Anyone seen the new Porter Cable stationary tablesaw?

[Knottscott]

Lowes is now carrying a new PCB270TS. Full size cast iron with a riving knife, internal belt drive induction motor, and built in mobile base. It has much in common with the Hitachi C10FL and is at the same price point. $600.

[cgallery]

The Hitachi always intrigued me. With the addition of the riving knife it looks like a pretty nice package.

[Knottscott]

The update to the mobile base is a good move....the Hitachi has 4 individual wheels...8 separate actions for release and reset them. That fence has always looked to be a weak link in this class compared to others...wish they had updated that too.

[cabinetman]

That's cool. I like the casters internal of the legs. Do they make a cabinet saw?
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[Knottscott]

That's cool. I like the casters internal of the legs. Do they make a cabinet saw?
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I dunno if PC does, but Hitachi has a full enclosure hybrid that's pretty similar to their C10FL.

Hitachi C10LA:


Hitachi C10FL:

[natausch]

Hmm, does this mean the death of the Delta contractor saw?

[cdub101]

The Hitachi's in NJ are being cleared out for $499. Too bad that was the regular price last year before they raised the prce to $599. But they may keep dropping the price.

[Sonny]

Porter/Hitachi

Scott,

I purchased the Hitachi C10FL a few months back. LOVE IT. The fence on this thing is actually accurate, smooth gliding and just works very well. I was in Lowes just today and saw the new Porter 10". It's so close to identical to the Hitachi I almost thought Porter purchased it from Hitachi. The wheels were taken from Ridgids 3650 (much better setup), the blade guard is a little diff and it's a diff color. However, the one gripe I do have about my Hitachi is that Hitachi made zero accessories for the the c10fl which really burned me up because I really wanted a 30" rip, and the c10fl only does 24. So I was getting ready to make a custom extension for it UNTIL I seen the Porter. It COMES with a 30" rip!! And the fence and rails are IDENTICAL to my Hitachi!!! (doing a happy dance!!)) so I'm happy as pie now! I also noted that Lowes got rid of the Hitachi which would make sense as the Hitachi was down to 499, and the Porter is 599. Since they look almost identical, it might make it a lil difficult to sell the new Porter with it's (mother) sitting right next to it! Anyways the Hitachi is a great saw, just lacks accessories. I'm trying to find a parts list for the Porter right now so I can order the 30" rails!

Sonny

[WoodTherapist]

The local Lowes now has one of the Porter Cables on display. It is sitting right next to the Bosch 4100-09, which I have been considering. Both have a list price of $599. Both are 120V and are on wheels, which I need. But now that I have seen the Porter Cable, I think I am leaning towards it. It has a larger, cast iron table, a longer fence, longer rails, decent miter guage and is a much heavier saw. And the fence actually seems pretty solid, moves smoothly and locks down well. Not a bad looking saw for the price point. I would like to see some specs on miter slot/blade alignment, run out, etc. Being so new, I guess it will be a while before that info is available.

Edit: I should also mention that, while I didn't have time to play around with it very much, the guard, pawls and riving knife mechanism seemed decent. I didn't actually remove/reinstall the riving knife but the guard and pawls were easy to remove and reinstall.

[WoodTherapist]

More observations after looking at the PCB270TS in the store again today:

Throat plate: Easy to remove with a fingerhole – no tools required. The stock plate seemed substantial enough but was not zero-clearance, of course. Making a ZCTP could be tricky because it would need to be very thin in places.

Riving knife system: The riving knife looks like it was meant to be adjusted up or down or completely removed without tools, but I couldn’t get it loose. The design requires reaching in beside the blade and loosening a star-shaped knob. My hands are not big but the space was so tight I could not get enough leverage on the knob to loosen it. I’m sure a person could come up with some type of wrench or replace the knob with an adjustable lever or something, but the stock set-up is less than ideal. Other possibilities – (a) when the saw was assembled at the store, they over tightened the knob; (b) I completely misunderstood how the mechanism is supposed to operate.

Blade guard and pawls: They were easy to remove and reinstall and the design looked good from what I could tell.

Fence: It’s no Biese but for a $600 list price saw, it seems to be solid and doesn’t move when locking it down. It has rubber micro-adjust thumb wheels on both the right and left of the lock-down lever that work very smoothly. There were through-holes spaced along the fence which looked like they would be useful for installing subfences and accessories.

Tilt mechanism: Loosen a lever and rotate a wheel. After tilting the blade, the blade looked like it stayed in place when I tightened the lever. The lever did not require brute force to loosen and tighten. There is an angle indicator underneath a plastic insert on the tabletop in front of the blade, but I doubt that it is very useful except for ballparking an angle.

[dobbsj]

PCB270TS not a Porter Cable Saw

Lowes is now carrying a new PCB270TS. Full size cast iron with a riving knife, internal belt drive induction motor, and built in mobile base. It has much in common with the Hitachi C10FL and is at the same price point. $600.

PCB270TS is NOT a Porter Cable table saw. I received the following from Rebecca Matthews at Dewalt - Porter Cable

"This is not made by our company. It is made by a company called Rexon and they have the rights to brand it as Porter Cable. If you have a question on the product then you will need to contact them at the number I provided."

This saw has a NEGATIVE UL rating according to Lowes web site. I find it disturbing that people may think they are buying a Porter Cable when in fact it is not. Isn't this false advertising.

[Uncle Cracker]

What I find disturbing is that PC would allow their brand (as well as their reputation) to be put on an inferior product. Is nothing sacred? PC/DW is selling out, apparently indiscriminately. Sure, take advantage of brand recognition, but do a better job of picking the right relationships.

[cabinetman]

It just goes to show how much research should be done to be a smart buyer.
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[pelligrini]

This saw has a NEGATIVE UL rating according to Lowe's web site. I find it disturbing that people may think they are buying a Porter Cable when in fact it is not. Isn't this false advertising.

I couldn't find anything on the saw on Lowe's Website, but I'm wondering what a negative UL rating is. UL is supposed to be an independent testing company that certifies products (and assemblies) according to standardized tests and/or requirements. It is either certified or not, there's no rating or ranking that I know of.

I did find the saw listed in this http://directories.csa-international...sl/certrec.xsl as being in compliance with UL 987. Check the last part. Looks like Rexon makes a myriad of other tools too, I recognize some Ryobi model numbers.

[pelligrini]

OK, I found a cached Lowes listing http://webcache.googleusercontent.co...&ct=clnk&gl=us

It looks like they used CSA for certification instead of UL or ETL, but it does comply with UL 987. It's just that UL didn't do the certification.