The New Delta Unisaw

[Joe Shinall]

I've had my Uni for 5 months or so and LOVE it, removable riving knife and blade changing ease are great.

That's the only thing I wish mine had was the riving knife. But it's not a make or break for the price to me.

[Chris Rosenberger]

Thank you Joe. I never noticed before, but the picture would make a good poster.

Thank you Stuart. What I was getting at is that the info in the videos & reviews is true. I had my saw before the magazine reviews came out. I do not remember reading anything in them that I did not agree with.

At the time I got the new Unisaw, I had a very nice Powermatic 66 that I had been using for about 2 years. Before getting the PM66 I used a Delta Unisaw for about 16 years. I had no plans to replace the PM66.
In April of last year I attended an open house at an area tool dealer. They had one of the new Unisaws on display. I spent a lot of time playing with the saw & talking to the Delta Rep. I was very impressed with the saw from the start. It was a very well built saw & the fit & finish was very good. The fence worked very smoothly. I could not believe how easy it was to raise, lower & bevel the blade. The front mounted bevel hand wheel was much easer for me to use than the side mounted wheels.

The arbor lock & the extra large blade insert opening made changing blades very easy.

Something I never gave much thought to was the riving knife, because I had never seen one in person. I had been using Biesemeyer splitters on the PM66 & old Unisaw. They worked great until I had to make a non through cut, because the splitter has to be removed for those cuts. After seeing the advantages of the riving knife & how Delta had designed it for very easy tool free adjustments I was sold on a riving knife.

Although I do not use it, Delta did another great design job on the blade guard. Again very easy tool free install & removal.

The drawer is well built & designed to hold a large amount of accessories in a well organized way. I just have a lot of items I needed to store at the saw.

I have never once regretted buying the saw & cannot think of anything I do not like about it.

[Stuart Gardner]

Wow - Thanks again Chris. That is awesome feedback. I'm going to put my 15 year old Craftsman on Ebay and get the Delta. As far as the Riving Knife idea goes, I realized I needed one about five years ago when I was ripping Mahogany and it was closing up on me behind the blade. I didn't know about riving knives at the time, but when they started coming out I decided I had to upgrade to a better saw with a knife. And I might as well get a good saw because I plan to keep doing this for a long time. Thanks again for the post. Hopefully others will use this thread to share their ownership experiences.

[John Pratt]

Do the front-mounted hand wheels really add much value?

To me it seems like one of those "solutions" to something that never really was a problem. In fact I'd rather have the wheels on adjacent sides of the cabinet because it's easier to remember which one controls tilt and which controls height...

But maybe I'm alone on that one.

I have the new Uni (36-L352) and I think the hand wheels in the front have a lot more to do with the one piece trunnion rather than convenience of use (I do find it handy though after you get used to it. I agree with the other owners that it is a great saw. Do I wish I had the blade brake? Yes, but all the other features that came on the new Uni swayed me. The only thing I find wanting is the dust collection. There is definitely some room for improvement there.