TS Repair Pau

All together again!

Today was the day to finally complete the table saw repair.  The major part of the work was the removal of all the miscellaneous parts... things like the rails front and rear, the motor, and the base section.  That provided access to the arbor assembly where I could unbolt it from the table top and rethread the screw that rotates the blade for bevel cuts.

Once the rig was properly threaded again I added a section of angle iron to the sidewall to give the main cabinet more sidewall support.   The original problem happened because the thin sidewall pushed out far enough for the threaded rod to disengage.  That won't happen anymore.  The angle is strong enough to resist the deflection.  I also corrected the bevel limit stop adjustment so the blade will more easily rotate thru 45-degrees.  As it was, a lot of torque was needed before to get an accurate 45 miter.

After-market reinforcing angle. Stainless steel bolts and self-locking nuts.

This actually was the second angle section I fabricated and installed.  The first one was a piece of aluminum.  But it didn't work.  As soon as I applied any amount of real torque to the arbor mechanism I could see the deflection.  It was clear the other piece of material... the steel section... was going to be the solution.  In truth I was being lazy.  By trying the aluminum I was thinking of avoiding painting.  But it didn't work.  So off it came and I used it as a drilling guide to prepare the second section with steel.

I'm much happier with this anyway.  I've thought since originally getting this saw that the thin sidewall material on the cabinet was a basic design flaw.  It's shown a deflection problem pretty much since day 1.

It was a good exercise to take this all down and apart anyway.  The process gave me a chance to clean it all up properly for a change, lubricate moving parts, and most importantly check all the alignment and adjustments.  If there's anything at all left to do it's to fabricate a new zero-clearance insert for the new thin kerf saw blades I use.  But that might wait.  Most important thing now is to complete the office workstation build!

The bevel adjustment wheel is above the new angle iron.

I thought back today about how bummed I was when this broke down.  All of those feelings were replaced this afternoon with a kind of satisfaction that only comes from fixing something yourself.  Most of the time a repair job like this isn't difficult to do at all.  You just have to dive in and tackle them.