Hello all. I have been preparing to re-open my furniture shop after closing it's doors due to divorce/machine liquidation. I have been lurking here for quite some time now, reading and catching up on whats new. I had a nicely equipped shop before, but am down sizing the scope and scale of my business, mostly due to financial constraints.

I am a huge fan of quality, vintage and semi vintage equipment. In putting my initial list of equipment together, I am looking at both the Rockwell model 10 contractors saw, and also a Craftsman 113 series saw. I have some time before I can afford to run 240v to my garage, so I am focused on 110v machines for the time being. Eventually, I will be expanding to a larger, seperate shop, but for now, I need to fucus on the one-car-garage shopspace model.

My question is about the saws. while I am intimately aquainted with the Rockwell, I dont know much about the Craftsman 113 series. I have been doing some reading here, and it seems the saw is regarded as a good, reliable saw. While I know what can be done to dial these saws in, I cant seem to bring myself to pop for a saw with the lattice style side wings. Does anyone know if there are solid Cast iron wings available for these saws?

Is the Craftsman up to the task of dimensioning hardwoods? 4/4 or 5/4 rough lumber is normally the thickest I use, but have been known to make trips into 8/4 lumber territory infrequently. Will the craftsman at least match up with the Rockwell, all condition issues being equal? Is this a saw I would be wise to at least consider for temporary production use?

I have a whole other shop lined out once I find a decent location, I just need this to be my stop gap/home use work shop set up. I would be pairing the saw with a good 6 or 8 inch, "old iron" jointer, and most likely a Dewalt planer, 14" bandsaw, and dust collection as my core machines.

All input is welcome, looking forward to hearing your experiences.

John