Table Saw- Stamped vs. Cast Iron Extensions
Kurt_Battles
| Posted in Power Tools and Machinery on
I am buying a new new Sawstop contractors table saw. It comes with stamped table extensions or I can spend another $270 for cast iron extensions. What is the advantage of the cast iron and is it worth it? Thanks.
Replies
Weight and vibration damping. If you don't need to move it much get the CI wings. If you need to travel stick with the steel, especially if you work alone.
Definitely worth it IMO, but if you need to spend the money on something else, you can see how they do and always upgrade.
i am with robert on this one. the stamped steel garbage is just that, beside the vibration dampening mj alluded to above, try getting a truly flat reference surface from stamped steel. practically impossible. spend the extra $ and get the cast iron ones. or, better yet (and i know i will get flamed for this, but so be it), ditch the whole sawstop overpriced safety theater and go with a much beefier saw at a fraction of the cost. keep your fingers away from the blade and you don't need to spend kings ransom on silly gadgets and problems (different cartridges for different blades, inadvertent wet wood false positive triggers...). remember, every time you set one of those damned things off, it's big $ and down time.
ChooChooman, No flame, just information...
Sawstop has an R&D program where if you fill out a form and send in a triggered cartridge so they can download the data they send you a free cartridge.
To avoid downtime I do keep an extra on hand, and the time I triggered the safety instead of looking for the first aid kit or worse I was back up and running in about 10 minutes, five of which was spent changing my shorts. The new cartridge arrived in about 2 weeks.
So in the end I bought one more cartridge to keep as a spare, but I should never have to buy another.
mj, i appreciate your candor and experience. before sawstop, countless tens (if not hundreds) of thousands craftsman and woman have used a traditional table saw without an incident for many, many decades. i am not saying that sawstop did not prevent some serious injuries. i am saying that, in my experience, the (huge) extra cost and bother are just not worth it. and this just might be a cynic in me talking, but i would not be surprised if their tech didn't actually contribute to some of the activations. we humans tend to drop our guard as we get more and more comfortable with a particular technology. i just DON'T!!! period, full stop. i am scared shitless of table saws, and i have been doing this for a few decades. it is that fear that has me not skipping any safety precautions, ever. i never take any short cuts (no pun intended). that's why i say that spending $7500 on a table saw when i can have a comparable one for less than half the price is just not worth it.
I worked on "dumb" saws for 25-30 years and always with fear and great care (57yrs old). My wakeup came in the form of a little sawdust on the floor that made my back foot slip out as I was ripping thin strips. I regained my balance by automatically leaning forward and into the blade. That was my first ever accident at the tablesaw. Chewed up my right thumb pretty good but I still have it.
I'm not sure where you are, but it must be far to get all the way to $7500 for a Sawstop. The price bump for comparable new saws (220V, 3HP, riving knife) is not that huge. See attached image from price shopping today.
mj, i own a grizzly g0696x. it's a 12 inch, 5hp beast that will rip through 16/4 slab of sugar maple without blinking an eye (do saws have eyes?). a while back, out of curiosity, i tried pricing out a comparable sawstop and by the time i got through the configuration page, the price was ~$7500 (full disclosure, i clicked on all the options). today, my saw is ~$3k. a few years ago, when i bought mine, they had a sale and i got it for ~$2200.
p.s. just went back to sawstop and priced a comparable industrial model with 5hp motor, and no other frills other than a mobile base (which i include in the price of my grizzly) and the final price was $5198. and that's a price for 10 inch saw (i don't believe sawstop makes a 12 inch model). i hate grizzly and wish them all the worse, but truth be told i would not give up my g0696x for anything.
Wow ch00ch, you got a lot of stuff wrong.
Lots of folks are walking around with all 10 digits today because of Sawstop. That's worth a little bit of money, and less than half of the $7500 you claim.
People were against airbags and seatbelts too, using your same arguments. They were wrong too.
john, out of curiosity, did you even bother to read my post or is it just a gut fanboy reaction?
comparing sawstop tech to seat belts is like comparing apples to kangaroos. on one hand i have to deal with finicky tech that sometimes misfires (according to rob cosman they go through roughly half dozen cartridges/year), that needs to be messed with for different blades, that's time consuming and costly (straightening or outright replacing forrest or ridge carbide blades is damned expensive). and on the other all i need to do is plug a tang in to a buckle. no muss no fuss.
as for cost, i just posted my research, so not entirely sure where you're getting your info from. i got mine from the horses mouth. an industrial grade (5hp) 10 inch model goes for $5k+.
Of course I read it. Comparing safety gear is apt,be it Sawstop or seat belts. I heard decades of the same arguments and false comparisons.
Having a Sawstop does not make it more likely you'll run your hand into a blade. That's ludicrous.
Anyone who goes through half a dozen Sawstop cartridges in a year should not be allowed anywhere near a tablesaw.
Vaccines are also safe and effective, and the best and cheapest way to prevent disease.
I'm inclined to agree.
As per the research I did and posted here a few months ago, TS accidents are a lot less common than Sawstop claims (by at least 2 orders of magnitude) and are often not overly serious. Amputations resulting in permanent loss are if not rare, then very uncommon at least. Serious injuries - yes, but you'd be surprised what grows back. NOT to be sniffed at - avoid injury at all costs, but most saw injuries do not result in lasting disability. My study suggested inattention was the leading cause of injury though data was limited so this had to be inferred from injury mechanism (over half of power saw amputations had simply continued feeding their fingers into the blade with the wood)
There is much to be said for your point that SS may actually be increasing the unsafe uses because one cannot in theory be injured, though if those practices continue when the brake is disabled then of course they may inadvertently be increasing the risk. Inattention is also less of an issue in the home shop than in factories and on sites where there is a lot of work to do in a hurry so one would need to sell an awful lot more sawstops to home shops to prevent one amputation than to industry (and OTTOMH they are running about 14 partial or complete TS related amputations per year in the USA)
I would add to your point that IF spending an extra 2K on a SS means you don't buy other tooling so do things in a less safe way as a result, the opportunity cost may be additional injuries. This would be effectively impossible to measure but it is a reasonable, if somewhat uncertain perspective.
For me, I took @johnC2's advice and bought a slider rather than a Sawstop - even more $$ but it removes a lot of the inherent risk in using a cabinet saw as operations are more often carried out away from the blade. It also reduces jointer use (an even higher risk activity) and circular saw use (similar risks to TS) so on balance I may be slightly safer without a Sawstop - I'll never know.
That having been said. I would, all things being considered, prefer my son (over 20 now) to be using a Sawstop rather than my K3. It's a purely gut feeling and not based on evidence. He is the shop safety king too so probably lower risk than me.
I don't regret my choice of saw - Hammer/Felder are definitely a league above Sawstop, but neither would I say a Sawstop is not worth it either. I nearly bought one more because the build quality is superb than for the safety features, but in the end the 4 inch depth of cut and slider won me over.
Please don't refer to people as fanboys - it's not fair - John has a very balanced perspective and gave me sound advice, which I appreciate.
Depending on what you're going to make, and how often you use the saw, you can live without them.
RE: Stamped vs. Cast Iron Extensions
I "upgraded" to cast iron on my CNS175 and it was a marked improvement. The dust collection, however, sucks so you may have to build an internal cabinet like i did to suck up the dust. 7 years later I wish I had bought the 5ph Industrial Saw.
RE: SawStop Safety Theater
I always wonder why non-SawStop users are so vehement about not using safety technology. Do they remove the airbags from their cars because they know how to drive and will never get in an accident?
Choochoo, you are the one that started this with negativity like "silly gadgets", not the other way around. You might consider a mirror for your next build.
I would buy a SawStop even if it didn't have the safety features. They did an excellent job of designing the saw to make clean & precise cuts.
I too was originally looking at the SS contractor saw. Then I did some math. After you add the cast iron wings (worth it), t-glide fence (absolute must), mobility, and the dust collection panel; it's only about 10% cheaper than the cabinet saw. I looked at my PCS as a long-term investment in my hobby/craft. The extra cost has been long since forgotten and I couldn't be happier with my choice.
Just my 2 cents worth.
I have a massive saw with stamped extensions but just the saw alone weighs about 100lb more than the saw to which you refer - vibration zero!
I also have a very large cast iron flat reference surface so the stamped extensions are not a problem.
Stamped extensions are lighter - great for supporting plywood and MDF. If you can afford hardwood wide enough to need them then you are rich enough to afford the cast iron!
Cast iron is way heavier which helps with the saw not moving when under heavy load, and may damp vibration, but I never had an issue with that making a difference using a truly portable saw for many years.
So - rich, don't need the saw to move often, need an extra large flat surface - buy the iron. Poor, need to shift the saw, don't need the extra flat reference surface or want to slot in a router - buy the stampings.
This has been too much fun, and I have learned a heavier saw vibrates less. Also, consider the SawStop Professional, it does just cost an additional 10% and is all cast iron. Thanks for all the advice, I'll buy a SawStop and treat it with the same respect I would any tablesaw. And who knew you could spend $7800 on a SawStop.
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