The old 4 x 6 Ryobi was making sounds you don't won't to hear. Might have been the brushes, but that is usually a noiseless affair till the last breath before the vital signs cease to exist. 6 years or hard driving and $99 latter, not bad but not "just" what I needed.

I looked at the Jet 6 x 9 for $399. Nice but the price was a bit much. I can't justify that much machine in my case with frequent, but still occasional use. I watched and waited for one to appear used.. but not in a 3 month period did it happen. I looked at others.. but in the range I needed the Jet looked better retail than the Delta to me at a lower price. Others got looked at on-line and specs examined so I could purchase and put the matter behind me and move on.

Then one day it appeared on the shelf at Lowe's. Not my local store which I go in every other day. Happened by another and "one" sat underneath a shelf un-opened. No display there.. no pictures had been available on-line at the Hitachi site or Amazon. But.. I did read the specs and the price was $149.

Normally I would not purchase a tool without a heavy going-over. But.. in this case I rolled the dice as there was just one and I had been looking for weeks for "one" to appear adn I have faith in Hitachi as my SCMS's are excellent. So is a 1/2" drill with more torque than a Milwaukee. I just wrote the check and loaded it in the pick-up for the ride home and to see if the gamble paid off.

Mounted it.. not much else to do with the exception of clean up the miter table. Not the "flimsy aluminum one" you expect with anything under $300 with the little "rinky-dink" miter guage you throw away the first day. A real "cast iron" heavy table and mounted it didn't roll off to one side. It serves both under the belt and disc. Will be calling Hitachi Service Center here in Atlanta Monday morning and if a replacement is available at a reasonable price, will purchase another table to avoid swithing. It's that good under a $149 price tag for the whole "shooting match".

It has a dust bag and when you turn it on.. it fills with air immediately. Take if off and there is a large volume of air coming "OUT" the port. I don't know if there is some type vacuum inside with blower, but this little fella has got the best dust collection on any Combo I've seen at any price. Add an adapter over the port (Hitachi is notorious for putting one size port on below a standard 2 1/2" Shop Vac size) and thing even get better. The only draw-back is the bag for those using it is 30 micron and that means the "killer dust" gets re-circulated. I'll stick with the Shop Vac and HEPA filter with drywall bags inside.. thank you Hitachi!

Belt tracking was as easy as scratching your... well never mind as it was quick to respond and settled in homed on target in under 10 seconds. I have a Bosch belt sander that should take lessons from it.

Quiet as any I've seen, and much more so than the Ryobi. The belt rides smooth on the platen and no roar as a good band-saw should in idle. I ran some yellow pine though and all was well. Took a piece of pecan (hickory family) and tryed to stop the belt and disc by really loading the belt. It slowed down some when I really got in the throttle hard, but not to the point that it appeared the machine would stall. I was impressed even though I knew Hitachi had beefed the motor to 5.5 amps and that's more than most in the class.

Belt speed is 1850 FPM and disc is 3000 RPM which is about what it needs to be on any amp or HP. Belt goes horizonal or vertical which is where I prefer it to be. Cast iron table switch is quick.. even though I prefer to have a dedicated table on both operations as on the more expensive machines (ala Jet.. Fisch.. etc.)

Machine at 49 lbs. and I ran it before mounting to see if it would vibrate. It did not even though I didn't run stock through till after it was cabinet mounted.

My impression of the machine and price. Well done and I expect it will become a heavy-weight in it's class as I see it. Time will tell more as at this point it has extremely low miles.

And don't let the extra $25-$49 over the competition scare you.. you have to pay a wee bit extra if you want cast iron. Is it worth the $149 and in my case $11 sales tax? At this early stage Yes and you could say I think this is a
Bargain Alert even at retail.

The trick is just finding one as Hitachi has done the rest in this case, IMO!

Regards...

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