|
a while back and, I have to share space in my garage with those darn cars so.I got the base for it so I can easily move it around. It was my first table saw purchase and I did some pretty extensive research on the various models and price ranges and decided on the DeWalt.It came in a box that looked like it had been sent through Haiti before the earthquake and survived but, all the parts were there and set up was relatively easy.To me, and my price range, I feel it is an excellent saw.
Then you can get the wing perfectly level and then tighten it down so it cannot move. It's easy to get it set accurately so that you can rely on reading the fence setting and not having to use a tape measure to set the fence. pretty generic miter gauge. Hand tighten all of these bolts so that the wing is stable, but still adjustable.
Just snug it tight. The blade that came with the saw is junk - get something better. The fence locks down as solid as I've ever seen - never had it move on me even a little. MOTOR: The motor is plenty powerful enough to cut everything I've thrown at it over the years.
The trick is to use a good quality thin kerf blade. The dado insert that I bought seems beefier and thicker steel than the standard throat plate - a little weird.3). the blade guard is disgustingly hard to attach and remove. The blade included is junk - get a better blade. the bolts. 2). The stamped steel wings were not hard to level to the table.
I was surprised at how easy this saw plowed through it as Brazillian Walnut is almost 3 times harder than oak, so I know that I put this saw through its paces. feet of 3/4" thick Brazillian Walnut hardwood flooring and used this saw to do the rip cuts where I needed thinner pieces near the walls. This gets the fence almost exactly parallel to the miter slots.Once you get the fence parallel - just don't overtighten the bolts holding the auxillary fence on - its just aluminum and can warp if you apply too much pressure via. Once its on it works fine, but it takes 10 minutes to get the thing on/off.
The Cons: 1). I'm happy with my purchase and am glad i made the decision to buy this saw. The wings are held onto the main table by five bolts. This saw cut through it like a hot knife through butter. The miter gauge is satisfactory. Mine was Made in USA as well - a bonus for me. all in all an excellent saw.
throat plate that is standard seems flimsy. In fact, I just completed laying 1000 sq.
I recommend the Rigid blade sold at home depot (excellent blade that stays really sharp). Dust control is adequate, but not stunning.
That being said I did upgrade one of them to the cast iron wing. The trick is to let the auxillary aluminum fence fall into the miter slot and then snug the auxillary fence face up to the edge of the slots and then tighten down the fence adjustment nuts (the three bolts on top of the fence).
I have used this saw for over 4 years now and it still works great. FENCE: The fence is easy to get parallel to the miter slots once you figure out the trick.
The steel wings are adequate and help increase the table size.
Our saw sees heavy use. It is used very heavily in my furniture shop with no problems. In the stores, these make this saw look so cheap. Well worth the cost. The slidding table is still dead-on on accurate. Almost unmeasurable runout on the arbor.
(No experience with the Dewalt rip fence). I find friendly new features every other time I use it. My top is dead flat. This was surprisingly easy: the mounting holes are pre-drilled.
This saw is worth what they charge for it. Precisely machined arbor shaft. But please, Dewalt, include at least one decent cast top extension. Ditch the sheet metal.It's 05/19/2009 and the saw is still chugging along nicely. And this is definately not a cheaply made saw; overall quality is very high.
Oh yes, the included cross-cut guide is absolutely wonderful. The DW746 scored at the top in a major woodworking magazine. I could go on forever. My copy of the DW746 is a joy to use. After using table saws at several friends shops, this saw is still the king of hybred saws in my opinion. No other saw offers this feature at such a price.
The sliding table is excellant and well worth the cost. Can't imagine how I ever worked with out it.10/23/2009 -- Looks like the testing people got it right this time. I have the sliding cross cut table and use a Vega rip fence instead of the Dewalt fence. The sliding cross cut table provides an amazing 26 inches of cross cut capability: great for cabinet makers. I ditched the odd 2 inch dust collector and installed 5 inch dust collection underneath the saw.
This saw fits right into our small shop. By the way, we build large one-off custom furniture and cabinet items. I don't quite understand why Dewalt insists on including the utterly worthless sheet metal table extensions. After initial adjustments for precise parallelism and correcting the 90 and 45 degree stops, this saw is dead accurate. I am still very pleased with the saw.
Most of what a fence is supposed to do. To keep the dust off the floor I slid a 20"X20" el cheapo furnace filter underneath. It probably streamlines their inventory. Rips are clean and glue ready. My previous saw was the Craftsman version of the BT3100 with the gravity rise stand.I will start by saying the title on the listing at the time said "(no fence)". Dust collection is pretty good. Definitely not good, and I would highly recommend swapping it out for even a low end 40-50T General Purpose or Combination blade.The fence is easy to adjust and locks tight and square.
It is not a 500lb. The stock blade is not bad. After a little fiddling I was able to get it dead square and consistent. The saw comes equipped as described on the DeWalt site with a fence, but no rails. I paid $600 for the saw and rails delivered to my garage.
3HP Beast, and does not claim to be. However at the list price it is overpriced. It came in a big yellow box upside down. It makes up to 30" cross cutting feel a lot safer with the miter clamp and being able to keep my hands away from the blade. At the price at the time I decided to roll the dice despite the listing title. I also added the sliding table and this is a nice add-on.
It is well made, and made in the US, and will serve me well for many years. However my Craftsman vibrated even less and consistently passed the nickel test. It is wrong. I think it all comes down to price. It was deeply discounted as I didn't actually need a new saw. My previous SMT was nice, but this one is more heavy duty. DeWalt sells the rails (either 30" or 52") as a separate accessory.
If you are in the market for a great hybrid saw this will serve you well as will many of the others. At $1,200 I would buy a Grizzly or Jet in the $800-$900 range. At that price a great value, no regrets. Cutting is cutting, but the noise while running doesn't leave me feeling guilty about turning it on after 8pm in my development. The base model dw746 does in fact come with a fence.
Amazon's free shipping had it to my house in a couple of days. It is also pretty quiet running. It saves me from sweeping the 10-15% for a few days.As for the final verdict. So if you plan on mounting a mobile base that would be the time.The saw runs true with little vibration. I recently purchased this saw from Amazon.
And the guy rolled it into my garage. You won't have a clean room, but I had a reducer for my 4" hose already and it gets a good 85-90% of the below table dust.
All in all, the saw was a good deal for the money spent, a year and 5-600 b/f of oak later, it might have been better to bite the bullet and get a cabinet saw, but what the heck, I can get another couple of years out of this one before looking for a replacement. Not a big deal, but added time to the entire assembly.Now to the operation, saw was pretty set, right out of the box, with some minor tweeking.needed for fence. I have found that a break in period i.e. Because of the 52 rails, some assembly needed to be removed to install rail components. Dust collection is fair, I have a steel city DC 1200 cfm connected but still I get a lot under the saw.
Just recently (still waiting for shipment) invested in a true cut system to replace the stock one, never could get it to sit right.and with the addition of a Incra 5000, makes cross cuts a snap. learning curve is necessary for any type of new equipment especially something as often used as a table saw.I bought the saw packages with the 52 fence, cast iron (steel) extension wings and mobile base. Instructions were generally straight forward, but would recommend going thru all of it before actually assembling the saw. Powerful and quiet the best way describe the beast, I do a lot of ripping on 4/4 red oak and have had very little saw related issues. As other reviewers have noted, the blade that comes with the saw is something that should end up on a chop saw, not making rip cuts. I wanted to wait until I have used the saw extensively before passing judgment on the saw.
Replaced this blade almost immediately with a Freud blade, could not be happier.Assembly of the saw with all of the additional do-dads took a couple of day, spending an hour or two at a time. Fence remained dead on and repeatable cuts have not been a problem.
|
