Table Saw Repairs

Table Saw Inverted

A week or so before leaving for AU this year (more on how that all went in a future post) my trusty Rigid TS3650 table saw broke down.  It has worked flawlessly since it was new 10 yrs ago, but time caught up and the doctor needed to make a call.  What actually happened was that the threaded rod that rotates the arbor for bevel cuts popped out of its "catch" in the arbor assembly.  What I hadn't really noticed over the years was that the sheet metal siding was slowly being pushed out of shape, and the additional length inside the assembly finally wasn't enough to keep the rod in place.



So for the first time since it came out of the box and got assembled it had to be torn down for repairs.  The rails came off, the motor came off, and the whole thing flipped upside down for access.  At this point I was able to take the base off, unbolt the arbor housing from the surface castings, reseat the bevel movement rod, and get things in order again.  But the siding sheet metal was still deformed, so clamps you see above were used to restore the shape.  As good as things looked it was pretty apparent that the problem would happen again soon without an after-market improvement.  The solution I came up with was to fabricate a support piece made of angle iron.

But I bought two shapes to experiment with:  a section of aluminum and one of steel.  I figured if the aluminum was strong enough it would be the easier material to work with.  So I cut it to length, drilled the holes, and bolted it up.  Unfortunately the force of the bevel movement was too strong and the aluminum showed deformation.  So tonight I took it off and refabricated a similar piece using the steel.

The aluminum would have been good enough unfinished, but with the humidity around here steel has to be painted.  So after drilling out the holes, cleaning and prepping I put a couple coats of "Rigid Orange" (a reasonable facsimile) on it.  By tomorrow night the paint will be dry enough for installation.  And this weekend I should be able to get everything back on so it's all ready to use again.

And *then* I'll be able to complete the last small work surface and the runners for the cpu cabinet.  I've fallen behind on this project... but it's a journey, not just a destination.

More on the completed repairs soon.

Base & Legs