Delta Reviews

I ordered this yesterday at a much lower price than today's. Do you think I will feel happy about that? No way!!! What if I bought a very expensive item and find out later I could save $500 if I waited a few days? Do you think this is a way to keep customers polling your site - like scavingers? Please stop playing around and find the most reliable way to supply quality goods at lowest price.

Im new to use of a mortiser woodworking Jigs. And I have seen the need for a real jig, Instead of the homemade ones I used.
My work setup is faster and more handy to use.
Sorry I was out of a hobby I loved for so many Yrs.[All most 30 yrs]
All I got to say is this Jig does what it is suppose to do and more. It gives you piece of mind that that the job will be right.

as far as funtion this this is great.very acurate tenons and easy to adjust, but...
Delta please stop making plastic knobs and handles
i buy a tool and expect it to last for a very long time and plastic is not allways the best for knobs.allthough i havent broke any of them yet.

I researched this purchase for a long time and finally decided that I would get this machine, even though there were so many negative reviews. Well, I am not a negative reviewer, but I returned the machine and got a Ridgid JP0610 from HD. The Delta machine I received was just as described in the reviews on this page, so before purchasing this jointer determine what are your needs. Small projects (boards <24") or small shop then you may need to get this machine, but be forwarned because the distance apart b/t the Ridgid machine I just bought and this Delta machine is measured in light years. Now I'm not selling the Ridgid machine, but for $150 more you will get a tool that is worth 10x that compared to this little machine. The Delta fence is pathetic, and the table to is very small, but I got it setup in 30minutes and had it finishing boards right away. Good finish, but when I tried a few longer boards it was much more difficult to manuver. Just not a good long term purchase for what I need it to do. So, figure out what type of work you will be doing and then make your decision, but if you have the room spend the $150 more!!! It is a no brainer!!!

A hobbiest tool, but it works. I set the fence and don't change it from 90, all I need is square joints.
Yes, it's not a pro tool, but it doesn't cost like one. People that expect Pro quality for Hobby prices and living on a river in Egypt (ie in-d-Nile)

Don't let this the size of this machine fool you, it packs a big punch like the bigger ones. First, the package arrived in less than a week and was soundly packaged to avoid damage. Set up was a breeze, the hardest part was setting the fence to 90 degrees. Motor runs quite and is perfect for the woodworker who is working with small pieces and has limited floor space. In fact I purchased the tool mount kit from Trac Rac ($53)and keep the jointer on a shelf and place it on the Trac Rac Miter Stand when I need it. I have only one suggestion, the jointer has a rectangular opening at the bottom of the far side for the chip exhaust, but no way to hooking up a hose? I am in the process of making a cover that will accept a hose attachment, but Delta should make an accessory for the chute for dust collection. Other than that I give the machine a thumbs up.

I have owned my Delta Sander for several months- bought due to the favorable review in one of my woodworking magazines.

Problems:

Mechanism to elevate table is flawed. Cog belt constantly slips- I have spent whole days just trying to get table parallel. Table is diffuclt to raise and lower. Called customer service a few times but they were of limited help= suggested I take to service center. At nearly 200 lbs this is somewhat impractical.

Motor must be removed to replace cog belt- not a one person job- motor is very heavy.

No way to avoid snip.

Tool might be good for small jobs- like crafts- but working with even small panel doors leads to disappointing results.

I have many delta tools in my shop- love them all except this one.

I have had this sander for 4 years, and the infeed cannot be adjusted to track correctly. I have tried a new belt and every adjustment, talked to delta for support, all to no avail.

I had mine set up and adjusted in about 2 or 3 hours. I burned a couple of boards feeding too fast or going too deep. Once I slowed down, It sands perfect.
It's not a planer. But it's a great sander.

The Delta Mortiser kit was incompatible with my Hitachi DP. I do not think that there was anything wrong with the kit. I am confident that it would have worked satisfactorily with a Delta DP

Many people have expressed the same concern I have about the set. Will it fit my drill press?
Answer
Taken from Delta's website:
Model 17-924
...Also fits drill presses with quill diameters of 66 mm, 50.8 mm, 48 mm and 38 mm...

The Delta mortising attachment was fairly easy to asemble and attach to my drill press. The whole process took about 15 minutes. Subsequent use of the attachment will be faster since you don't have to take eveything apart to remove it from the drill press. The instructions were complete and accurate. All the components are beefy and well-made. The mortiser did a good job making clean, accurate mortises.

The arbor was out by .012, bars not parallel, trunion washer were coned and not usable, but a pals system fixed all of this and the arbor is now within .001. no problems there now, thanks to all the great advice from othe reviews. definatly get the arbor aligned before putting on the extension tables and fence system. absolutly no problem w/ the belt, can't figure out what the glitch is there for others. Passed the nickel test and runs real quiet.

Then there was the table top, the left wing is beveled on the wrong side (the back side), so now i have to decide between using amazon's great customer service or just taking it to a local machine shop. I think I wil opt for the latter.

Shipping was fine except the fence was a little beat up and has some corrosion on it, nothing that can't be fixed.

I worried over the reviews for this saw and the ones for a competing Jet model for weeks, maybe months. I finally decided to ask my local WoodCraft people which one's best. They helped me figure out that the Delta--at least, in the configuration with the best fence--cost less. Price wasn't my main consideration, but they also seemed slightly keener on the Delta.

So, I bought the 36-717 (with the Biesemeyer fence) there, paying $950 plus sales tax; one of the guys at the store actually delivered it to my house in his personal truck--that was after he spent an hour helping me decide. I had planned on purchasing it from Amazon, because it usually offers the best price, no sales tax, and free shipping, but I see lately that it's playing games with the prices, and with the shipping charges. And the WoodCraft rep earned my business, no question.

The crate that contained the saw was undamaged, and the saw itself had suffered no damage whatsoever; it even came with plenty of extra bolts. The wings are a pain to align correctly, but they did line up okay. Everything was perfectly aligned; measuring with a T-square from the miter slot to the front and back of the blade showed a slight discrepancy, but it turned out that stock blade was a little warped, and I wasn't going to use it anyway.

Like someone else here, I decided on a hybrid because I have to rely on 115 volts--I rent a house in the San Francisco Bay Area, and buying is stupid right now. This (or the Jet) was the most powerful saw I could get.

I was still worried that it might not have enough power, especially with a dado set, but I've had zero problems. I bought a Freud 8-inch dial-a-dado set, and it works wonderfully, even when set to a pretty aggressive depth and going through oak and bubinga. I do wish the arbor were a bit longer--the outside nut on a fully stacked dado set could be easy to strip if you get it on there wrong. But the motor is quiet (for a power saw), and very smooth, especially compared to my old benchtop model. Dust collection with a Delta dust collector is awesome, thanks to the enclosed cabinet.

I bought an Incra miter gauge, which is fantastic; I never even unbagged the stock gauge. Oh, I also bought the Delta 50-941 mobile base, which works very well and fits the saw perfectly, except that it doesn't support the out-table included with this version. No problem; because I'm moving it often, I decided the legs on the out-table were just getting in the way, so I just removed them.

I'm not wild about the blade guard; lumber fits very tightly between the guard and the fence when ripping, and that's with it adjusted as far away as I can get it. It's probably because I'm most often using a (Freud) thin-kerf blade, but there has to be a better way to prevent kickback. Yes, I would just take the thing off, but everyone--*everyone* will eventually have something flying back at them, and I need my eyes.

Overall, I'm very happy with the saw. I'm more than satisfied with the quality of materials and construction. I keep thinking, this 400-pound animal cost half what my 3-pound laptop cost. I'll need to replace the laptop in a couple years; the saw will outlive me.

After reading the mixed reviews I was a bit hesitant to buy this saw. However, when I clicked add to cart, I found that the price had dropped to below $700 during some special sale on Amazon about 2 weeks ago. 3 days after ordering it I received a call from the shipping company and arranged for delivery. Everything was intact. Not a scratch. The only problem was the lack of the 1/4 inch hex head screws used to attach the fence to the rail. Other than that, I had no problems putting it together. I didn't put the blade guard and splitter on it because I use a crosscut sled a lot. The tabletop is dead flat. The cast iron wings, however, are not. There is a slight gap about the thichness of 3 sheets of paper ( I don't have a caliper to measure). Finally I was able do make some test cuts and found that I didn't have to make any adjustments to either the miter gauge or the blade. I was either very fortunate or Delta finally worked out the bugs that previous buyers had. I was, however, a little disappointed that my saw has failed the "nickel test".

I didn't have room for a large saw and this one does what I want. Worked fine right out of the box, no adjustments needed. Sure there are "better" large saws. I mounted it on a large block of wood for stability, and it allows me to move it around my bench, rather than bolting it down., I just used a piece of 6 x 12 doug fir about 16 inches long, you can probably find this at a construction site doing some wood shoring, I picked mine up in the Bay while fishing (always interesting things on the scum line at tide change.

I was not pleased with the saw at first. It cut to the left (BAD)
and would not even think of resawing. I thought the setup was not right, because the top support bearing would not adjust to the 1/8 inch overlap of the blade that the instructions talked about. I contacted delta and told him of the sawing "crooked" and he immediately said "it's your blade". I explained that it came with a new blade and I also purchased an additional blade. Both cut to the left. I then explained about the support bearing. He sent me a new upper guide, said mabey it was machined wrong. He also sent me 2 DELTA blades. I put the peice on and it helped the bearing position problem, but it still sawed to the left. In flustration I tried the new DELTA blade and that fixed it. Tried the second blade he sent, it sawed perfect also. (even resawing). I'm convinced the blade was the difference. It even sounds different. Hope this helps someone.

I got this Delta bandsaw to cut boards for push-sticks, bird houses and hang-up crafts for my wife. It does a very good job at that although when cutting curves the blade somtimes wanders to the left side. For beginning woodworkers I would recommend this band saw. It is very safe if you know how to use it right. If you are looking to resaw boards and cut beams, dont buy it. It was not designed to do that.

I am not going to reiterate the things I see in the other reviews here; I will add a couple of things which you should know.

1. You should not attempt to use this saw without checking it top to bottom (not just the checklist in the documentation). For example, when I turned mine on for the first time it vibrated so bad that the door not only came open, the hinge broke and the corner of the door cut into the tire on the bottom wheel. The hinge *appeared* to be very sturdy. I know this sounds a little hard to believe, but it is the truth. I might add, that I have never seen or heard of such a thing in almost 20 years of woodworking.

2. I could not align the belt to my satisfaction until I reversed the pulley on the motor. Judging only from the picture in the manual it appeared to be mounted backwards; at any rate reversal is easy and that solved the problem.

3. The quick release band tension lever would hang about every other time. Sometimes it would hang only for a few seconds and then pop and release. I took it apart, checked for burrs etc, wiped it down and put it back together; so far so good for this problem.

4. It is impossible on my saw to resaw hardwood boards anywhere near the thickness the saw can accommodate. Softwoods (or thin hardwood) do alright. I tried 3 different blades; only the 3/4 inch blade resaws acceptably on mine.

5. The trunions broke on the table when I dropped the end of a 2x4 on it. I normally don't resaw 8 foot boards, but this time I had a reason. I don't treat my equipment roughly and typically use each device I purchase for 4 or 5 years.

6. The guides are pretty bad, but I have always found this to be the case on new bandsaws (anybody who ships one with a good set of guides will probably sell me my next bandsaw).

I am giving 2 stars for quality materials; that seems generous. I have in my shop the following Delta equipment: Table saw, jointer, drill press and several other items which have performed much better. I will still buy Delta machinery because I get more for my money. However, I have to say that I had to work much too hard to make this bandsaw usable.

I am still experimenting with balancing methods and have no intention of involving the factory. After all, I don't think I could possibly make it any worse.

I've had this band saw for a little over a year and I have to say that I was hoping for more from Delta. It's certainly powerful enough for me and I like the table, the guides, and the ease of taking tension on and off. What I don't like is the vibration - it's pretty bad.

After buying and reading the Band Saw Book (Taunton Press) I found out that the bottom wheel was badly out of ballance. I called Delta and with a little run-around they shipped me a new wheel under warranty. The new wheel is much worse than the original. I was disapointed in the machining quality of the new wheel it was not ballanced well at all, not to mention the fit is too tight. Pretty crummy warranty replacement all togehter. I expected more from this saw and from Delta. There is no way a nickel is going to stay standing on end - I don't think two nickels glued together would stay standing.

There also seems to be no way to get the pulleys lined up between the motor and lower wheel shaft. I've worked for hours shimming this and that to get it better, but it's not great.

On a final note, there seems no way to get the two wheels co-planer under any circumstances and that seems to be hard on the tires. For example, with a 1/4 blade, the top wheel has to be pitched so far out that when I take the tension off, the wheel binds against the back of the upper cabinet.

To do it over again, I would have saved up and bought a better saw - maybe from somebody other than Delta. Don't get fooled that Delta makes the end-all, be-all 14" band saw that has been written about for years; maybe they used to, but not anymore. And that's coming from a guy with a lot of Delta stuff.

I purchased this bandsaw a little over a year ago from Amazon.com (Tool Crib)and had no problems with assembly or performance. I was a little hesitant in purchasing this model after reading some of the reviews but decided to anyway hoping not to get a lemon. Assembly went well without any problems. I upgraded the blade guides with the bearing type. No problems there either. Balanced a nickel right off the bat. The machine works great. I'm glad I bought it when I did. I got $25.00 off and free shipping. I see now that shipping is $99.00. No complaints here.

I now have 3 delta power tools, including this scroll saw. I am pleased with the quality and design. Setup is simple and goes quickly. Have a rag on hand to wipe off the rust-free oil though. This saw has everything I needed, including higher speeds to cut through hard woods. I only buy delta blades, they seem to last longer than others from the hardware store. I did buy a desk lamp to use with this scroll saw, you definately need one. Much better quality than the Craftsman stuff I looked at. I highly recommend this scroll saw.

Excellent value and performance. This tool includes almost 50 pounds of weight with a variable speed induction motor and a quick change blade mechanism. The saw is well dampened from vibration and natural harmonics at any speed are minimal. The speed range is excellent and the tool saws beautifully. Blade change is straight forward. What more would you want for the price?

I have been doing various types of woodworking for many years, both as a hobby and as a job. One day during a job an older gentleman who lived in the house next door approached me while I was hanging doors and said "hey you wanna see some real woodworking" and brought me into his house to show me beautiful pieces of marquetry and intarsia. I was dumb-founded and decided to go out and buy a scroll saw. I payed [money] for this one and let me tell you it was the most gratifying purchase of a tool I ever made. It does everything from fret-work to marquetry and the variable speed feature is fantastic. The arm is steady and stable...only 1 minor problem and that is that I over-layed a piece of 1/4" plywood on the top of the table to facilitate smoother turning of my pieces.

You can't beat the price.
You could improve the quality.
However, not bad for a starter scroll saw. This saw gets the job done, as long as you are not expecting high precision.

Two gripes:
1.unacceptable high level of vibration at higher speeds for any kind of precision cutting(perfectly acceptable at slower speeds)
2.misalignment of blade locks cause blade to shift slightly from side to side as it goes up and down. Can't seem to figure out how to adjust. From other reviews, I don't think Delta support will be much help.

Otherwise, it works just fine for my needs. This is a case of 'you get what you pay for'.

I don't have much experience with scroll saw but this one is not for serious scroll saw work. Good for just light duty and not very intricated work.

the blower didn't work. hose was kinked.
after a short test run I decided to open up the side panel, I noticed a small pile of metal filings. I took the top and bottom pivit bolts out to oil them, they had never been oiled. the bottom bearing was worn. I oiled the pivit points, seems to work alright, don't know for how long..................

I was working on finishing out a new front porch for a Historical Register house, and when I got down to making corbels I finally decided to order one of these tools. Setup was easy and the machine worked very well sanding the 3" thick three layer pieces. After running the machine 6 to 8 hours (not continuosly) it quit oscillating. The nylon gear that drives the up and down motion had stripped. My father got home from wintering in Florida and took on the repairs. He got it all apart and discovered (we think) the reason(s) for the failure. First, the horizontal drive shaft has a groove for the set screws, they weren't in it. They had torqued them into the shaft, damaging it and making the bearings too tight so it would hardly turn. Also the up and down guide shaft with the adjustable bolt on each side had the bolts set way to tight. There was no way that gear could handle all the force required to push that mechanisim the way they had assembled it. Also there was no lubrication on the bearings, he said. He machined the shaft so it would turn in the bearings, adjusted everything, put a drop of Marvel Mystery Oil on the bearings, and we are waiting for the new gear to arrive. It was hard to locate one, everyone seems to be out of them for obvious reason. Delta needs to get after whoever they have assembling this machine, as it is it's a blemish on a veneralbe line of tools. I hope this thing works when the gear comes, it was great for as long as it lasted. I've got a lot of drums for it too!

I had one of these sanders at my old shop and it stayed there when I moved. I ordered a new one which I had to send back because the spindle was NOT square to the table. This is THE most important function of the tool. Amazon was fantastic even through some confusion in shipping and I got the replacement sent to me.
It is just fine, square, and runs beautifully. The three stars are for the lack of quality control.
I like the tool so far. Good for what you pay for it.

The tool is well made and for the price, it is really great. It is built very sturdy, and has a great work surface which is rock solid. The fact that it comes with all the spindles is a real plus.

Have only one complaint. The spindle seems to be off center when it oscillates, just a tiny bit. By that I mean it backs away from the work on the up stroke and towards the work on the down stroke. It may be something I can adjust.