DELTA 36-982 10-Inch Left Tilt 1-1/2-Horsepower Contractor Saw with 30-Inch Biesemeyer Fence, Table Board, and Legs, 115/230-Volt 1-Phase

Comment: I put my saw together today in less than 4 hrs (including the run to Home Depot for the correct hardware) and to hear about the complaints of the "hard to reach" nuts on the "stand/base" assembly is pretty petty. Obviously they have never worked on an import! You can use a flat head screwdriver to hold the nut in place while you slowly and painfully crank it 1/16th of a turn at a time but if you tighten all of the nuts surrounding it, it only takes 1 turn after hand tightening it. The directions are a bit sketchy but not all that bad. I have seen worse. My fence hardware was all mixed up as the directions were also. It's a great fence though! Hard to calibrate to the tee but it can be done. Shimming the extension tables is a must if you want a perfectly flat table. The insert is a joke. I make my own from ½" birch, then drill ½" holes for the set screws and pour them with resin, then tap them and they last forever and don't warp even from a Florida climate to the mountains of NC. This saw has plenty of power for my needs but I don't rip huge stock either. I didn't even put the stock blade on but had a Freud LU87R010 ready and it did OK. Over all I bet I will never have to purchase another saw and I am happy with the purchase, just wish it wasn't so damn expensive. But ya get what ya pay for! *****

Comment: We acquired this machine as an upgrade from a 100 bucks black & decker® table saw. We were primarily looking for a table saw that had more power and wider ripping capacity than the 13 inch from our old black & decker® .
This table saw is very solid, it doesn't move an inch; without the wheels it is impossible, it doesn't vibrate when it's turned on and the Biesemeyer ® fence is solid as a rock.
The only complaint we had is that the blade splitter is very difficult to align parallel to the blade, and it's a critical symmetrical component that has to be aligned, you don't want a jammed blade in a middle of a cut because of the splitter being misaligned.
The blade guard also has a defect it gets stuck sometimes when cutting wider lumber at the beginning of the cut, anyway those defects can be easily fixed by buying a blade guard upgrade from Delta ®. Great machine we recommend it to anyone. We upgraded the blade to a Forrest Woodworker II and the finish is almost like run the wood thru the jointer.

Comment: This is the first table saw I have purchased. I chose the Delta after doing a significant amount of research. Needless to say, I am very happy with the saw. Assembly wasn't difficult, but it wasn't entirely a breeze. Several nuts on the stand can be tough to place and tighten. Once assembled I checked the accuracy of the mitre slot to the blade and it was perfectly parallel. Adjusting the fence to be perfectly parallel was also a simple task.

I only wish it had come with a dado insert, but that wasn't enough to warrant knocking a star off the rating.

Comment: I bought this saw a year ago before I had good measurement tools. I will take a dial indicator, precision straight edge, and other tools with me next time I go shopping for a TS.

A contractor's saw can be aligned in many ways by its owner, but one type of adjustment isn't possible, and a saw is useless to me if it isn't built correctly to begin with here. The axis of the pivot that raises and lowers the blade needs to be perfectly parallel to the axis of blade rotation. If it isn't, the blade will not stay in the same plane when the blade is raised and lowered. This has nothing to do with aligning the blade to the miter slot at 90 degrees and then discovering that it goes out when tilted to 45 degrees. That can be fixed. This is aligning the blade to the miter slot with it raised to 3" and then discovering that it is no longer aligned when lowered to, say, 1". This is caused by warped cast iron or holes bored out of parallel, and it can't be adjusted for by messing with trunnion alignment or by doing any other user tweak.

My 36-982 also has a severely dished table--over .013" in the center when measured diagonally.

I would not buy this model saw again for any kind of precision woodworking unless I could take measuring tools with me to the store and measure the very saw I was taking home.

The table needs to be much flatter, and the blade needs to stay in the same plane when raised and lowered.

Comment: Ive owned this saw now for a few months,and its 1 of the best ive used. Set-up was a breeze. Hardest part was puting on the fence. All together about 4 or 5 hrs.. And that bies fence, well what can i say, its a biesemeyer.(need i say more). All and all. 10 out of 10 for me