|
1) Submitted by
Michael, from Milwaukee, WI
on 8/19/2011
Customer Rating: 
The saw itself was a 1, but the support of both Rockler personnel and Laguna personnel was superb, so I'm rating it a 2. The old adage about the cobbler's kids being the last to have shoes? well, I believe we have the worst cabinets on the block, and I've done quite a few cabinet jobs in the past. I was so excited to get this saw, as I was making some really good progress on our own kitchen and figured this would speed up the process. Between the price and features, this had all the makings of a long and happy life in my shop. What then started out as bad, got progressively worse. First were the issues of the delivery of the first saw. Laguna's choice of shippers only delivered to a residential address 1 day a week. I'm on the road quite a bit, so had to rent a dump truck and pick it up from the local shipping yard. sliding this down with the neighbor's and wife's help was entertaining..... Whew, in the shop and ready to assemble. The instructions were a joke, basically written for a different saw, and someone in China tried translating it to the new saw. Nuts/Bolts/Screws all labeled in bags were completely different than the manual, which added to the "fun". The extension wings of the table itself had quite a bit of milling slag still on the mating surfaces. This was well over an hour of grinding, sanding and de-burring to get the edges smooth. After that, I found multiple threaded holes were stripped, the fence wouldn't align properly at all. I called Laguna's technical support who was very helpful, and they shipped out a second saw, this time coming directly to the house. Already discouraged from the first saw, quite a bit of the momentum I had gained on our own kitchen was dwindling. Not even fully assembled yet, right about a week after receiving it, the top of the second saw started to rust, even with a heavy dose of T-9 treatment on the entire surface. Started to get some surface rust about a month after, so I cracked out the T-9 again, removing the rust, then using the surface lubricant. I had picked up a few boards of cherry and had laid some boards across this saw and my old Ridgid saw for a couple of days. Much to my surprise, the Laguna got some HEAVY rust under the boards which also then started going into wood! The Ridgid didn't get any rust, so this also leads me to believe it was a problem only with Laguna. With all of the sawdust in the shop, I get nosebleeds on occasion, so I know it's pretty dry out there. No other machine has had an issue with rust. The worst part of all this, is that NOTHING has happened on our kitchen since this fiasco started 5 months ago. I just took the second saw back to Rockler for a refund and am ready to continue with my Ridgid saw. On a side note, I've had 2 different Ridgid saws, and a Powermatic PM2000 all in the same shop, and NONE have rusted, except for one spot where I had dropped a bead of sweat on the top and forgot to wipe it off. The store manager at Rockler was excellent, taking the saw back and fully refunding my money Minus shipping costs though, which was over $100, even after the 30 day period, but well within the first year. I'm trying my best to at least purchase the replacement saw from Rockler and continue supporting the local branch.
|