Erika 70 questions from noobie

Having just received my first Erika (70), I can add some observations from the perspective of a noob.

Quality control at Mafell is very, very far from infallible. When I opened my box (which showed no significant damage) and removed the PVC pipes that were zip-tied in for shipping, I found that the angle knob was completely inoperable and the blade was sitting about 3mm to the right of the throat in the table, making it impossible to raise or use in any way. I thought maybe I was missing something incredibly obvious and gave Timberwolf a ring, but they'd never heard of that happening either.

After spending quite a bit of time studying how it was actually put together, I noticed that even though the (stuck) blade angle was well shy of the 0 point, the vacuum port on the back had no travel room left, so it would be impossible for it to ever roll any further to achieve -3. At that point I realized that the rear trunnion gear had been dropped in two full teeth over from where it belonged, thus making the knob un-turnable and wedging the blade permanently beneath the table because it was nowhere near parallel.

I then spent another couple hours taking the rear leg assembly off, reseating the trunnion gear in its proper location, and then carefully re-assembling the entire thing with a network of criss-crossed parallel clamps to make sure that the table fastened back down as flat as humanly possible. After that, it became generally usable.

Timberwolf has been great and vowed to back my warranty no matter what even if I had completely rebuilt the thing myself, but Mafell themselves have made me a fairly unhappy customer. Nobody even tried to operate any part of the thing before throwing in its box and that's just completely inexcusable at any price point.

With that ugliness behind me, I actually tried using it. Table flatness (even before I started messing with it) is not awe-inspiring, but well within normal for a portable saw. There is a very slight dip the closer you get to the blade, but that's the area where the throat plate would be on other saws, and those dip so far down I've had workpieces get hung up on them before.

My positive stop for 0 degrees is just a hair shy of 0. I have to turn the knob to disengage the stop and go a little bit toward the negative range to get a truly square cut. Wouldn't be noticeable in 3/4" ply, but with 8/4 stock, it's an issue. I will have to see if I can move the positive stop a bit or if I have to file it down to get it to a true 0. Annoying, but also something I generally expect to have to do on a portable saw of any kind when I need glue-ready perfection, even my track saws.

The markings on my MFA fence are pretty off the mark, but I've found relying on the positive stops on it to be pretty darn accurate. I bought the extension with the flip stop and I find it ridiculously long. It not only makes my tiny workspace more difficult to move around in, but it also just gives you so much leverage that the slightest amount of pressure can torque the angle off of where it should be. I'm going to be cutting this down immediately as shorter is better for me. The accessory clamping mechanism is good, but it can't alter the laws of physics.

Being able to perfectly bisect your cuts to produce a 45 degree joint no matter how far you might happen to be off is just great, and honestly 50% of the reason why I wanted the Erika in the first place. No disappointments there at all.

The stock fence I find insultingly worthless. At this price, the MFA should be standard equipment in the "scope of delivery."

Changing blades is an absolutely horrendous experience. The second time I did it, the flange slipped off and fell down into the red plastic shroud that covers the lower half of the blade. It rolled and wedged itself in a place where it wouldn't come loose even when I tipped the entire thing upside down and pounded on it. I luckily had a bunch of 80lb magnets left over from some knife blocks I made and was able to grab the thing through the side of the shroud and work it free. There went an hour of my life I'll never get back.

The vacuum splitter accepts neither 36mm nor 27mm hoses. This is also pointlessly frustrating and I had to just tape my 36mm hose into it because I stopped keeping stupid little adapters around after going all-European on everything.

On to actual use, I for one found the dust collection to be nothing short of amazing. Cutting aluminum left quite a few filings flying around, but making cross cuts in 8/4 sapele left only a fine smattering of dust on the top and nothing immediately apparent on the floor. I wouldn't use it on white carpet, but it's way cleaner than my Kapex.

The self-leveling foot was awesome. I didn't really know what it was going to do the first time I stepped on it, but when it did it, it made me very, very happy.

The pull action takes some getting used to, both because it engages radically different muscle groups and because it forces your right arm into harm's way when you're making small offcuts that have a tendency to fall into the blade and get flung forward. I put a thick scrap down on the table in front of the end of the blade's travel to shield me as this is something I do quite a lot of, and it really, really, really hurts when a hunk of graphite impregnated garolite flies into your arm at 60MPH.

Cut quality of the standard blade is quite good. There is a bit of very fine splintering on the exit, but one swipe of 120 grit paper cleans it up. I'll probably make a zero clearance fence of some kind at some point, but as it is, it's very, very good.

Digging in with the aluminum blade on aluminum, I had a really hard time getting a truly square cut. I'm not entirely sure why and will need to practice a bit more. I suspect the workpiece is simply sliding around when being "clamped" with my fingers. I wanted to use an actual clamp, but there's nowhere for one to get a decent purchase on the MFA fence when the thing you're cutting is on the small side. At the very least, there was very little deburring needed afterward, and only on the exit side.

And speaking of aluminum, it was pleasant to discover that the "clamping elements" perfectly fit into the channel of 25mm 80/20 extrusions--something I have a lot of which should make a wonderful full-length rip fence for much less than $300.

All-in-all, I think it's a really good portable saw with all the usual caveats of a portable saw. If I had a large workshop I'd never even consider spending this much on anything with any of those caveats, but since I just have a tiny, cramped garage, I like it and am eager to get some more practice time in with it to see how I can best make it work for me.

Changing blades is an absolutely horrendous experience. The second time I did it, the flange slipped off and fell down into the red plastic shroud that covers the lower half of the blade. It rolled and wedged itself in a place where it wouldn't come loose even when I tipped the entire thing upside down and pounded on it. I luckily had a bunch of 80lb magnets left over from some knife blocks I made and was able to grab the thing through the side of the shroud and work it free. There went an hour of my life I'll never get back.

Read more: mafell-users-forum.freeforums.net/thread/940/erika-70-noobie?page=6#ixzz4vfyJ3UdM
Changing the blade should not be hard.
1 unplug saw so no power
2 remove the gaurd
3 pull the saw to center and lock in position
4 set saw height to 25mm or 1 inch
5 underneath hold the spindle lock and turn the Allen key clockwise to loosen
6 lift out blade
7 if drop flange don't worry slide the black cover on the channel back and the flange will fall out
8 place new blade in
9 with flange and nut Hand tighten turning anti clockwise and tighten with Allen key
10 place gaurd bacon
11 unlock saw position
12 plug in ready to use

..Same, mitre fence on the left.  The Erika entertains me, like a three dimensional puzzle.  I start out thinking I should cut one way, but then another way presents itself which leads to ‘doh why didn’t I do that to begin with.  Having that flexibility is a great feature, there being several ways to do something, where with another saw there might only be one way.

I am familiar with the process of changing a blade on a saw, though I've never felt the need to bring bacon guards and can imagine that their fingers would be even greasier and slipperier than mine.

Afraid I have nothing to slide back--when the flange drops and wedges, it's stuck there and does not move at all.

Yes you do. Underneath the saw on the dust channel that runs to the the dust exit port at the back, there's a black cover piece. Slide this this towards the front of of the saw to reveal reveal a hole upto saw blade area. This will allow the flange to fall out

If anyone else from the future ever needs to adjust their 0 degree stop, the official Mafell response was to wrap the defeat knob in a cloth and crank it with a wrench until it turns the eccentric cam where you want it. I found it waaaaay simpler (and less risky) to just loosen the screw holding that knob where it was so it would turn freely by hand. Once you can spin it any way you want, it then becomes much more apparent how it actually works and what you need to accomplish. When it's in a spot that you like, hold it steady from the front while you tighten the screw back down. After that you can loosen the screw holding the little red indicator on and point it at your new, true zero. 

My blade's now Starret straight when it hits the stop so long as I don't reference the surface immediately to either side of the blade where the table tends to dip just a hair. I've never seen better than that on anything other than an iron top, so I'm calling it fixed. If it really bothers me at some point I'll Bondo it up and sand with a glass plate. It's more than good enough for wood and soft plastics as-is. Runout's probably worse than the variance in the top. 

Haven't really looked into the 45 degree stop as I never, ever, ever trust that without a good triangle handy anyway.

Timberwolf threw a bit of credit on my account for all my trouble, so thanks again to those fine folks. The only thing I'm still really cranky about is the vacuum port size. I think I'm just going to jerry rig something together out of heat shrink tubing and PVC as I really don't want to have to store yet another special hose that isn't even antistatic.

I bought a festool 50mm hose and just did two or so wraps of painters tape for a snug in and out fit. Works a charm