182 Saws: BT3000 vs. Delta Contractor's: conclusion
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This article is from the Woodworking FAQ Collection 4, by multiple authors.
182 Saws: BT3000 vs. Delta Contractor's: conclusion
So these are two very different saws. In terms of features and
thoughtful engineering, the Ryobi is clearly far superior. It has a
built-in sliding table, better dust collection, an enclosed motor,
better packaging, better switch, better standard fence, cleverer
accessories. The Ryobi is quite portable, while the DC is a bear (but
can be moved to a job site, unlike a Unisaw).
So where's the trade-off? The Ryobi appears less robust. It has many
plastic parts, including wear parts like the sliding table slides. I
broke the miter gauge stop as I was putting it together, and soon
thereafter broke the bracket designed to hold the miter gauge. Other
correspondents have done similar things. But I wasn't too worried
about robustness, since I don't expect to use it intensively
(certainly not to build a house!). It feels a little strange when you
fiddle with the miter gauge--a critical part is a nylon post. On the
other hand, the miter gauge is very long, and looks as though angle
readings will be very accurate. It does have a weak point, though:
its ends are plastic (to avoid damaging the blade in case they hit
it), and are very easily bent out of shape. This could easily screw
up an accurate angle setting.
I was hoping to use the Ryobi "out of the box". Assembly was in fact
quite trivial (putting together the stand took longer than anything
else) -- unlike the DC. No parts were missing or defective. Then I
started verifying squareness and so on. This is where I started
having doubts. Some checks came out OK (blade square to table). My
sliding table turned out to be about 3/64" higher than the main table,
and the accessory table about 1/64" lower. Strange. I rechecked my
assembly, and the instructions, and saw nothing about this, nor any
way to adjust it. I phoned Ryobi and they told me this was
intentional, so cross cuts wouldn't hang up on the central table.
That's fine as far as it goes, but it also means that rips won't be
square, by roughly a degree. But, they added, they had a free kit
they would send me which would bring the sliding table back to level
with the main table -- this involves drilling some new holes; as for
the accessory table, the kit includes some metallic tape that can be
used to "shim" it up.... Not really satisfactory, I thought. Then I
started checking the sliding table. As received, it wobbled by about
3/32 from side to side. Pretty poor. So I tightened it up so it had
essentially no play. But then it doesn't slide very well. An
intermediate position seemed better, but not likely to stay that way
very long. I checked the table parallelism; it was off by 3/32" from
the front position to the back. I aligned it to roughly 1/64" without
too much trouble. The rip fence was off by 1/16", but was also easily
aligned within about 1/64". So much for being delivered aligned from
the factory.
Now all this I did following the directions that came with the saw.
They call for using a framing square for alignment. Doesn't give you
a great feeling of accuracy when the closest markings are 1/16" apart.
I was beginning to think that I had the wrong tool, not because it
required alignment (that seems normal, despite their advertising), but
because I didn't feel confident in the alignment I was doing, and
didn't get the warm fuzzies about the stability of the alignment. So
the Ryobi's strong point here is that it is VERY quick and easy to
align fairly accurately, but hard to align very accurately, and I
would guess likely to go out of fine alignment.
All of this is quite subjective, since I have not run a single piece
of wood through the saw (that would void my right to return it to the
store).
Now, with my doubts aroused, I talked to the salesmen and to the net
wisdom (in the form of Bennett Leeds) again. I finally understood the
niche the Ryobi is trying to fill. In my mind, it was for the
hobbyist trying to do precision work. In fact, it is more aimed at 1)
the contractor who needs a portable saw that is as versatile as
possible, and doesn't require a host of jigs and 2) the homeowner
doing home improvements and 3) (marginally) the hobbyist who has to be
able to get it out of the way easily. Since my application is
stationary, the requirement for jigs is not a problem (although I do
have concerns about the time and care needed to make good ones).
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