Beast Master tames the Unisaw
The 1978 Rockwell Unisaw has been performing very well. But I didn’t understand how out of date some of the design thinking was until I went to cut the drawer bottoms for the rolling shop cabinets. The smallest cabinet has drawers which are 28" wide. My JET Contractor saw has a 30" fence. The Unisaw had only a 25" fence. I had planned to delay replacing the fence but the 2-foot fence was not going to work so I placed my order for the Biesemeyer 50" Fence System. I decided "in for a penny in for a pound" so I also decided I’d replace the anemic miter gauge with an Osborne triangular "EB-3". You can see the original equipment on the left and the installed upgrades on the right.
The irony of the upgrade process (once it was shipped to the shop in a tractor trailer truck – OVER KILL), was that I needed the saw to upgrade the saw. So, I installed the fence system, cut all the parts for the extension table, and then partially disassemble the fence to install the extension table. In my case, I only attacked the top of the extension table at three points from below so I can remove / replace it when necessary without disassembling the fence again.
It will take some time to get use to the Osborne. It is very wide. Is has a series of detents on the sliding cross bar so both positive and negative standard angles are easy to reach. It also has a "stop" and extension end so repeatable cuts are easy.
The one issue is that now the magnetic starter is too far under the fence. I’ll need to extend it forward so it’s more accessible and safer to operate. It was a bit of an issue before and much worse now. What really drives me nuts is that the JET has it’s power controls on the left and the Rockwell / Delta has them on the right <ugh>.
If anyone is interested, I’ll post pics of how I built the extension table. The fence system gave simple to follow instructions and I had all the necessary materials in the shop.
I’m very happy with the upgrades. IT goes without saying that I’ve now spend more on the refurb and upgrades to the Rockwell Unisaw than I did on the table saw in the first place … but that was not really hard considering I bought it at auction for the scrap price of $17.50.
Nice upgrades! This makes me wanna do the same thing to my table saw. I have a similar table saw which I picked up for $40 about 15 years ago from a Woodworker’s shop who was going out of business. My table saw has the same ‘original equipment” as your picture on the left… even have the same piece of wood attached. Everything functions quite nicely and is perfectly square and all, but now seeing the potential I’m thinking this would be a nice upgrade for the Kriger Woodshop. Thanks for posting.
Carl
I am more than happy with the fence system and the accuracy of it (assuming you squared toe saw’s cast iron top to the blade first). One advantage for me (but not a common situation) is that I can buy just the rail system (for less than half the cost of the whole fence system) for my second saw and then the fence and any jigs I build for it will run on both.