On Wed, 02 Nov 2005 07:44:01 -0600, Frank Boettcher
wrote:

[snip]

In your case, I might suggest that you purchase another brand if you
are so dissatisfied.

Whenever I've gotten this recommedation, I always take them up on it.

BTW, 14 months ago I posted the following:

I used to own a 15-year old Craftsman contractor's saw. With a little
adjustment, the blade was parallel with the miter gauge slots, the two
open rib cast iron extension wings were perfectly flush with the table
top and the arbor run-out, measured at the base of the blade gullets
was 0.003". The fence sucked but I learned to compensate and live
with it. With only one hp, rip cuts on hardwood were---excuse the
pun---hard, but doable. Being completely open, dust was a big
annoyance. Nevertheless, using the saw I built a 1200 sq ft addition
to my house, a few cabinets and all the other little things a home
handyman does.

Recently I've become more interested in doing some simple furniture
building and some kitchen and bath remodeling so I figured I could
factor the cost of new tooling into the *alleged* cost saving of DIY.

Thus I succumbed to the siren call of the CABINET SAW and decided to
buy one. But which one? Using comments in this forum, product
reviews, etc. etc, I decided for various reasons to buy American and
get me one of them Unisars.

In other threads I railed against what I perceived as lousy quality
control and the fact (in my mind) that manufactures didn't sell saws,
they sold saw kits; a bunch of parts that needed to be finished by the
sucker-err---buyer, to complete the construction. I gotta a lot of
flack over that one so without further ado or editorial comment
follows the ongoing story of the Delta Unisaw...

1. Decided to buy locally (glad I did) from Woodcraft during
their March 10% off sale. Went with a 30" Biesemeyer fence and Delta
mobile base. Paid all of $15 extra for home delivery.

2. Week later, saw arrives. Two Woodcraft guys deliver in PU
truck with no lift gate. Call next-door neighbor over and four of us
skid it down a couple of 4x4s without incident. Tilt indicator was
bright red before unloading and big hole in box but no apparent
damage. Sell Craftsman saw to neighbor for hundred bucks.

3. Manage to single-handedly get saw off pallet onto mobile base.
Work stops here during three-week trip.

4. Back home, back to assembly. Options a open all boxes and
do inventory and then lose parts before they are needed; or, wait
until parts are needed to open boxes. Choose second option.

5. Assemble left-hand cast iron extension wing. Doesn't line up.
Make it flush with the table front and rear and it sags 8 thou midway
along the joint line although one inch back from the front, the
extension is proud 4 thou. Left front outside edge of extension
droops 20 thou.

6. Call Wendy at Woodcraft. She says Delta will drop ship
replacement to me. Work stops for a week.

7. UPS man brings new extension wing. This one is worse than the
original! The finish is horrible. On both wings, it appears than
when the grinding wheel was introduced to the iron there was a lot of
chatter. The first couple of inches bear witness to this by being
very rough and showing the wheel marks. If I eat enough Wheaties, I
can turn this thing upside down and use it as a wood rasp. Say to
hell with it and reinstall original extension wing. Determine that
part of the misalignment is an artifact of the main table having a
high spot at the left front edge. Aligning the wing to this spot
creates misalignment along the rest of the interface. Use flat
grinding stone to hone this high spot down and fiddle fart around
until I figure it's good enough.

8. Install front and rear angle supports. Instructions say that
front support that holds rip fence rail must be installed to exact
dimension of 2 27/32" below table top. No way in hell will this
happen without enlarging mounting holes in table top. Start
elongating holes with rat-tail file. Slow going. Decide that since
angle surface is too low, another option would be to add shims between
angle and fence rail. Bolt on fence rail using ¼" flat washers as
shims. Works dandy.

9. Time to mount the laminate extension table. Manual says, and
photos show, mounting of "Z-bracket". No Z-bracket to be found in
boxes. Call Woodcraft. They say they will call Delta and call back.
Next day after not hearing from Woodcraft, I call Delta. Guy says,
"Oh, the Z-bracket isn't used with Beisemeyer fence, the manual is
wrong." While I have him on the phone I mention misalignment of fence
rail. He says, 'Be glad that it's too low, that way you can use shims
for alignment, some of them are too high then you have a real
problem." Lucky me! I also mention extension wing problem. He says
he will send another.

10. Ten days later, UPS man comes with extension wing. The box is
completely shredded and it is obvious that somewhere along the line,
the extension has exited the box and landed on a corner against a hard
object. Besides the bent corner, the finish is as rough as the
others. Unless Delta sends somebody out to retrieve this one, I now
have a heavy-duty surface plate of questionable accuracy.

End quote. Non-editorial mode -off-.

It appears to me that Greg has been fair and balanced.