Popular Woodworking 2005-10 № 150, страница 91

Looking a Little Deeper

After a couple of weeks of use we noticed some things on the saw that were slightly disappointing in a saw costing nearly $3,000.

The rip fence is offered as an option and is priced about the same as a Biesemeyer fence. But it fell short of the Biesemeyer fence's high quality. Our initial fence had some sloppiness and a bow in the face. The manufacturer admitted some manufacturing difficulties and replaced the fence with a better version.

When setting the fence, we found the cursor nearly unreadable, and we pulled the cursor off our Powermatic 66 to replace it about a half an hour after the saw was put in service. The scale on the fence rail was also hard to read, with all of the fractional lines the same length. We also replaced this. Again, after speaking with the manufacturer, we were told that the scale was already being replaced for future shipments.

The saw has a two-wrench system for holding the arbor to change blades and that's a good idea. But the wrench openings were slightly oversized, chewing up the nut after a short period.

The opening in the tabletop to reach the blade has plenty of room to the left of the blade (where you never put your hand) and not enough on the right.

That space is also the main access to change out the SawStop's cartridge. It's necessary to switch cartridges every time you switch between a dado set and a regular blade, and we found that changing the cartridge didn't take too long after a couple swaps. We did find that one of the two posts that the cartridge mounts on isn't visible from above. To get the cartridge started you have to do it by feel, or crawl under the outfeed table.

We tested a 3-horsepower model of the SawStop cabinet

4TA

Pawl brake cartridge

Locking key

The pawl brake cartridge is shown here in place in the saw. The mechanism mounts over two studs and is held in place with a locking key. Changing out the cartridge (a wider pawl brake is required when using a dado set) is easier than we anticipated.

Here you can see the resu lts of a standard test of the saw. A hot dog (used to simulate a digit) was laid flat on a board and pushed quickly into the spinning blade. The pawl break cartridge functioned perfectly here, stopping the blade very quickly, and only nicking the hot dog.

saw (5 hp also is available), and were at first disappointed because the motor felt underpowered. Another chat with the manufacturer identified a problem with the belt. Once replaced, the saw performed like a 3 hp Unisaw.

The blade is shrouded to improve dust collection (which it does). A door is mounted on the right side of the shroud to allow access to the SawStop cartridge from below the table. We found that this door can be stuck open against the saw frame. If this happens, tilting the arbor can snap the door off (as we did).

Along with the riving knife, a standard blade guard is included. While the guard was an improvement over most stock blade guards, it couldn't be used when making very thin rips (when you would want to use it) and the anti-kickback pawls interfered with pushing work past the blade.

The Mechanism

Of course you want to know how the safety mechanism itself functions. We have good and not-so-good news about that. The by-now well-known hot dog test provided dramatic and perfect results, stopping the blade immediately with little damage to the hot dog.

But we also had an accidental firing of the brake mechanism. After changing the blade cartridge over to our dado set the cartridge fired as the saw was turned back on, damaging one of the cutters on our expensive dado set. SawStop shipped a replacement cartridge overnight, but if you were operating a business, you'd be out $60 to $70 for a new cartridge as well as the price of a new dado set.

Representatives of the company told us that the computer chip information from the fired cartridge indicated that the space calibration between the blade and the pawl was at fault, though we'd successfully used the same dado set and cartridge on the saw a number of times before the misfire.

The Bottom Line

It seems like we're beating up on SawStop here, but overall we think the saw is a success. We're more than willing to chalk up some of our disappointments to a first-time saw manufacturer. We feel confident SawStop is currently addressing many of these concerns in a proactive manner. As these improvements continue, the steep price of the saw will be more reasonable in light of providing a safer saw alternative. PW

A riving knife serves as a splitter behind the blade, keeping material from binding after being cut. More importantly, it moves up and down with the blade and can be used when making grooves and dados, while a standard splitter can't.

PROS:

+ Beefy trunnions

+ Riving knife

+ SawStop system for safety

+ Dust-collection shroud

+ Oversized on/off switch

+ Generally well-made saw

CONS:

- Cartridge misfire with dado

- Poor fence scale

- Overvalued fence

- On/off switch too easy to hit

- Expensive

- Caution is required with dust shroud's door

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