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32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Sturdy, fast set-up but grow some biceps, December 17, 2001
I do a lot of finish work where I need to set up in all kinds of environments. This stand is great in every environment I've encountered and sets up quickly. Once you assemble it and dial in the adjustments to the extension table it works great. Plan to spend a couple of hours for assembly and adjustment. I mounted an Hitachi C10FS using the supplied fiber board mounting table. Wider saws will require the use of the supplied mounting rails.After having used it for a year here's some advice. If you use the fiber board mounting table use fender washers under the small headed mounting bolts. Otherwise, the corners of the fiber board will tear out after repeated set-ups and tear downs. If you use plywood instead I'd still use the fender washers because the heads of the Delta mounting bolts are very small (and require an allen head driver) The carriage bolts Delta supplies for mounting your saw to the fiber board table work fine if you mount the saw once and never undo the bolts again. I substituted larger bolts with larger washers on the fiber board side. I also used nyloc nuts to make sure they didn't vibrate loose. You want to make sure the saw stays mounted securely otherwise it will get out of alignment with the table extension. I understand the reason for the tipover wings but these things are constantly in the way when going through doorways and when the stand is loaded in your vehicle. I've kept them on even though I've never had a situation where the stand wanted to tip over. I've wanted to replace them with a foldable extension that will double as a kick stand for the saw. You'll find that you want to store the stand in your garage or shop standing up (like your ladder). Delta's current design does not allow you to do this. The wheels prevent you from leaning it up against a wall because the stand simply rolls out. So, when you get it back to the shop you either store is lying flat on the ground or you unfold it and set it up. In both cases it takes up a lot of floor space. At the end of the day I typically don't want to spend any energy setting up the stand after I get back to the shop. I want to roll it in, kick down a support and stand it up against the wall. Until I come up with some kind of kick stand to replace the wings I can successfully lean it up against the wall by inserting 16 penny nail through one of the little holes in in one of the wheel spokes. This keeps the wheel from rotating past the frame because the nail acts as a stop. It's not perfect but it works. When you fold up the unit always fold up the side without the wheels first (the side with the foam covered handle). If you fold them wheel side first you'll have difficulty getting the legs to fold far enough to engage the "catch" and they'll unfold on you while you're wheeling it around. One design flaw I've found is the release mechanism for the legs. Typically you lay the saw flat on the ground and release the first leg by pulling up on the release bar. You'll need to grow some serious biceps to get the leg to release unless you relieve the tension on the release bar first by holding the legs up against the table bottom while you pull up on the release bar. Even then my unit is still pretty stiff. I plan to widen the catch saddle a bit in the hopes of mitigating this problem. You'll be tempted to apply some grease to the release. Don't. This will only attract saw dust and eventually make the problem worse. Another minor annoyance is the catch holding the roller extensions to the table legs. Mine often let go on their own letting the roller extensions flop out when I'm folding up the table. The catch saddle isn't quite deep enough to stay set. Deepening the catch saddle with a round file will cure this. This stand is sturdy and well made. Once you mount your saw it ends up being a pretty heavy load and a bit of an effort to load into the back of a truck or van. The intuitive thing to do is lift the wheel side up on to your bed then roll it in by lifting the handle side. The difficulty with this method is that there's no easy lifting point on the wheel side. You'll be tempted to lift by the leg release bar. Don't because you'll end up releasing the leg. I plan to mount a hand-hold on that end to make this process easier. Once you get the wheel side up on the bed you end up dragging the handle side on the ground. This isn't good for your foam handle. So I mounted a 2 inch section of PVC pipe over each end of the handle to act as a scuff pad. Lastly, I've never used Delta's material tip prevention bar. This is the brown bar that mounts to the stand like a small flag pole. Don't bother mounting this as this piece also is constantly in the way (especially during transport) and only ends up getting bent. Even with these minor imperfections this is still one of the best portable miter saw stands I've used. Get yourself an extra saw table extension (or two) and add some stick on measuring tape to it. This will make the table much more useful when you're doing a bunch of repeat cuts of the same length (like stair rails). The table supplied by delta is only 18 inches long and every time I've had a repeat cut situation the length exceeded the stock table length. (...)
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