Dewalt Tools

[wood1000]

Hsa any one use the dewalt radio arm saw or band saw? How do you like it?

 

[Anonymous]

Wood1000,

I don't know which bandsaw you mean, but I have the DEW738 but under the old Elu 3401 badge.

It's done pretty well, although the fence is fairly lousy. Still, it's been good enough to mean you'd have to break both my arms to get me to let go of it I'm sure that most radial arm saw owners in the UK must have a Dewalt, but I would guess that a lot of them are pretty old models :lol:

Cheers, Jester

 

[wood1000]

Dose any one use the newer dewalt radio arm saw, or about the Planer Thicknesser?

 

[Anonymous]

Dewalt! ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Dont touch them.
The old Elu equivilents are fine (in fact, excellent). But personally I would never buy Dewalt stuff. Since they took over from Elu, £££ have flased in their eyes, prices have gone up, build quality has gone down.
Everytime I go to my local industrial retailer he has another Dewalt horror story for me (and I am usually in there at least twice a week for fixings and stuff).
But thats just my personall oppinion.
Does anybody else have oppinions on Dewalt?

Doughnut

P.S. The new Milwaukee stuff looks great, (no plug intended) has anybody tried it yet? Im in the market for a new jigsaw.

 

[Anonymous]

I use a Millwaukie Sawzall most days, and I must admit if the other kit in their range is as good they're on to a winner over here. I have to agree about the Dewalt, I would personally not change my Hitachi kit for theirs any day. Over rated and over priced status symbols. I'm not saying they aren't any good, before anyone starts ranting at me, I'm just saying for my money there would be many other makes in front.

 

[wood1000]

I like my makita tools!

 

[Anonymous]

I can agree with that. I have a Makita cordless drill that just keeps going. How does some of your American kit hold up, like the Grizzly range. I have an Electra Bekum table saw which is very good, but for the same price I had to pay I could get something across the pond with a cast iron table, etc. Life's not fair.

 

[sawdustalley]

No Life isn't fair

I have Makita stuff aswell and i'm pleased with it. DeWALT stuff looks OK to me. Enough TV people use it. Mind you Norm Abram doesn't (OK he has ONE angle drill - But that it right..?!)

 

[wood1000]

Grizzly tools are a good price for the money. I would also ask www.shopnotes.com or http://www.forums.woodnet.net/cgi-bin/f ... LastLogin=

 

[Anonymous]

old dewalt radial arm saws are exelent i.e before it all went bannana
yellow, a good pre 1970s power shop correctly alighned is worth its wieght in gold & thats alot of gold!!!!!!!
moog234

 

[Scrit]

Newer ones aren't too bad either (at least in the UK), although they ALL suffer from the problem that the head bearings run directly in the arm casting rather than on hardened steel guide bars or rods. This means that when they are old they wear . The only solution is either to replace the arm or find a specialised engineering shop to remachine the slots inside the cast-iron arm - either way expensive and a pain! If you are in the market for a heavier RAS I'd look seriously at Stromab (sold by Scott & Sargent, et al) - for our American friends I'd take a look at Original Saw Co. (who took over the USA end of deWalt RAS some time ago). I've seen these when I was working Stateside and they are pretty substantial.

I still use a deWalt - albeit with a new arm!

 

[Jaco]

Had my Dewalt Radial arm saw for 7 years. Great piece of equipment. Use it far all my cross cutting, angles and mitres. I have a Rockwel table saw for all rip cutting. A downside of the Dewalt is that if you bump the damn thing, OUT GOES the alignment, and it takes an hour or two to reset.

 

[Anonymous]

So not really all that great then?
Im sorry, I just dont like dewalt tools :twisted:

 

[eeyore]

My two penn'orth on DeWalt tools and on radial arm saws ...

I can't generalise - I have a bunch of DeWalt rechargables and they're all fine - drill/screwdriver, trimsaw, reciprocating saw, jigsaw. Also have the 703 CMS and it's been great.

However, I bought their big planer/thicknesser recently and returned it pretty sharpish. The fence is cr*p, the planer(jointer) table was cambered and the thicknesser table was bowed!

Consequently, when Santa Who Must Be Obeyed offered me a radial arm saw this year, I asked very nicely for the Eumenia 600 Exakt with all the trimmings - and boy am I glad I did! Solid Austrian engineering, design allows accurate crosscutting and even ripping (not that I would - the Startrite would get jealous). Even better - it has a gadget which slips onto the crossbar in place of the saw carriage and can take my router (Elu MOF177E) or a decent (DeWalt again, in my case) big drill. Icing on the cake - there is even a wobble blade feature for rapid rebating (for the dado head challenged).

Incidentally, I noted with interest Jester's dislike of Record - I've got their bench morticer, and have never had any cause to curse it ...

Compliments of the Season to all !

 

[eeyore]

SDA

You won't see DeWalt tools on NYW because the show is 'underwritten' by Porter-Cable and Delta ...

Regards

Chris

 

[Scrit]

Jaco

The thing about your deWalt RAS going out of square isn't just a deWalt problem. It seems to be generally a problem with RASs, although the heavier they are the less frequently it seems to happen. I used to own a Wadkin BRA and even that required periodic checking and resetting, especially after mitre cutting. Nowadays I have a DW125 rebuilt as a DW175 (arm wear, see!) and it seems to be reasonable, probably because it is mounted on a home-made frame welded-up from 5 x 3in rolled steel channel and properly braced - it's much better than the tin box base the machine used to have, but the d*rned thing still needs more frequent attention than any tablesaw would ever need.

 

[Jaco]

Thanks Scrit - i have been debating on welding up a new base, far more sturdier than the Mechano set that they provide. i have lost count of the number of bruises and cuts attributable to this saw, and yet it still does a GOOD job. (hammer)

 

[Scrit]

Jaco

Thanks, I think that the welded heavy-duty base did make a BIG difference, but I also have a mitre fence assembly instead of turning the arm which means that that the saw stays in square a lot longer (tried this out a few years back on my original tin-base DW111 and it really made a difference).

There is one other thing to try if you don't want to weld-up a new base - attach a ring bolt to the outer end of the arm, fix a ring anchor bolt (Rawlbolt) into the wall above and either side of the saw (e.g 2ft above the top of the arm and two feet or so right and left of the arm centre line) and then thread-up with thin steel hawser with a turnbuckle to take-up the slack. This stops you from doing lots of mitre cuts (unless you have the mitre fence ) and restricts your vertical movement, but it makes the entire arm MUCH more rigid.

 

[wood1000]

Gee would be nice if both counties have the same safty rules?

 

[dickm]

Dose any one use the newer dewalt radio arm saw, or about the Planer Thicknesser?

Not sure if it was the same machine, but I had an Elu P/T for a very short time. Frankly, it rather let down Elu's repuation for quality.........