A nice gloat

[Brad Knabel]

Hi All,

I've got a Dewalt DW746 that I got pretty soon after my introduction to the hobby. If I had it to do over again I would probably have saved up for a full cabinet saw, but hindsight is always 20-20. In reality I'm quite pleased with the saw - it cuts accurately and has enough power for my uses. I've decided to slowly upgrade the saw rather than upgrade to something else.

I had never replaced the stamped steel wings and wanted to see if the local Dewalt service center had them and for how much. So I wandered over there at lunch today. They didn't have them in stock and wanted a little more than Amazon wanted. By the time I added tax it would have been alot more.

As we were wrapping up the manager wandered by and mentioned that they had some stuff for the saw on the clearance table in their storage area. Someone went back to check and came back to report that they had a mobile base (which I don't need.)..."Oh and that sliding table, too."

I knew that I didn't want to spend the money for the sliding table but asked what they wanted for it. "24.99" - I said OK pretty quick and then got to thinking that I didn't want someone to lose their job just so I could save some money. I asked if they knew that it normally sold for about 500.00. The reply was "Not my problem. I didn't make the mistake. It's been sitting back there for 2 years"

It's heavy, but it fits really nicely in the back of my car. There's a small hole in the front of the box, but otherwise it's brand new. This is a deal I don't even have to consider hiding from my wife...

I'm gonna go buy some lottery tickets.

[Keith Hooks]

Brad, that's a great deal!! I'm a bit green, actually I have the same saw and I feel pretty much the same way you do about it.

[Andrew Ault]

Boy, what a great find! Good for you.

What could be more fun than a truly great find that you will really enjoy? My neighbor is a Coca Cola delivery guy. Yesterday, he was delivering to a supermarket and they were throwing away 2 new gas barbeques that were used for display. The manager of the store casually asked if he'd like them and he jumped on the chance. So, he got a new grill for himself and his son. How cool is that?



-Andy

[Tyler Howell]

He Shoots ans SCORESSSSSS!!!!

Nice haul Brad
And a couple of picx please.

[Jim Bills]

You will love the sliding table after you get it set up. Keep the little plastic plugs in the end of the slides until after you finish the set up. Those little things keep everything in alignment (DAMHIKT). My 746 has done all I have asked, and done it well, for my needs it is totally adequate.

[Corey Hallagan]

Nice score Brad, enjoy it!

Corey

[Vaughn McMillan]

Great haul, Brad. I took the liberty of updating your avatar to properly reflect the bandit that you really are for stealing the sliding table. (I figured the little one would also be following in Dad's footsteps, too.)

- Vaughn

[Brad Knabel]

Thanks for the kind words everyone.

Vaughn - that's classic. I'll have to show that to my son in the morning.

Jim - thanks for the advice. It came in handy as I was putting it together this evening. I 've got it together, but getting and keeping it adjusted is taking a bit of work. I've decided to call it a night and try again tomorrow. I seem to be able to keep it aligned in only one plane at a time. I think I just need one or two more tries at it to get it right.

Tyler - I'm too new here to sass the picture police. I'll get something posted ASAP.

The thing I find hard to believe is that these deals can still be had. If I had been the manager and was sick of tripping over something like this I'd put it on ebay rather than hide it in the back room. Barring that I'm amazed one of the employees didn't think of doing something similar.

I'm certainly not complaining. The only downsides (other than getting it aligned correctly) are that there is a small rust spot on the table top that I buffed out and I'm not allowed to use the language I need to describe how hard it is to get off three or four year old cosmoline.

[Chuck Harris]

A while back I was in the local Home Depot. I was chatting with on of the guys in the door section about stuff. He happened to mention that often items that are returned go straight to the trash. Things such as custom doors. Stuff where the mfg screwed up on the dimensions and other mistakes of that type. It seams to be that it's cheaper for the Mfg to write it off than pay for shipping and restocking. The guy said that was one of the reasons employees were not allowed to cary personell cell phone on duty. The stuff had to be trashed. Amazing what happens when the bean counters are in charge.

[Bill Lewis]

We once ordered some Anderson Casement windows at HD as part of for our last house remodel. Since it was 2x6 wall construction we also ordered extension jams, which didn't arrive with the order. We went back and they re-ordered the jams. However they apparently couldn't figure out how to order just the jams, because sure enough, the exact same windows showed up on the clearance cart, for half the price we paid. If I had only known to order the jams first I could've saved a ton of money.

Great gloat, gotta get the pics up to make it official. Oh, and BTW, I wouldn't recomend playing the lottery, I think you've used up all of your luck for the year.

[Bob Marino]

Brad,


Great score. I have the 746 with all the accessories, including the sliding table. Along the lines of your score - here's mine. When I first bought the sliding table (some months after I bought the saw), there was a problem with the slider, or more specifically the miter gauge - the slider still had play in it even after fully locking it down. Called Dewalt, went to the Dewalt service center, etc. Seems it needed some new washers. The washers were not yet catagorized in their system so they sent me a whole nuther brand new sliding table. That's one new slider for a problem with two tiny washers. Nice of them to do so, but soooooooooo wasteful.
BTW, the sliding table makes that saw a pleasure to use.

Bob

[Bill Simmeth]

I knew that I didn't want to spend the money for the sliding table but asked what they wanted for it. "24.99" - I said OK pretty quick and then got to thinking that I didn't want someone to lose their job just so I could save some money. I asked if they knew that it normally sold for about 500.00.

Congrats! Great gloat. And, I might add, a classy one at that. I think it speaks volumes about your integrity to check that it wasn't a mistake. Enjoy.

Bill in Delaplane, VA

[Brad Tallis]

Hey Brad-

Congrats on your sliding table. I always like finds like that.

I had a similar gloat recently... I have always wanted an Incra tablesaw fence, but I couldn't justify spending $500.00 + for a fence.

Anyways, I was surfing Amazon one day, and they had the fence listed for like $389.00. Not bad, I thought. So I pondered and thought and pondered, and thought... Well, I hit refresh on the screen and the price now showed $229.00! What! Well, I saved that screen and brought up a new screen and did a search for the Incra fence. It came up as the original $389.00.

So, I called Amazon and mentioned what I saw and that I had a copy of the page listing the fence at $229.00.

Here's the interesting part, and I hope this isn't a secret (which I don't think it is since they told me this)... The lady said that Amazon will mark down some items drastically for like 30 seconds to 2 minutes. This way, if you are surfing their page and you happen to see this price, it's like a "bonus for surfing our site" prize.

So, they gave me the fence for $229.00. Wahoo! It's currently installed on my saw and I love it!

Brad

[Dan Cameron]

I too have the DW746 and I agree that aligning the sliding table is difficult. If Dewalt had only saved themselves a dime and used three instead of four leveling screws alignment would be easy.

Now to sneak in a mini gloat, I have just upgraded my saw by installing a benchdog pro-max cast iron router table as the right extension. With my mini-shop this dual use of the floor space is essential.

[Brad Knabel]

Bob - nice score. So did you sell the extra table or have you come up with a way to mount it on the other side of your saw?

Bill S. - I don't know about classy. I'm just saving up Karma so I can be really nasty in retirement.

Dan - Not such a mini-gloat - that Bench Dog table looks pretty nice.

Brad - Now I'm going to spend the rest of my day with Amazon's TSIII page open in my browser and hitting Refresh every five seconds. How long have you been in Fort Collins? Prior to moving to Pittsburgh I lived in Denver for the last 25 years except for a stint from 88-92 in Fort Collins for college. I took the liberty of looking at your web page. You do really nice work - both the alabaster and the write-up are excellent. Have you taken instruction from Max Krimmel or did you pick this up on your own?