A question for engineers

Bill Arnold

1974
Staff member
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Location
Thomasville, GA
I'll post a 'gloat' thread about my latest acquisition later, but first a question about something I see that may or may not be an issue. I ordered a DW735 from Amazon last week and received it this evening. The box had some of the typical external dings. The styrofoam packing showed some signs of the item being bounced around a little, so I looked further. There were no cosmetic issues on the exterior of the unit in its normal operating position. I had my wife tilt it so I could examine the underside of it and found what I would describe as stress fractures. I'm attaching some photos and would like your evaluation of whether these fractures should be of any concern.
 

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Bill I would not be happy with that casting. Not for the price of the DW735.

I have had a fair bit to do with large die pressure cast moulding and sure some of those look like a stress fracture but others look like it took a bad hit and thats the consequence. Especially the last one where it looks like pieces have actually chipped out.

The way they got ribs in their and the posts I would not have expected that to occur.

I will head down to my shop tomorrow and have an inspection of my own DW735 see what i find and report back.

Some of those cracks look like the kind i would say occured during cooling. But still the manufacturer can always reject a casting.
 
I've always had good luck with Amazon providing a replacement in short order. Good thing as I'd be sending that one back. You were right to check.
 
I would guess that those cracks are from a casting that was cooled to fast. Cast iron needs to be cooled slowly. Some manufacturers actually bury the castings in the ground to allow them to normalize and de-stress over time. The location of the cracks defiantly looks like a bad casting

I believe that grizzly for instance has many of their castings rough machined and then they have a chance to normalize when they are shipped by boat. they do the finish machining in the states.

It is also possible that the metal chemistry or structure is inferior. Cheap cast iron?

Ship it back.
 
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The base is cast aluminuim and they could be welded but for the price you paid I wouldn't settle with having to do anything to it. I would contact the seller right away. I priced out a replacment base for the unit as if you remember the stainless steel top on mine seperated from the aluminum table and i ended up gluing plastic laminate down instead if the stainless. The stainless steel top is just glued down and if that is cracked like that I would expect it to create major problems with the feed rate just like mine did. I think I was quoted around 200 for the replacement part.
 
My vote is for sending it back. Even on a cheap machine, for that kind of damage in a webbed area, it took on a big hit. If it did that to the webbed area, think of the tweaking that took place throughout that machine. And if it were mine, I would be mad at myself for keeping it and then every time something didn't come out of it right, you would always wonder and I would beat myself up about it. You spent the money to get a quality machine, now send this one back and get another that hasn't been in a train wreck.
 
With the vibration in a planer, I would be very scared of that base. It might last for years, but my guess is you'll regret it down the road if you keep it. The danger is further stress and vibration will make the cracks propogate through the base until they are a major problem.

If it were just one out of the way, you can take a drill and put a hole at each end of the crack and be good. That's a lot of cracks though. Dropping it on edge or pressing on it to hard could have potentially done that too. If the cracks came from that there's probalby more issues too.
 
Thanks to all of you for your input. I've contacted Amazon already and will await their response. They've always been good about making things right in the past, so I'm sure they will do the same this time.

But, darn it, I guess I can't officially gloat yet, huh? Maybe a gloat thread when I get an un-damaged unit? :dunno:
 
I'm no Engineer but my grandfather used to drive trains and my grandson is studying to be one (Soph at UK)... But IMHO any crack at the onset is not to be acceptiable. As Elvis once said..."Return to Sender"
 
Amazon acted quickly to order another DW735 to be shipped tomorrow. The only thing that bothers me is that they say I have to pay shipping to return the damaged unit. Is this what you guys have experienced?
 
Amazon acted quickly to order another DW735 to be shipped tomorrow. The only thing that bothers me is that they say I have to pay shipping to return the damaged unit. Is this what you guys have experienced?

Yes...but they refund the return shipping when I return the bad piece
 
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