1st Impressions - G1053RL Table Saw

[ErnieM]

After a couple of days trying to square the blade to the miter slot on my ShopFox contractors saw, I decided to ask for help before I bled to death trying to access the trunnion bolts. Joe Scharle - to the rescue. After several hours of frustrating work (actually I did more watching - Joe did more working) we came to a solution. Here it is - a Grizzly 1053RL.

​

In case anyone is thinking of a new Grizzly tablesaw, I thought I would briefly describe my first few days with this saw. I ordered it online on Friday the 12th and was surprised to learn it would be delivered on Wednesday the 17th. It actually arrived a day early on the 16th on a huge truck equipped with a lift gate. The UPS driver was a cheerful guy who volunteered to get the 510 pound crate into my shop. After a hearty handshake, and a healthy tip, he somehow managed to turn his battleship of a truck around on our dead end street and continue his deliveries. Nice guy!

The next morning, two of my buddies came over to help me uncrate the saw and set it up. We put together 3 sides of the ShopFox mobile base and shimmied the saw off of its pallet and onto the mobile base. Adding the 4th side of the base was easy and the saw was now mobile. Putting the rest of the saw together was easy as well. The two wings went on perfectly without the need for shims to get them level with the main table. The rails for the ShopFox Classic Fence lined up perfectly with the holes in the table and the fence needed no adjustment as it was perfectly parallel to the miter slot right out of the box. The blade was .004" out of parallel, which was probably good enough, but loosening the 4 table bolts and a light tap on the table got the blade to within .0005" - more than good enough. The only hiccup in the setup was the electrical connection. The saw comes with a G-15 plug which I'm told is widely used in Europe. My 220 line requires an L6-30 locking plug, so a quick trip to Lowes was necessary and replacing the plug was no problem at all.

And now for the negatives. So far, there are only two and they both have to do with dust collection. My old saw had two modes of dust collection - non existent, and terrible. This saw has a shroud surrounding the blade which empties into a small hose which appears to be about 1 1/2" in diameter. The hose is attached to the 4" dust collection port. I have my reservations about how effective this is, as there is still a lot of dust on the floor of the cabinet. I suppose that's better than the dust dropping onto the shop floor, but it's disappointing nonetheless. The real annoyance is the amount of dust that is thrown above the table and straight at me, especially during a rip cut. The amount of dust thrown above the table is really quite unacceptable and I'll have to find a way to eliminate it. Some people have removed the dust shroud and small hose and report an improvement. By far the biggest annoyance is the location of the 4" dust port on the bottom rear of the cabinet.

​

For those of us who have to move the dust collection hose from machine to machine and have an outfeed table at the back of the saw, this port couldn't be in a worse place. I will have to rig up some kind of elbow to allow me to connect the hose that doesn't require me moving the outfeed table every time.

Aside from these two minor annoyances, I'm thrilled with the saw - I'm thrilled with Grizzly - and I'm thrilled with the delivery. I've never had the luxury of a table saw that was set up this well. In fact, I made a new crosscut sled with it and using the 5 cut method, the 5th cut was .075 at the rear and .074 at the front - on the first try. Since I knew the blade and fence were parallel to the miter slots, I used the factory edges of a piece of 1/2" mdf and aligned the mdf up against the fence before screwing the base to the runner. I never could have done that with my old saw.

Thanks to my new saw and the help and advice from the jig guru, Joe Scharle, I am one happy harpsichord builder. Thanks again, Joe.

 

[Joe Scharle]

Well, I wasn't too much help fixing your old steenkin contractor saw, but I am happy to contribute to your heretofore dormant new tool addiction :rotflm:

 

[Mike Wilkins]

Congrats on the new iron. I recently purchased a Grizzly 0715 tablesaw to compliment my sliding saw. Dust collection is not one of its good points; however I went inside the cabinet and taped some cardboard to the inside of the cabinet to direct dust toward the collection port. Slightly better but I still get some dust thrown at my knees from the opening in the front of the saw, the curved opening that allows tilting. I may be looking into purchasing some of that magnetic sign making material to stick inside the saw; the kind used to make magnetic signs for vehicles signage.

 

[ErnieM]

Joe - You were more help than you know. I owe you big time.

Mike - Nothing's perfect, I guess.

 

[red]

I cut up an old magnetic truck sign to cover any large openings on my G1023RLX and it helps some but I still get a covered when I do a lot of cutting.

Red

 

[Glennbear]

On my Rigid TS I cut down on some of the flying dust by using gaffers tape and sheet rubber roofing to cover openings. The rubber bends out of the way when tilting etc.

 

[Charlie]

Ernie,
Congrats on the saw. Mine has been great. One place to close up that often gets overlooked is the underside of top where it overhangs the front of the cabinet. I cut a piece of 1/4" plywood and attached it with silicone, closing up all the gaps in the process. Also tape over the motor ventilation holes in the motor access door. Any opening that you can close up helps.

 

[ErnieM]

Thanks Charlie and everyone else. I don't seem to have much of a problem with sawdust coming out of the many openings in the cabinet, although I'm sure covering those gaps would help. As an experiment, I ripped some wood with the dust collection hose removed and found a lot of sawdust coming down that shroud and landing on the floor. It seems that small hose and shroud assembly may work better than I thought. It's the sawdust coming up onto the table saw top that is the problem, although even that is only bad when ripping the very edge of a board where the blade is partially exposed on its outside surface. In a normal rip, like when ripping a board in half, there's not much dust thrown at me or landing on the table top. I think I may have overstated the problem and was guilty of expecting more than is reasonable from any table saw. Time will tell, I suppose, but I'm very pleased with this saw in spite of its imaginary minor flaws.

 

[Charlie]

"It's the sawdust coming up onto the table saw top that is the problem, although even that is only bad when ripping the very edge of a board where the blade is partially exposed on its outside surface."

What you are describing will require and overhead dust pickup with a "lot" of airflow.

I get the same situation on my saw. There is nothing to direct the dust particles back into the saw.

 

[ehpoole]

"It's the sawdust coming up onto the table saw top that is the problem, although even that is only bad when ripping the very edge of a board where the blade is partially exposed on its outside surface."

What you are describing will require and overhead dust pickup with a "lot" of airflow.

I get the same situation on my saw. There is nothing to direct the dust particles back into the saw.

I was going to say the same. There is nothing that can be fine from below that will ever capture dust that is trapped on the top side of your work, that can only be captured with a dust hood mounted above the blade. There are several styles of such, some being much practical than others depending upon the nature of your work, but none are perfect nor can any single solution work for all types of jobs because there are tasks where any sort of dust hood up top is simply in the way of your work and you must simply accept that that dust will escape and make a point to vacuum it up off the floor when you are finished. To scrub the finer dust from the ambient air you can also invest in an ambient air filtration unit capable of at least eight air exchanges per hour, which will remove the suspended fines from the shop air in short order. Also ensure that your dust collector has a 1-micron (or less) rated filter or the most harmful fines will be escaping back into your shop air where they will reman suspended for many hours (even days), negating then health benefits of dust collection and greatly increasing the workload on the ambient air cleaner (if installed).

As for the dust you see on the interior floor of your tablesaw, that really is not a major issue as what you are seeing is the heaviest dust that falls straight down during sawing, which will eventually get vacuumed up once it builds up a bit and slides down the chute to the dust port. To not have that dust settling there would require enormous airflow, as in an 8-10” duct (likely requiring additional air intake holes in the tablesaw chassis to maintain sufficient airflow velocity) with a 3-5HP dust collector to back it up. As it presently is, the finer dust that is trapped below the table will be suspended in the airflow (though a 6" duct would be much better still if your dust collector is large enough to support such) and vacuumed up quickly but the heaviest dust simply falls straight down via gravity and needs gravity's added assist to reach the dust port without greatly increasing their airflow and velocity to keep such suspended.

Some of the dust that is slung forward during your cuts is coming from the rear and sides of the teeth, so double check that your saw blade is parallel to the miter slots and that the fence is parallel to the saw blade as any errors here will increase the amount of dust escaping from up top (and increases kickback risks, so there is that added reward for correcting any error more than a few mils. Any errors here will increase the amount of dust that gets thrown forward from the topside.

I hope you get many years of enjoyment out of your new saw!

 

[ErnieM]

Charlie & Ethan - I know you're both absolutely right. Now that I've had another couple of days to use the saw, I realize that its not the amount of dust thrown above the table, but the velocity of the ejected dust. My old saw had a 1 1/2 hp. motor as opposed to 3 hp on the new one. It does take some getting used to.

 

[golfdad]

I have heard that it needs more air...as in adding a vent....confused now. I added a zero clearance insert in mine and it has helped a lot on blowing dust at the blade

 

[Bob Carreiro]

nice saw... good luck with it!

 

[JimD]

I use wooden inserts like zero clearance plates on my BT3100 all the time. They start off zero clearance on the front but widen some with use. I open up the slot on the back side of the blade, however, to reduce dust thrown up on the top of the saw. I did some tests one time with different sized and placed openings to decide what worked best. I ended up deciding something like 1/4 inch slot on the back part of the blade made a meaningful difference.

Nothing words very well when the blade is exposed on one side except possible overhead suction. I haven't tried that and don't plan to. A little suction with the vacuum occasionally just isn't that much of a hassle.