New delta 36-725 13 amp contractor table saw

ryan50hrl said:

Virtually all saws have both aluminum and steel parts.....i've never seen one break due to corrosion. Heck....many of the craftsman and ridgid saws have a motor with aluminum end caps and a steel body......you don't see the motor breaking in half....

I think your right though.....we're beating a dead horse here......

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IIRC, some of the older Ridgids and Cmans had aluminum trunnion brackets mounted to the cast iron table.

I picked up some valuable information from this thread a couple weeks ago, so I thought repay the favor and relay my experience with my new 36-725 so far.

I bought it at a Lowe's near Milwaukee a couple weeks ago. Price was $540. This was $599 list minus 10% discount that the salesman volunteered. When I went back a few days later, the list had dropped to $570.

Setup took about 2.5 or 3 hours. The next one I do will be half that, but I guess that's typical.

As many have noted, the instructions are very poor. One notable omission is a lack of photos or even drawings of the assembled components and assembled saw. For a time, I was trying to put the anti-kickback teeth on backwards (duh), but that would not have happened if there was even a blurry picture of what it was supposed to look like. The instructions neglected to mention there's a block of styrofoam inside the saw that needs to be removed by tilting 45 degrees. There's a tag on the tilt wheel, but i didn't find that until I'd tried raising the blade and wondered why it was so difficult. That's kind of dumb on Delta's part, but typical of the lack of clarity in the instructions. Oh, and the handle for the miter fence is missing. I need to call Delta.

That said, everything fit together as intended. Once I figured out which oddly named bolt went into which hole, assembly was pretty easy. Better yet, my blade, splitter, etc. were all all very nicely lined up with the table and with each other. The rip fence took just a bit of adjustment. The split rail in the front does not appear to be a problem. It's possible the side tables are a 1/16 or so out of flush, but I will keep an eye on that for future adjustments, and so far performance has not suffered. The fence initially dragged a bit at one of joints between the main table and the side table, but I just elevated the fence a hair with a turn on the nylon adjusting screws. A purist might object to a gap of 1/32 or 1/16 between the bottom of the fence and the table, but nothing I'm working on will slip under there.

So, in use: I am very very satisfied. Mind you, I'm coming from a 1950s Craftsman that was underpowered, had no splitter, kick back or blade guards and required hand-measuring the fence every time. The fence on the Delta sets up square, and the measuring tape is reliable (measure by hand for something critical, of course). The table is large, which is beneficial by multiples of the increased area. The table is very solid, but rolls easily on its casters. I took someone's advice here and spun the bottom assembly 180 degrees so that the foot pedal to pop the casters is on the left, where it's much easier to reach and is not at all a trip hazard. Cuts with the standard blade come out plane-smooth or nearly so, depending on the wood and circumstances. Feed speed is good to excellent. I'm reminded again how tough 2x Doug fir can be, but even that ripped very, very smoothly.

So, I'm sold. It seems to be an excellent value for someone like me who wants a solid and very capable saw but can't justify the price of a permanent floor model, and probably doesn't have a place to put it. My little Craftsman is not even equal to a current contractor table saw, so this is a huge jump. I'll keep the Craftsman in the corner for little crosscuts and stuff, probably. But I look forward to working with the Delta.