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I put some Christmas gift cards to use, and picked up one of these at the new lower price ($369) offered by the Blue BORG. This addition supplements my Ryobi BS903 (which will be relegated to light duty.)
Assembly, from opening the box through adjustments and test cut, took about 3 hours - I took my time, added a mobile base during the process, and cleaned and waxed the table before use - so otherwise may have completed in the 2 hours indicated by the manual.
Everything was well packaged in the very large box that holds the components in two levels - parts for the open stand, the table, assembly hardware in the top layer, saw assembly, motor, and belt guards in the bottom layer. All parts carefully wrapped to prevent in-box damage, and the hardware was grouped and bagged separately, and the bags were tagged with numbers that tied to a packing list which explained each bag's contents. This made the assembly process a little confusing, since the assembly instructions didn't use the same numbering convention, but only gave the spec - e.g., "M8x1.25x16mm carriage head bolt" - which needed to be crossreferenced to the packing list, which read "M8x16 carriage head screw" to find the bag number with the correct parts. In one case, the instructions called for a Round Head Flange Screw, which turned out to have been substituted with a carriage head equivalent - but this was not mentioned anywhere, and I had to figure it out by counting (and re-counting) the bolts to be sure.
This is a hefty unit, weighing in at 225lbs. It's open-stand, and the stand is beefy and heavy in its own right - I would guess about 30lbs assembled. The motor must have weighed around 25lbs (like a good-sized starter motor for a 350-V8); the table I'd guess was about 20 lbs of cast iron; and the saw assembly is all the rest, so that'd be around 150lbs. I count myself as good sized (6ft, 210), and it was a bear to get the saw assembly out of the styrofoam and upright by myself, and even with help it was an effort to lift the saw onto the base - definitely a two-man operation for that (as recommended in the manual.)
All the parts are good quality - all hole alignments were right on, everything lined up easily (such as aligning the motor on its mounting plate so that the motor pulley and lower wheel pulley were co-planar.) No cheap hardware - I used a socket wrench to put the nuts on all bolts, and could crank tight without fear of stripping threads. The table mounted easily to the trunions, and was square to the blade without any adjustments. I rated quality as 4 only because there seems to be something going on with the upper blade guide assembly - when guide is up, and blocks are set, then guide is lowered, blocks need to be reset, so there must be some minor guide-shaft runout.
The saw runs smoothly and quietly - no vibration. The blade tracked on center right out of the box. The gratuitous 16x16in table is nicely machined, and pre-drilled for optional fences. The throat insert - thick gauge metal, not plastic - came with sticker-shims for flushing to tabletop. The quck-release tension lever is so much nicer than that of my Ryobi.
The stock blade, which appears to be 1/4in 6tpi, did a decent job on 3/4in oak, and I've put a couple blades on order, including a 1/2in 3tpi resaw blade, and will repost the results of resaw trials on 6in stock when that arrives.
Assembly, from opening the box through adjustments and test cut, took about 3 hours - I took my time, added a mobile base during the process, and cleaned and waxed the table before use - so otherwise may have completed in the 2 hours indicated by the manual.
Everything was well packaged in the very large box that holds the components in two levels - parts for the open stand, the table, assembly hardware in the top layer, saw assembly, motor, and belt guards in the bottom layer. All parts carefully wrapped to prevent in-box damage, and the hardware was grouped and bagged separately, and the bags were tagged with numbers that tied to a packing list which explained each bag's contents. This made the assembly process a little confusing, since the assembly instructions didn't use the same numbering convention, but only gave the spec - e.g., "M8x1.25x16mm carriage head bolt" - which needed to be crossreferenced to the packing list, which read "M8x16 carriage head screw" to find the bag number with the correct parts. In one case, the instructions called for a Round Head Flange Screw, which turned out to have been substituted with a carriage head equivalent - but this was not mentioned anywhere, and I had to figure it out by counting (and re-counting) the bolts to be sure.
This is a hefty unit, weighing in at 225lbs. It's open-stand, and the stand is beefy and heavy in its own right - I would guess about 30lbs assembled. The motor must have weighed around 25lbs (like a good-sized starter motor for a 350-V8); the table I'd guess was about 20 lbs of cast iron; and the saw assembly is all the rest, so that'd be around 150lbs. I count myself as good sized (6ft, 210), and it was a bear to get the saw assembly out of the styrofoam and upright by myself, and even with help it was an effort to lift the saw onto the base - definitely a two-man operation for that (as recommended in the manual.)
All the parts are good quality - all hole alignments were right on, everything lined up easily (such as aligning the motor on its mounting plate so that the motor pulley and lower wheel pulley were co-planar.) No cheap hardware - I used a socket wrench to put the nuts on all bolts, and could crank tight without fear of stripping threads. The table mounted easily to the trunions, and was square to the blade without any adjustments. I rated quality as 4 only because there seems to be something going on with the upper blade guide assembly - when guide is up, and blocks are set, then guide is lowered, blocks need to be reset, so there must be some minor guide-shaft runout.
The saw runs smoothly and quietly - no vibration. The blade tracked on center right out of the box. The gratuitous 16x16in table is nicely machined, and pre-drilled for optional fences. The throat insert - thick gauge metal, not plastic - came with sticker-shims for flushing to tabletop. The quck-release tension lever is so much nicer than that of my Ryobi.
The stock blade, which appears to be 1/4in 6tpi, did a decent job on 3/4in oak, and I've put a couple blades on order, including a 1/2in 3tpi resaw blade, and will repost the results of resaw trials on 6in stock when that arrives.
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