Ok, I finally bought a saw and going to post review here so it might be helpful for others.
First of all, want to remind about my first attempt in rail saws - Ruby 250-1200. It was very off-square with no easy way to fix that, so it went back to store. Then, I was considering the following saws:
- Lackmond Beast Rail Saw BEASTRS34
- Pearl VX10RSPRO
- Imer Combi 250/1000VA
- Raimondi Gladiator 105
First one, BEASTRS34, was two weeks ago on crazy sale on Amazon - $875 (now price came back to $1,750). The reasons I didn't go for it:
1) Very lousy support from Lackmond - the support guy didn't even know if saw has plunge capability, and was too lazy to pick up his a.. and take a look.
2) Suspicious price cut - if saw is good, why price dipped that low? May be it was bad batch, or something else, hard to say, but I didn't risk to buy it.
3) Too new with zero information anywhere. Yes, it's made in Italy, but it's a new endeavor for Lackmond, and nobody anywhere commented if it was a successful one.
Second, Pearl VX10RSPRO, looked VERY tempting. Cheapest of them all ($1,300), got everything I was looking for, etc. I even found one comment on ContractorsDirect that someone achieved very good precision with it (1/64 in 3 feet!). The reasons I didn't go for it:
1) Again, almost zero information anywhere. I found only one video review made by people who obviously know nothing about saws and are not engineers or anything close to that. You know, sort of "this is a good laptop - it's black and thin!"
2) Rubber-like work surface. It's very hard to judge without personally feeling it, but almost any rubber compresses, and that might lead to small vertical movement, that could be critical in a very tight jolly cut, or narrow cuts (like 1 in or less). Again, for me critical is anything bigger that 1/32 offset.
Third, Imer Combi 250/1000VA. Imer support was sort of good, but it was very hard to explain the guy that I'm asking him about their 1/32 guarantee - it is squareness or blade deviation along the cut? Instead of answering, he started to go off about how blade is important, etc. Long story short, he confirmed that they guarantee 1/32 or less blade deviation along the cut, but he didn't say on what distance - 1 foot, 2, 3, 4? And no guarantees on squareness.
The reasons I didn't go for it:
1) Literally no bells and whistles, i.e. no tile holder, or extension table on the right side, or anything else.
2) Questionable support
3) Virtually impossible to adjust squareness if it goes off, or comes bad from factory.
4) For some strange reason, I just don't like it. When literally everything pushes me in some direction, I always resist
Finally, Raimondi Gladiator 105. After I scratched Lackmond and Pearl from the list, I was torn back and forth between Raimondi and Imer. The only thing that was stopping me was the blade rotation direction - on all videos it was rotating backwards, like everything in Europe
But then I just emailed Raimondi support. They answered me in 2 hours, and confirmed the following: yes, it was the case long time ago. Now,
for last 5-6 years, all Gladiator saws they sell in US rotate normally, like any other saw. It's just those videos are obsolete now. So, I pulled the trigger and ordered Raimondi Gladiator 135 (not 105, but 135). Reasoning for 135 instead of 105 was standard - a) I can cut short things on long saw, but I cannot cut long things on short saw, b) resell value is much higher and easier to find buyer in pro community when I no longer will need this saw. Besides, difference of 400 was big, but not
that big.
I ordered it on Tools4Flooring with nice discount. The reason I didn't got with ContractorsDirect is that they ship free only to commercial address, while T4F shipped it free to my residence, plus a discount
It arrived exactly in one week from order day. First, I was kind of scared, as at the bottom of the water container I found Fedex slip that indicated that saw was sent to T4F by ... Ruby distribution center! Plus, color scheme looks very like Ruby. I thought that may be this is same case like Toyota/Lexus - same company, same cars, just one is made by a little better trained workers. Anyway, I was very suspicious up to the moment of first cut.
I don't know where to start, so I'll start with a good thing, because it's shorter
. By the way, let me deviate a little for some rumble. If you'd only know, how am I tired of all these 'reviewers' on any tech stuff. I'm the engineer, and work with numbers. I always, always, always look at the tech params first. So, it just drives me nuts when some 'reviewer' says something like 'yeah, this baby is dead straight and square!' Or, 'it cuts like a butter!' C'mon, this is not a review! This is a child talk. How straight? How square? What did you measure with? What is precision of your measuring tool? What does it mean, "like a butter"?! I can cut butter stick in 1 second. You want to say, you can cut 4 feet of porcelain in 1 second?!
Ok, I vented an bit, so I'll continue
So, good thing first: saw cuts straight and square
. How square? I measured 2 ways. One way was to use Empire 12" rafter square. It's precision is 0.001 in 12 in. I was applying square to the cut side, and was measuring distance from tile edge to square edge using Neiko 01409A caliper, which has it's own accuracy of 0.001 in. So, error of measurement cannot exceed 0.002 in in 12 in. When I was measuring this way, I was unable to register any off-square in 12 in, meaning that the cut was square to at least 0.002in in 12 in distance.
Second way was simpler: I took 2 feet long tile and cut it along one edge. Then, moved tile along the bottom, and cut approximately 1" along these 2 feet. This was done to avoid any off-square issue with the tile itself - to measure how cuts are parallel to each other. Then, I measured actual width of that 1" strip every 2in along the long side using same caliper. Results - deviation is 0.01in in 2 feet, which translates to roughly 0.005 in in 12 in (better that 1/128 per 12 in).
For the record, all of this was cut using Alpha Porcellana 10" blade.
Another good thing is the water stream - it's darn strong! I cannot describe it (or measure), but it's very like water stream from your kitchen faucet when totally opened. Water management is sort of no good, no bad - in 40 mins of non-stop cutting only about one gallon went to the floor
So, I got what I wanted in terms of precision. Now, the bad parts (you expected them, don't you?
1) Tile holder is a joke. Cruel joke. First of all, it doesn't work for jolly cuts - it is located too close to the head, so when head is tilted, it pushes the holder and stops at ~30 degrees. Yes, you heard it right - no 45 degrees jolly cuts with tile holder. Second, to install it, you need to screw nut from the bottom. This location is accessible only when water container is removed (or pulled to the front at least 10"). Problem is, to pull container out, you need to ... tilt head 45 degrees
So, the order of installing tile holder is this: a) tilt head 45 degrees and pull out water container; b) attach front part of the tile holder while making sure that rear part is moved far left (so holder rail does not touch saw head). This is very, very awkward moment; c) push water container back, tilt head back to be straight; d) now attach the rear part of tile holder. Uffff, you're done! Ouch, your next cut is jolly cut? Darn....
And last, but not least: once you engage tile holder, you have to hold it until cut is finished!!! Yes, there is no fixator or locker or anything like that! Keep tile holder with all your might with one hand, while cutting with another. After several cuts I felt that development of such a holder should be qualified as a capital crime.
2) Support table ("folding extension table") is another joke. No matter how you install it, it is not high enough to reach table surface - it is short about 3/32. Basically, you cannot put tile on it. I was chatting with support and sending emails back and forth, and they finally confirmed (at the factory) that this is "by design"; I quote from their email: "
the factory did this to avoid hit the tile when you slide on the plate, in the past some people complain about that, and prefer to have a small gap of the thickness of the plate,
then the factory decide to redesign this way". Do you see what's wrong here? Well, ughm, everything, I'd say.
3) Square stop that slides on right front is not even a joke. It's absolutely, ultimately, totally useless accessory. It's sides are 6", and they are off 1/16 on that distance. Junk.
4) Blade replacement. To replace blade you need to open blade compartment. That's 6 screws. Nuff' said. Oh, and yes, Raimondi uses that dip star-head bolts. Good luck finding proper screw head. No, it's not included with the saw.
5) Original blade that come with the saw you can throw away immediately. Total junk. Chips porcelain every 1/4 in. As well you can throw away the manual - no useful information, very, very small pictures such you cannot even tell what is what on them. Pew.
6) To combat water spills to the user, Raimondi added sort of water deflector in front of the frame. Not so good idea. I used to verify blade position versus tile when doing jolly cuts by literally looking where blade touches tile exactly from the position that is now closed by this water deflector. Bad, bad, bad idea. I'd rather be wet than miss the cut.
7) Aluminum table covers are not exactly flat. They tilt up about 1/16 at the far edge. This is not so important for me, but c'mon, Raimondi, where is the quality control?! And no, this does not count as a case for their replacement. Ouch.
Well, that's all bad things I noticed so far.
