, but I can't really afford them. I'm looking for a cabinet saw in the sub 1500 range. Currently I'm looking at the G0691, or the G0690, but I'm not sure if those will fix items 1 and 2. I feel pretty sure it should fix item 1, since I would hope that most decent saws shouldn't have that issue, but I don't really know about number 2.

Any advice is welcome.

-Stephen

[Tom Veatch]

...
2. The blade does not retract all the way down below the bottom of the plate. ...

I cannot speak to every tablesaw model available, or even to those you mention as being of interest. But, what you describe is not an unusual condition. My Jet cabinet saw (JTAS-10XL) is the same as your saw. The insert is about 1/2" thick and making a ZCI requires a clearance cut on the bottom to clear the blade. I usually make that cut as a short stopped dado using a router and haven't found the relative thinness of the the insert over that small distance to be a problem.

[scott spencer]

Hi Stephen -

1. You might find that shimming the trunnions a little might help the issue with the .2° to .3° shift. It's likely a fine tuning issue...not sure how common of an issue this is.

2. The easiest work around for cutting a slot in a new insert is to use a blade smaller than 10" in diameter....possibly a circular saw blade or an outside cutter from a dado set. You're likely to encounter this issue with most saws.

3. Good alignment and proper blade selection can help the perceived cutting power of your saw quite a bit. I was typically able to cut just about anything to full blade height with my 22124 without significant struggle. It also helps a lot if the stock is flat and straight. Undoubtedly a 3hp cabinet saw will help even more.

4. There's also an aftermarket retrofitable riving knife that fits the Craftsman "zipcode" hybrids saws called the ************ (Bolt On Ripping Knife) from Walnutacres Woodworking. (more info at the "The****STORE.com")

With all that said, I really liked my 22124 but I've gotta admit, my Shop Fox W1677 3hp cabinet saw is in a different league.