I just found your videos and am watching them now. I hope by now you've resolved all of the issues and are happy with your purchase. I bought my Minimax SCM SC2C four years from my local German vendor and the price included delivery, assembly, and commissioning. All of the alignment problems you described in this video can be easily corrected during the assembly and commissioning and should not be considered manufacturing defects. The tool marks on the fence are not acceptable, and could affect the alignment of the fence in the knuckle or scratch the wood. However, I have dinged up my fence several times, and it is easy to fix my mistakes with 400-grit sandpaper. Like you, I expect new machines to look new, but during the first week of use, the fence will not look new. I use my saw nearly every day and have never needed a support for the extension table on the rip side. In the beginning, I even used the extension table for assembling drawers and cabinets because I didn't have any assembly space. As you suggested, the first two studs that attach the fence rail to the cast iron table carry the weight of the bar. The remaining three studs to the right of the cast iron table provide some support to the extension table and wing. The rest of the extension table support comes from the bolts that run along the length of the cast iron table where they join. The three black caps at 0:39 of your video are used in case you knock out the lifting holes in the chassis to move the saw. There is one lifting hole on the slider side and two lifting holes on the cast iron table side and they have a blue hook decal above the knockout. When new, these holes are ready to be punched out if needed to move the saw using hooks and chains. When finished, the black caps plug up the holes. I don't use the support bar at 4:20, and don't know anyone who does. I keep it in the black tool bag that came with the saw. The angle scales on my saw's outrigger are unusable as well. Unlike your saw, I have two scales from 0-45 degrees, one in each direction. Mine has similar pencil marks from the factory, but even the technician couldn't find a combination of crosscut arm positions that would align with the marks on the scale. The slider alignment is a lot of fun (not really). I've aligned mine twice since I owned the saw because I moved it around in my shop and had to re-level it at each location. This changes the alignment of the slider to the blade. The blade location relative to the cast iron table is fixed and can't be changed, but it doesn't really matter. All that matters is the sliding table is coplanar to the cast iron table, but slightly higher, and there is a very small toe-out with respect to the blade. Likewise, the rip fence will have a very slight toe-out with respect to the blade. The technician took about six hours to assemble and commission my saw. The first time I moved the saw, it took me about eight hours just to align the sliding table. Every movement of one of the four leveling studs affects the sliding table alignment in every plane. The second time I moved the saw, it took me about three hours to align the sliding table. Aligning the rip fence for a slight toe-out takes about 20 minutes, depending on how much it changed with each move.
A few months ago I received my SCM Minimax SC 2C, it was not very accurately set up but it took the better part of a day to align the sliding table and getting it coplanar to the cast iron. It took another 45 minutes to get the support arm properly aligned to support the wing at the right height. Add another hour to set the stops correctly and adjust the sliding cover for the saw blade as it was binding a little bit. All in all, a day and a half for setup and calibration, it was not very difficult nor frustrating to set it up. Now it runs true and I'd happily recommend it to anyone if they're not afraid to read a manual and use a spanner.
So it seems that regardless of the issues most of them can be corrected with measuring instruments and time.... But what I was hoping for was for a suggestion for another product which does not suffer from similar problems. Is there nothing else on the market that compares?
Thanks for making this video (and I guess you also submitted it to Machine Atlas?), very helpful. I've added it to the site. Hope you managed to solve your problems with SCM.
Many thanks for your video. This is not good for this large company, clearly they are not concerned about smaller customers. They should remember that smaller customers if successful may return if they have a positive experience.
I truly hope there will be a follow up video of this machine. SCM present itself as company of professionals but this is quite disappointing. I understand this is an entry level machine but still..
Thanks for sharing your experiences. Have you checked alignment between slider and blade itself? (I've heard someone else say that it could look like an unevan gap to the main saw body)?
I assembled the cast iron table height and slider before taking those measurements. Uneven gap between cast iron table front and back relative to slider was also my initial wrong assumption. They don't need to be exactly the same as cast iron table sides are not milled to tolerance. David Best has great videos about slider adjustment: www.flickr.com/photos/davidpbest/albums/72157711930240666 Currently I have set my blade back-teeth about 0.02mm (I might remember it wrong by heart) away from the slider. Which seemed like good idea, but added problems to rip-fence side. I need to think about if I should change it to zero...
I was about to buy the Lab300p . Not much online about Minimax in general. Now I am wondering! I can buy the Hammer C3-31 here or the Robland as well, basically all are in the ballpark of the same price. You have given me pause
I had the same problem, basically no information was available. Only some in German language and one more in depth video in Russian language (if you are interested then you will find it in Machine Atlas webpage). My disappointment has only grown with the unit. If I were to purchase a new saw all over again then I probably would look into Harvey American style cabinet saws with additional slider unit. Dennis from Hooked on Wood has something similar. Check him out: ru-vid.com/show-UCuvjeMfKGqSoYc32Xk5MLfQ
@@wjaceh interesting. Why wouldn’t you buy a hammer K3 (or B3 or C3)? They seem like good value and overall it seems most people are happy with them. I have heard of a few issues but I it sound like issues are generally addressed by Felder after sales service.
Hi. Short answer is NO, I do not recommend it. Longer answer is that it depends. It depends on what accuracy do you expect from this machine and how much time and extra money are you willing to invest to get it finished. I have found a ton of extra assembly/culture problems on the machine. I plan to make extra videos about those in the future. I have spent about extra 600-700€ for instruments with which I'm calibrating the saw (dial indicators, machinist level etc.) If you want to get panel cutting accuracy of 0.5mm from the factory settings then forget it. If you want to cut firewood with it then it is probably an overkill. Unfortunately there aren't much alternatives for similar machines on the market. Parts seem to be well made (although there are some design faults in my opinion). Reassembly seems to be unavoidable concluding where all I have discovered problems that will pile up in domino effect. About half of the problems are removed now with at least 40h time cost. So if you have time and money and skills to finish the product yourself then buy it. If you don't feel comfortable with the latter then skip it. I was given the opportunity to return the unit- which I decided not to do, but I don't recommend the same route for everyone. If you should decide to buy it then ask me before some extra advice on where not to buy, as I have had "the best" customer service possible.
Sorry for the late feedback- I haven't been to the saw lately. Parallel fence maxed out (I have one obstruction in my workshop which prevents to fully extend it, so about 10mm could be added to below measurements): - in low profile position: 820mm - in high profile position: 900mm From the left of the blade you can get 1650mm with the flip stop down. It could of been about 700mm longer if SCM had installed longer profile extension which would of cost about couple of extra euros.
@@wjaceh thank you for adding those details. I just struggle in buying either one of those SCM s2 or Record Power TS2 which is brand new on the market, the downside of it though, no one has this machine in their shops so i'd buy a pig in a poke! However, i like the quality of there products and be as optimistic as i can. (bought a Bandsaw from them). Or came in my mind, recently, Hans Schreiner PS315, its a decent machine with all the fratures i want and costs less than 1000 Euro compared to SCM, but i dont know much about the quality of their products and how rigid their table saw is. One last thing though, the left side measure to the fence extension was to the extented measurement right? Could you give me please the collapsed one? Thank you in advice :)
