Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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70 of 78 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Last time I buy Delta imports, December 5, 2000
Received item promptly, that's where the good things end. As expected assembly took several hours. Fussing to get table parallel and square to blade proved to be an execise in futility. Nothing on the unit is straight, square or flat. The upper bar the rail rides on was concave 1/8 th inch in on either end. Unacceptable when cutting sheet stock that needs to be square. The upper rail also tilted down several degrees when attached to the side of my contractors saw, I can't imagine that being part of the design. When I made crosscuts on material results were inconsistent. Overall quality and performance was poor. If I had known it was an import I would never have bought it. Now I must pack up an eighty pound box and schlepp off to UPS at Chrismas time to return it. Stay away from Deta imports!
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great add-on... with a design flaw, April 16, 2004
This is a great add-on product for shops that need a means of squaring sheet stock, but don't have nearly the floor space for either a real panel saw or the larger after-market sliding table attachments available (describes my type of work and shop environment to a "T"). The first thing that attracted me to this item was the fact it did not require support legs and allowed the saw to be shifted in position without having to re-align everything (my Unisaw is on a mobile base and is frequently moved to accommodate cuts). The structure of this product is solid and very well built with plenty of adjustment points to ensure the unit can be made as accurate as you wish (how accurate this product is has a direct correlation to the amount of time you spend setting it up). The installation took less than two hours, but you should allow the rest of the day to adjusting & aligning and then re-adjusting and re-aligning and then doing it all over again... and then very possibly doing it all over again the next day. The manual tells you how to make all the required adjustments, but does not explain how shifting one adjustment effects everything else. Not frustrating, just time consuming figuring it all out and patience truly is a virtue when setting up the Delta sliding table. Everything in the packaging was complete and undamaged, although the melamine table on mine was badly cupped, I hammered in a couple of wedges front and back to straighten it out until I can get a new one. Delta have made this add-on almost impossible to get information on (it took several calls to get Delta to post the manual on their web site), there is a total lack of specifications such as recommended floor space, size of the overall unit once attached to the saw etc. This was critical information for me and my small shop and took a great deal of digging to find out. FYI, the bars are 57" long that the table slides on and the fence is 42" long, you can use those dimensions to work out if this item attached to your saw will fit in your shop. Another minor point is the photo they use in the manual and on their web site shows this unit mounted on the contractor saw. This gave me the impression that this is really a light weight product intended for hobby or casual use. Kind of off-putting for commercial users who own a Unisaw, but fortunately this is not the case and I would rate this product for light industrial use. Many thanks to the other reviewers of this product herein, based on your reviews I did further research on this product; if all I had to go on was information available from Delta I would have bought something else. The reduced capacity of this sliding table did not turn me off in the least, not every shop that does cabinet making full-time requires the ability to deal with 4 x 8 sheet stock (my back gave out on that folly years ago). So I get suppliers (with real panel saws) to chop sheets down to sizes I can effectively deal with prior to humping them into the shop, the Delta's maximum 36" crosscut capacity is fine for 99.9% of what I do. Sadly, the fact that the fence must be re-located to the rear of the table to cut 36" and then adjusting and re-adjusting "square" for both the front and rear fence positions is a bear of a job, and in my humble opinion totally unnecessary... and also in my humble opinion the design flaw. With the fence in the front position it slides a full 10" past the point on a Unisaw where the fence has cleared the blade on a crosscut (even at maximum height). I realize this length of slide is to accommodate a 36" crosscut with the fence in the rear position. However, why not add that capacity to the front by shifting the bars the distance they overhang the back of the saw toward the front of the saw? This will add at least 10" of cutting capacity (and another 12" with the blade at an appropriate height for 3/4" stock) with the fence in the front position and forget about having a rear position for the fence entirely. This would eliminate the need to move the fence around and enable a much more positive and definitive positioning system for the fence on the table. I can't believe that I'm the first to make this observation on this product; but given the difficulties I had in even finding this product, one has to wonder about how much focus Delta has on the add-on market so I'm not holding my breath for improvements. Having said all that, next to the Unifence this is the best add-on product I've put on my Unisaw (or any of the Unisaw's I've used in the past 30 years). I should have done this years ago, great value (only slightly more money than "precision" mitre guides but with 100 times more capability) and thus far has proven invaluable. Highly recommended.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Second review, November 18, 2002
I wrote my first review when the sliding table was partially installed. I (obviously) was not happy at the time for the reasons cited in that review. However, to be fair to Delta, and to give my fellow enthusiasts the best portrayal of the tool, I am writing again. First, I was able to flatten the sliding table using braces and shims, though if you had the same problem Delta would warranty the table. Remember, mine sat in the box until the warranty had expired. I did order a replacement table from Delta in case my straightened table gave me more problems. Though Delta couldn't offer a warranty replacement, they did pick up the shipping charge (they offered, I didn't have to ask).Adjusting the table to the saw is a tedious task so plan on spending almost as much time on this part as bolting the pieces on. Be sure to verify that the travel tube is parallel to the saw blade as I had to shim (one less feeler gauge in the world) mine to get the alignment correct. Also, I set the table about fifteen thousandths above the saw table and I am finding this works fine. Once set up, the sliding table works as intended. It easily moves long or wide stock cleanly through the blade. With the setup disappointments behind me and some experience with the table, I now have to give it the "thumbs up!"
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