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toonewtoknow

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  1. REVIEW OF THE BYRNES TILT TABLE Hi all! I do own the tilt table. I see this is a bit dated but I will put in my 4 cents. First I want to be clear, the Byrnes saw is a real nice tool and I am not bashing it. If all you need to do is cut with the blade at 90* it is a dream. But.....many of us need to cut bevels, at least I do. Most of my cuts are bevels. I do not build ships, I make small craft items many octagonal or hexagonal shapes. So real clean mitre joints are required and if the bevels are not exact then the last piece will not fit and it will look like a bad apple. I needed a small saw and when I searched online only a few appeared and the Byrnes saw was the best looking and also the most expensive. I am not rich but I am too tired of bying import stuff that does not work so I sprang for the $800 for the saw and some accessories. Before I purcahsed it naturally I called and spoke to Donna who is very pleasant and knows the product very well. I explained to her that I needed to cut mainly bevels on small stock giving her the exact size 24" long by 2" wide by 3/8"- 1/2" thick with a bevel on both ends and a final part 2" long but I need other lengths as well and asked if their saw could do it well. She assured me that many saw owners do it and the results are amazing. She said I needed to buy the tilt table to do it. I asked why the arbor did not tilt and she told me they were looking for precision cuts so they did not use a tilt arbor. She told me to find reviews online about the saw. I started out online to watch the reviews before I plunked down the $800. I wanted to see the tilt table in action. I looked for days and I could only find reviews of the saw but none of them had a tilt table. A few mentioned it as an add on but nowhere could I find one being used or reviewed. Being a little nervous I called and spoke to Donna again. She again reinforced that the tilt table will work. So I ordered it. I got the saw and it is a sight to see. It is truly well done. After staring with joy for a while I decided to try the tilt table. I needed 22.5* so I only had a protractor and quickly found that I needed something else to set an angle since the table had nothing on it to set the angle. My first thought would be cut a piece of wood to the desired degree using a mitre saw. I cut one, of course later figured out I could have used the protractor rip tool I bought with the saw but I failed to think about it. Having an angled wedge I proceeded to set it under the tilt table and set an angle. RIght off I found that because the tilt table is fastened to the flat table fence you have a problem setting a wedge under the table because the small end will sit on top of the fence which makes the angle skewed. It was easy enough to cut the pointed end off the wedge but if you want to use angle blocks (metal) you would need to add spacers to the block which makes it very hard to do because most angle blocks are thin making it hard to pile them up and keeping them from falling especially if you need a 22.5* angle because I already had 3 blocks under it just to get that angle. I also cut 30 + 45* angles as well. Of course you could always have blocks made without the point which would work. Since using a wedge turned out to be very poor, the angle was not precise I gave up on blocks. I went out and sprung for a digital angle gauge. Now this was better I thought. I put it on the tilt table and snugged the pivot bolts and slowly brought the table to 22.5*. When I got it I tried to tighten the bolts but it caused the angle to change. I fought with it for a while and finally was able to find a way to allow for the drift upon tighening to hit my mark. A real pain and certainly not going to work if you change setups often like I do. I also find that when using the tilt table the angle will drift during cutting. I really muscled it tight but I know this will eventually stretch the threads and finally strip them so the drifting is also an issue that is not well thought out. The tilt table is soo heavy and there are only two small allen heads that lock it down. The pivot surfaces are both very smooth only brute force will hold them so if you need to cut many parts at a time be ready for the table to drift. Remember only a 1/2 degree drift very slight will cause poor fitment when you are making 16 cuts on 8 parts. Add the error together and the final result is very poor fitment. Now that I have the correct angle set it was time to cut a bevel. I took my 24" long stock and found that there is no way to cut it. Because of the design this task will never work. It was clear you first need to cut individual small pieces and then since you can only cut one edge and then have to spin the part around to cut the other end. This is a pain for me because its so difficult to set the angle I used my band saw to cut the long stock into small parts so they would work on the tilt table. This is nuts with a shiny Byrnes saw I should not have to use another saw but if you need many parts like I do it was much easier to use two saws. I use different length parts so it was easier to leave the tilt table setup and use the band saw too. For the money this saw costs I was becoming upset of the outcome so far. Just to note I design my own items so much of my work is prototype work which means I can't run a hundred parts at once, if I could I could cut the parts on the flat table then setup the tilt but my need is both, production and prototype so two saws are needed because of the flaws with the tilt table design. The next problem I encountered when cutting smaller parts 2" or less I found that the slot for the mitre gauge on the tilt table allows the very thin edge of the beveled end to drop into the slot. This causes uneven cuts. If the table was flat this would be far less of an issue but because the table is angled up, you are fighting gravity trying to hold the part uphill against the fence but it is also very dangerous because your hands are an inch from the blade and the guard is not used on the tilt table. I finally cut a strip of wood to fill that slot and it seems to help. By this time I was very upset because as much as I wanted this saw to work for me it will not. A saw with a tilting arbor is a must. I contacted Jim a few times and the first time I was told they knew nothing of these issues and I was the first to complain about them. As I read forums I found the issues that I have many people have. I let Jim know I read the forums and others have the same issues. He then told me to build a table on an angle to tilt the saw then the tilt table would be flat and it would be better. I looked into doing that and that too is flawed. I am right handed so I would need to tilt the saw to the right so the tilt table would be on the right of the blade but because of the vac port you have to tilt it to the left which will not work for me. Conclusion.....This tilt table does not work for me and I have tried my best to make it work. For the price of this setup I should not have to work so hard to make it cut, it's a saw for goodness sake. I feel I was misled before I bought it since I told them exactly what I needed it to do even giving them the dimension of the wood I was using and what a finished part would need to be. I also told them I needed quantity of parts and time was a factor. I was told it would do it. My suggestion if you really need to cut bevels more than one a month look elsewhere because you too will have the same issues I have. Many others have them too. If the saw was not sooo costly it might be easier to deal with but for this price it should be able to do the job, for me it falls way short. Someone should do a video review of the tilt table. That would be very helpful for those that are thinking of buying a saw like this. It certainly would have made me keep looking for another saw that was better suited for my needs.
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