Delta Reviews

I live in a Townhouse. We used to have one of those showerheads that spray mist. So I went to go buy a new showerhead at the hardware store thinking it was because of the old head. More water came out but it felt more like the water was just draining out of the head instead of actually coming out pressurized. So I'm thinking maybe it's because I'm on the second floor and the apartment was old.

That all changed when I bought this new showerhead. Initially I bought it for my friend. But I had to test it out at my place first. I opened it up and it took me a couple of minutes to unscrew that low flow adaptor that's preinstalled with my hands. As soon as I turned on my water, there was instant pressure! I've kept it.

Now my bathroom is completely soaked everytime I take a shower because the water pressure is so great and water flies everywhere! It got so out of control that I have to actually turn on my water at a slow dribble or else it'll hurt to much. It also has four modes depending on your taste. I just go with the regular o'le spray.

I'd say the only bad thing about it is that the joint where you can move the head around is really tight so it's difficult to adjust.

All I was looking for was a reasonably priced showerhead with good water pressure and a few different spray choices to replace my old one that just dribbled water. WaterPik delivered and our shower is back in business.

I bought a used delta 16" bandsaw (3-wheel) and was quickly frustrated by the poor quality blade, tried this blade from Olson and the difference is incredible, I can resaw dense hardwoods (lacewood, cherry, hard maple) up to 8" and the cut is relatively fast an clean, a great upgrade to Delta's 3 wheel saw.

I don't normally write these but since I've heard problems in the past about this product, I figured I would. I have purchased from Amazon the following items. My 3HP unisaw with Biesemeyer fence. The saw's a heavy one. My workshop is on the second floor of my carriage house so we had to take it up the stairs. Clearance of the stairs are 27 3/4". You can take the cast iron top off and reduce the weight by 95#'s. Putting it on and lining it up are easy. It's a great saw. I've purchased a lot of Delta equipment and if you have a problem, they are right there to solve it. The Biesemeyer fence is shipped in two separate boxes. Super boxes and inserts to ship this. No problems with shipping at all. I thought I might have a crack in the plastic cursor that lines up the scale so I called Biesemeyer. They just sent a new one right away. I also purchased the Biesemeyer overhead blade guard. It comes with it's own splitter. Both are great. Don't buy the dust hose unless you hook it up to a shop vac. Doesn't work with a central dust collection system (per conversation with customer service at Biesemeyer). Now to the outfeed table. I heard a lot of comments that this was damaged in shipment. Well the "new" Delta boxes are fine. Nothing was damaged in shipping. Went together well. If you have a newer Unisaw, all the holes are there for mounting so there is no drilling. It makes it really easy.
Hope this helps in your search for good wood working tools.

I bought this chisel and bit as part of a four piece set and have been happily using it for nearly five years now. I have read in many places that inexpensive chisel and bit sets like this one provide inferior cuts and can dull quickly. That has not been my experience at all. With an accurate setup, I have used this tool to cut perfect mortises in red oak, quartersawn white oak, white pine, and southern yellow pine with no problems whatsoever. Granted, the chisels do get hot during extended use and I am dilligent about letting them cool if they are about to overheat - but I could not be happier with the performance of this set. At this price and with that quality, you cannot go wrong!

I bought this chisel and bit as part of a four piece set and have been happily using it for nearly five years now. I have read in many places that inexpensive chisel and bit sets like this one provide inferior cuts and can dull quickly. That has not been my experience at all. With an accurate setup, I have used this tool to cut perfect mortises in red oak, quartersawn white oak, white pine, and southern yellow pine with no problems whatsoever. Granted, the chisels do get hot during extended use and I am dilligent about letting them cool if they are about to overheat - but I could not be happier with the performance of this set. At this price and with that quality, you cannot go wrong!

I bought this chisel and bit as part of a four piece set and have been happily using it for nearly five years now. I have read in many places that inexpensive chisel and bit sets like this one provide inferior cuts and can dull quickly. That has not been my experience at all. With an accurate setup, I have used this tool to cut perfect mortises in red oak, quartersawn white oak, white pine, and southern yellow pine with no problems whatsoever. Granted, the chisels do get hot during extended use and I am dilligent about letting them cool if they are about to overheat - but I could not be happier with the performance of this set. At this price and with that quality, you cannot go wrong!

I needed a replacement because the planer jammed (how, I don't know) and within seconds burned through the belt. This will be obvious, but I'll say it anyway: if your planer suddenly makes funny loud noises, turn it off, instantly.

There's a lot of disassembly required in order to change this belt, but the manual is clear enough and the pieces go back together without a problem. I held my breath when starting the machine up again, but it worked just fine. The blade alignment and parallelism seem to be as good as before--I didn't have to do any special adjusting.

I bought a second belt just to be sure: this planer is a real workhorse and it was painful not to have it during the couple of weeks I had to wait for the replacement belt.

I have a whole shop full of Delta machines so I know pretty much what to expect from this company. Even so, I still did lots of research before buing this planer which had nearly all favorable reviews. The most common complaint was knives dulling too fast. More on that in a moment.

Out of the box and set up was quick with no problems; tables set up perfectly. Finish was excellent with zero snipe == for a while at least. There is a blue plastic film on the center machine bed. It looks like machine bluing so I didn't realize that it was a film. Nothing in the manual about removing it, either. After a while that film began to become scraped up and would roll into little globs of plastic -- all with predictable results -- getting snipe and not cutting parallel to bottom surface.. The problem got worse and worse until I raised the cutter head way up and examined what was happening.

Once the film was removed (just peel it off) everything back to normal. At least for a while. After about a month of daily use I began to notice a depression running down the length of the boards. It started out and inch wide and 0.010" deep and over a couple weeks increased to 0.050" deep and 2" wide. After removing the blades (which were not dull or damaged) the problem became clear. Wood chips were impacted between the blade holder bar and the blade, forcing the blade to bend. Removing the blade clamping bar, examination revealed the problem -- it was bent or unfair about 0.030" and the reason for this was also clear. The stamping of detent nib had caused the bend. I asked Delta for a new one and am now waiting for it after making a temporary fix.

But for these problems that could happen with any machine, I like this machine and would buy it again.

AS for all the complaints about short blade life, let me say that I used mine daily for a month on nothing but very,very hard tropical hardwoods with no significant blade dulling or chipping. The problem with short blade life is not the blades fault but the user's. GIGO, garbage in, garbage out: if you run dirty woood or use your machine to remove paint or recondition old wood, you must expect rapid dulling. Dirt is what does it. I use a stiff brush and scrub the dirt out of my rough lumber (which is always dirty) before planing. Take very shallow cuts rather than deep ones: I never go more than 1/32. If you are trying to reduce thickness by a 1/4" or more (as indicated in some reviews), you are using the wrong machine. You should be using a band saw for resawing. If you're careful about what you run through a planer, blade replacement should't be more that 2X year.

I particularly like the blade zero feature which I use constantly since I use differing thicknesses almost every time. You press the button down which locks it in place, then lower the cutterhead onto the stock untill it "clicks" off. At this point I raise the cutter a quarter turn to remove the stock, then lower it by a half turn to make the first cut. Works perfect every time with no fuss.

Oh yeah, you need the optional chip collecter which is sold separately. This machine throws a vertible blizzard of chips. It's a 4" nozzle, so buy a reducer couplling if your dust system is 2-1/2" I used a rubber drain reducer from Ace Hardware that has hose clamps on each end which works a lot better than plastic job that will eventually crack. $9 from Ace.

Also be very careful about the folding tables: bump one hard and it will bend at the hinge points and the only fix will be to replace the table. Fold up the tables when not in use.

This dust chute is made of thick plastic and bolts right up to the DC-380 planer. Some of the reviewers (under the DC-380 planer section) mention the difficulty they've had connecting a 4" dust hose to the 4 and 7/8 inch connector. My solution was to buy a standard metal reducer at the hardware store (5" female to 4" female) and drill out the rivets that hold it together. I squeezed the reducer down until the big end fit on the Delta dust chute and the small end fit INSIDE a 4" dust hose. Reassemble with inexpensive aluminum pop rivets and you're good to go. Now, the connector fits the planer so well, I don't need tape to hold it.

I was pleased with the timely manner in which the grinding wheel was shipped and the packaging was excelent. I was unable to find this item localy. Thank You Amazon.