A “Must Have” Tool - SawStop Review - 2007 - 2020.. My honest independent opinion.

hi there and welcome to WB fine woodworking I'm done today I'd like to review the saw stop that I have in my shop I bought this in 2007 so I've had it for quite a while [Music] in order to keep my facts straight I have the receipt that I have that I got for the saw I bought it on March 31st 2007 so I've had it for quite a while over 13 years now in those days this saw was known as the professional cabinet saw now today in today's market this is the industrial cabinet saw essentially the same exact saws the industrial cabinet saw except some changes inside and I'll share some of those changes that I know about with you but essentially it's the same as the industrial cabinet saw that we sell today in those days that was the only model that's all they had and at that time the rails and the fence and the extension table over there which I don't have by the way we're extra and so as you can see here I chose not to get those I decided to go a different direction and not to get the extension table so all those were extra in those days the price that I paid for just the saw was two thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine dollars but on top of that saw stop insisted on putting in a shipping charge from Oregon to Los Angeles for two hundred and seventy-five dollars so if you put those two together that's what I paid for the saw itself not any accessories that I bought at the time now I'd like to throw in here that saw stop and the people I bought the saw from have nothing to do with this review this review is totally by review I wasn't compensated for doing it everything that you see here I paid for myself in fact literally everything in my shop I paid for myself although a disclaimer for one thing I may be too and that's the show and the Hat I contacted SawStop soon after I bought the saw and I said are the shirts and hats available for purchase I'd like to buy some and the lady at the other end of the line will pleasant lady at saw stop customer services sir what size shirt do you wear and a few weeks later there they were in the mail so thank you saw stop but that has nothing to do with my review of the saw my first recollection of a table saw was back when I was a little child before I was in kindergarten in our first home my dad had a shop down the basement and had a table saw down there and I used to go down and watch him use it he made blanks for pipes custom pipes that he made in fact that's where the WB and WB fine woodworking came from when my dad had these little ventures that he did on the side he named them WB that was because his last two initials are WB my brother's last two initials are WB my last two initials are WB and even his grandfather's last two initials were WB so that's where the WB comes from him WB fine woodworking anyway I remember the table saw it was a very small one and I remember him cutting out those blanks that little table saw that my dad had was a Dunlap and it looked just like this one that I found on the Internet it was a nice little saw very sturdy but very small I used my dad's little table saw until Pam and I could afford to move into our first house and I bought one to put in the garage in those days Sears was the place to go for tools their tools were better than than they are today and so that's why I bought my first table side so I bought a Sears Craftsman table saw and put it in my garage the saw I bought in 1976 was very similar to this if not the same model I sort of every time I see a post on Facebook or elsewhere when someone finds one of these old craftsman saws and wants to buy it those of us that have experienced one jump in and say that the fences were terrible and they were the way the fence operated it was almost impossible to get it parallel to the blade Pam used to come out to the shop and help me whenever I needed to make a critical cut on my Craftsman saw she would hold a tape measure at the rear of the blade between it and the fence and then I would try to match that same measurement at the front it often took many tries to get it correct the blade guards of those craftsmen saws were terrible as well they were very flimsy and the mechanism that held them on to the back of the saw was very flimsy as well the connection between the blade guard and the mounting on the back of the saw acted as a splitter I cringe every time I see my buddy in Canada grant Alexander using his old craftsman saw it brings back those bad memories of me trying to use mine in my garage be careful with that splitter grant sometimes they lean to one side or the other and block the board as it goes past the blade that could be very dangerous according to grant the saw is very sentimental because it belonged to his grandfather of course that makes me feel old grant those times when Pam help me with my table saw were very instrumental when I asked her about getting a new saw stop she remembered how terrible my old saw was I can still remember vividly how I got the permission to buy the saw stop I had seen the videos online and I remember showing them to Pam one day and Pam looked at that and she said that's great buy one and I'm like they're expensive they cost a lot of money she didn't hesitate at all she said we'll find a way to buy it go ahead and order it if you happen to notice some dog hairs on my shirt in that last segment it's because Heidi decided that my lap was important to sit on when I was taking a break between recording segments and those videos also late because of Heidi as well because she just didn't want to get up obviously I noticed all that dog hair all over my shirt so I decided to change outfits what I'd like to do now is to cover all the features that I really like about the saw stop the power switch area for the saw stop is R unique to the saw first of all there's a main power switch and that is on the off position right now notice the lights here are not lit the saw will not operate when it's in this position I can pull the power switch nothing happens to activate the saw I have to flip that up in the up position [Music] notice the green light comes on and the red light blinks it's checking the system here and it's telling me that something is wrong switches from the front take three this is the main power switch for the saw stop it's in the opposition notice the lights are not lit right here these are two LEDs if I flip this up both come on the green is solid this blinked a few times once this stops blinking this red light once it stops blinking the power switch is activated and I can turn this on now watch what happens the green light blinks that's telling me that the saw is still spinning and the brake will activate if the blade is touched while it's still spinning once it's in green like this it's okay to use the saw again one thing that some people have noticed is that if if they're doing something on the side and they turn it off turn it back on it will not come back on until the blade stops turning then the palace which has to turn off and then come back on so the system has a whole lot of different overrides that are built in to prevent accidents speaking of override that's what this key is for back here this key can be turned and I will not do it but this key can be turned and override the brake system and when that's done you can cut metal or wood that's very very wet using the saw stop on the side of this switch panel this is the paddle switch here and the error code lights are over here and the main switch is back here on the side is a chart of all the codes and so if there's an error code that shows up in the lights this is where they're listed earlier I did have an error code and what it says here is that the key for the cartridge was not locked so when I was looking at the cartridge earlier and seeing if it would come in and out easily I did not lock that down and so that's what the error code told me needed to be fixed this is another on/off switch for the saw stop saw stop calls it the disconnect switch because it disconnects all of the electronics inside the saw right now it's in the on position I could turn it to the opposition there is a way here to put a lock on it so that it can be locked I always leave mine in the on position but if you were in a situation where you had children or the public coming in to be around your saw this would be another way to have their saw safely turned off so that no one can mess with it one of the things I really love about the saw stop is that the tabletop itself is so big if I measure it here without the wings it's 24 inches by 30 inches deep and then the width if I add the wings the width comes over to 44 inches that's a big top for a saw I also like the space between the front of the saw and the blade currently the blades all the way up and I still have 10 and 3/4 inches left in front of the blade so that's a lot of space for wood to sit on before it hits the blade some people get confused between the difference of a writing knife and a splitter what I wanted to do is lower the blade and you can concentrate on the distance between the blade and the riving knife now bring it back up what you should have noticed was that the distance between the blade and the riving knife stayed the same that doesn't happen with a splitter if this was a splitter as the blade lowered into the saw the distance between the blade and the splitter would have increased riving knives are attached to the trunnion so they go down and up with the trunnion where splitters are usually connected either to the insert or what the insert sits on and so splitters and riving knives are different the riving knife gives you the same protection no matter how high the blade is whereas the lower the blade the less protection you have from a splitter I'm sure by now you've noticed that this is a comprehensive review of my saw stop I'm sorry it's long but I'm trying to cover everything about the saw that I like don't like and showing you all the features of a saw stop one of the things I've set up here is I've set up a dial gauge between the miter slot and the blade to show you how accurate that is before you look at those numbers you have to remember that this saw is over 13 years old I have never made any changes on the orientation of the tabletop and it's been moved by professional movers once and no they were not professional movers that are used to moving shop equipment they just picked this thing up in my old shop put it on their truck took it off their truck and dropped it right here it's exactly where it was when they dropped it except for a few inches this way or that way so that when I built the outfeed table back there we could fit it in you may be as amazed as I was when I looked at the numbers on my dial indicator this is the front of the blade I moved the dial indicator back and moved that same exact spot the blade back to hook up to the dial indicator and you can see my number is exactly the same this is the inside of the saw stop looking from the top you can see here this is the riving knife this is a door that swings open it's a door that keeps the dust out of the bottom of the saw but when it's open it gives access so it's magnetic it's very easy to open and close one problem that I have sometimes if I forget to close it so is one of those things you have to make sure that you do I'll open it here now and show that the riving knife is easy to remove lift up on this handle jiggle it a little bit the blade guard comes with these anti-kickback pause or whatever they're called they get in the way I understand on the newer saws those can be removed but they fit on this model so I have to lift those up before I get the blade guard in and then I can release those now those will fit under the insert when I push the insert in close the door put the insert in and the saw would be ready to use with the blade guard taking the blade guard and the riving knife out left the handle up the door to the shroud is still open and you can see back in the back at the bottom here is this red handle that red handle is what locks the break cartridge into the saw to take the brake cartridge out lift up on the handle and pull out this locking key this locking key is critical to the blade brake system the saw won't work without the key in the cartridge and in the proper position I was feeling there where the hole is where I can put it back in if I push the handle down and it clicks I know that it's locked in so now if I put the right night back in to the saw close up the dust shroud door and if I put my insert in here the saw would be ready to go so changing out a break cartridge I'm not going to pull that break cartridge out but changing it out is fairly easy I used to have trouble with that lock when I first got the saw until just early this year it was very stiff I didn't really take it out any at all except when I needed to change out a blade after the break activated and it was very difficult to get in and out but it seems to work much better now and I've seen others that report after using the break cartridge key and changing it around and pulling it in and out that it gets better with Tony the saw stop comes with some really nice wrenches these are very sturdy and they have this rubber piece on them which makes them easy to hold this one goes here on the outside net if I can get it on there it's a gun a tight collars there we go and then down on the arbor hair shaft here there's a place where that one fits in and it's very easy to pull the blade off of course I don't want to drop the nut down into the dust collector so that's a difficult part of it is to make sure that you hang on to the net and hang on to this washer here but difficult to get that out that's usually not this difficult to get off in I can take the blade oh yeah while I have the blade off you can see better what the dust shroud looks like down in here it's very well designed and if I'll close the door you can see that the dust will go right down into the dust collection system at the bottom here's a close-up of the brake cartridge in the saw I know some of you are new here and if you're new here please remember to subscribe to our Channel we thank you very much for watching and we hope that you'll ring that letter to places though so that you'll see future videos from us ask any questions make any comments at the end of the video I'd like to hear from you [Music] what do you think joy this is the miter gauge that came with the saw stop it's okay it's better than many that I've seen out there it's very heavy-duty I put usually an auxilary fence on the front here's one that I have that I've made for the saw stop and I also have used this auxilary fence when I used to have the bandsaw tighten down the screws here and that makes a nice fence for the miter gauge I have some other auxilary fences that I've made when I use when I did 45 degrees with the blade tilted 45 degrees I have a short clip of that included in this review so you'll see that later Sal stop did include these brackets that will hold the miter gauge and of course if I have one of my long fences on it it won't store there but it will store there with this short fence on it so I found that very handy it's not saying around on the floor someplace or stuck on a shelf I can store it right here one of the things I don't like about this specific model of saw stop again this is now the industrial cabinet saw is this large access door that's on the right hand side it prevents any storage in this area in fact when I open it you'll see that it prevents storage even farther over to open the door press the little red button and it slides open now right now it's hitting my outfeed table so it won't open all of the way but you can see that that would severely limit any storage on the right hand side of the saw stop this is the right side of the saw stop with the access door open the trunnion is all the way down and it's set right now at 45 degrees so you can see why the big access door is necessary on this side of the saw now the trunnion is back to 90 degrees and you can see more of what's going on inside the saw let me reposition the camera so that you can see a little bit better in this view you can see the hose that connects the saw stop shrine up here this is the dust collection shroud and this is the door you could see how that connects to the back of the saw this angle gives a better view of the dust collection hose that comes out of the shroud at the top there and then goes out the back of the table saw what we're looking inside at the motor this is a five horsepower I decided on the five horsepower option over the standard three horsepower because the difference between the two was only two hundred dollars and to me that was well worth the $200 extra while I've never needed to use the extra horsepower it's just nice knowing it's there I've seen quite a few complaints about the latches for these access doors there's sometimes a pain to get laughs you have to get rocked in there we go some people have reported that these latches since they're made out of plastic and metal do break but I haven't had any problems except sometimes latching them there's a little difficult this is the backside of the saw stop showing how the dust collection comes out of the back of the saw I have this I'm a quick disconnect because I need to use the same tube for my planer this is the smaller access door that's on the left side of the industrial cabinet saw has the same kind of latch mechanism little smaller than the other one press the red button have access to the belts and the trunnion this trunnion is very heavy and strong it's all cast iron it's an extremely heavy trunnion the bets on the saw stop our serpentine belts you can see the ridges here and the ridges go into ridges that are on the pulley the what's down here up here is another pulley system and that has a serpentine belt on it as well but this is the mechanism the part of the SawStop trunnion that drops when the brake is activated so that's why it has these two pulleys now you can close up the access door this latch seems to work easier than the other one does but again it's made from plastic and metal these hand wheels on the saw stop are excellent they're very heavy-duty they're made out of cast iron and then polished and chrome-plated this handle here is on here very sturdy but it turns very nicely right now I have this all the way up it makes a little noise as I go down but not bad one thing they could have improved on is these knobs that lock it in place they're heavy-duty plastic but they're still plastic now I also have here the indicator for the angles for the saw stop and there's a little arrow here I'm not sure if you can see it through the hand wheel but a red arrow that points to it what I found is that the stop that I have here for 90 degrees is spot on and I'll show that a little later and the stop that I have at 45 degrees is spot on it's perfect and I'll show that later as well that's really all that I worry about I have a wicks li gauge that I can use to see if I can get it to the right angle nd place in between and even at the 45 and 90 I use the wicks Li to double-check so these hand wheels this is the one that raises and lowers the blade and this is the one that changes the angle of the blade now obviously this doesn't get as much use as the front one does but again it's very heavy-duty same lock mechanism I mentioned that the trunnion stops are spot-on this shows the 90 degrees I have it pushed right up to the trunnion stop and my wicks Lee Read's 90 degrees it's comforting to know that when I've set my saw stop tonight he's Brees that the cuts that I have like this rip cut and some of the ones I'll show here that require a 90 degree that I'm going to get 90 degrees unfortunately the sound of the table saw got left off of this clip this is when I was making the Tenon's for my workbench and you'll see that I'm going to be using a really unique jig for that this is a Powermatic jig they don't make them anymore I think they were just too expensive and people decided that they weren't worth the extra cost but having the saw at a perfect 90 degrees as obviously very important with a jig like this as shown by the wicks Lee that's on my blade the 45 degrees stop on my saw stop is spot-on as well this has been very helpful especially on a new project that I did just recently when I had to make a box for a trophy the people I was making the trophy for wanted mitered corners I made a special stop block for the miter gauge extension that I put on the regular miter gauge from the saw stop to cut the mitered corners for the trophy base that I was making that's how I cut the first miter on the sides of the trophy base next I turned the stop around so that that mitre that I just cut would fit into a miter on the stop [Music] that method worked great and these sides are all perfectly met I also use the blade-tilt at 45 degrees when I cut the prints cleats for my hems tool wall overrode my windows this ended up being a great project that I'm still working on I need to make more tool holders for it there are several videos on my channel about this project since I don't have a dado stack from I saw when I built this hinged tool wall for my windows of my shop I made the half-laps just with a regular blade on the table saw making half laps on the table saw using this method is very easy to do but also extremely time-consuming of course having a dado stack would make it much faster and perhaps someday I'll find the funds to get one that will fit on my saw stop that brings up one other issue about the saw stop not all dado stacks will work on a saw stock saw stop even recommends specific dado stacks so that's something that you might want to check out if you do get a saw stop one woodworker that I know was very disappointed but his great six-inch dado stack wouldn't work on a saw stop they have to be 8 inches I know a question that some of you have is have you activated the break and yes three times now the first two I know exactly what happened I had my equal miter gauge on the saw and I read into the blade bingo loss of blade and break the third time happened fairly recently and I'm not sure what happened I was ripping a board things would caddywhompus real quickly the break fired I looked at my hands nothing there I'm not sure what touch the blade but something touched the blade and the break fired so this is what a break activation looks like on one of my forest to woodworker two blades yes I wasn't very happy when it happened here I'm coming at it from the side so you can see how it's attached to the blade this is what it looks like from the other side I'm sure by now that most of you if not all of you have seen the hot dog test there are plenty of them available on YouTube if you want to watch one once the brake is activated the saw blade disappears very quickly underneath the table and the motor stops this photo shows the blade as it's retracting into the table it's just a blur this is a stop action shot of the blade and the break before an activation this is what it looks like when it's normally running when the break activates there's an explosion inside that breaks a wire that retains a spring that strong spring pushes the aluminum break into the spinning blade part of the break is designed to crumple under the force of the brake activation while all this is happening the blade also disappears underneath the top of the table saw because the Arbour drops down into the saw in this sequence you'll be able to see the actual teeth of the saw as it disappears into the table there they are one thing that I'd like to interject here is that mine's an old saw and it takes a different break cartridge than the newer saws I've seen some poor people that have bought one off of ebay and then realized that they bought one of the clear cartridges and that's what this is instead of one of the newer blue cartridges so you need to understand that there are two different cartridges what's different with the electronics in how it hooks to the saw I have no idea but for my saw I have to use the clear cartridges now that brings up another problem and that is these are not readily available in places like Rockler wood craft or other stores or even online knowing but SawStop seems to carry them so I can't get a cartridge without having to pay shipping to sauce up so I'd love to be able to see some other retailers that would carry the clear cartridge for the sauce up I have a gauge set up on the blade between the blade and the miter saw and I of course the big question that all of you have is would I recommend a saw stop and without a doubt yes I've recommended saw stops to people numerous times even back when it was controversial to have one because of some of the things that mr. gas was doing politically behind everybody's backs I think the sauce top is an excellent outstanding saw regardless of the brake system it's an excellent saw p.m. and I look at that extra price that we paid for the soft to include the brake system more like an insurance policy if I were to injure myself with the saw our medical bills even though we have good insurance would it be extremely high and I would certainly be out of commission for quite a while as well so I thoroughly recommend the saw stop some of the things that I recommend the stop for other than this construction and the brake and all that is this is a quality saw this is the owners manual it has color pictures in it they went to a lot of expense and a lot of detail most owner's manuals today you have to get a line to find them you don't even get a printed copy impressive company to work with the other thing is their customer service is bar none the best there is it is the best customer service that I have ever dealt with with any tool any machinery and pretty much anything else the customer service reps that they have are ones that know what they're doing know what they're talking about they'll give you hints as to what to look for and what to try to fix and they'll stay with you the whole time the last time I had a problem with my saw stop or I thought I did I called there summer service I put my iphone on the top of the table on speaker and the rep stayed with me for half an hour 45 minutes at least and that's the kind of customer service that they have so I kindly recommend SawStop no they're not paying me to say that I just say that because I think it's an outstanding saw [Music] this is the saw stop review for this is this opening sequence of the saw stop review for WB fine woodworking take 8 I'm sure some of you wanting minute I'm sure some of you are want to know if I've set off the break and of course it's all cooked in my court here over here we have a duster outdoor that can slide open for easy access down below you can see the death shroud is a very strong and well conducted this switch is a what they call a system or my first tabletop my first table saw I take for getting this latch to match can be a problem and I don't seem to be able to get it from this having a little trouble with it okay where did we get the money take one now you have to understand that Pam and I were school teachers and school teachers as most of you know in the United States don't make a whole lot of money but we did find a way to pay for the table saw but soon afterwards we got this notice from the school district with an extra check and what had happened is somewhere along the line someone in the school district office that we both work for somehow screwed up and they took out too much withholding on our income tax and so suddenly we get this check for almost a $5,000 that more than paid for the saw so sometimes you have to step out on faith and it comes to you later

Channel: WB Fine Woodworking With Don Bullock

Views: 5,955

Rating: 4.9379845 out of 5

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Id: LjcrREqa-As

Length: 40min 7sec (2407 seconds)

Published: Wed May 27 2020