I have one of the factory built Rockwell's that cut wood & metal. It's a great saw. I had planned on converting a Taiwanese built wood saw, but jumped on the Rockwell before I started on the conversion. Sold it for what I had in it.
The kit looks much better than most could build and probably cheaper than all the parts, etc one would need such as a gear box to slow down the blade. At the Surplus Center a 60:1 gear box is $98.45 plus shipping. My SWAG is that shipping would raise it to at least $125.00, equal to the kit. All said and done I think conversion would cost $175 or more.
Ditto on the quality blades. One can buy decent wood blades at a big box store, but metal ones need to be sourced from an on line store.
The kit looks much better than most could build and probably cheaper than all the parts, etc one would need such as a gear box to slow down the blade. At the Surplus Center a 60:1 gear box is $98.45 plus shipping. My SWAG is that shipping would raise it to at least $125.00, equal to the kit. All said and done I think conversion would cost $175 or more.
Ditto on the quality blades. One can buy decent wood blades at a big box store, but metal ones need to be sourced from an on line store.