Lapidaryforum.net
Gadgets, Gizmos, and Dohickeys => Fixing, Modifying and Refurbishing your Lapidary Equipment => Topic started by: Ranger_Dave on December 17, 2016, 04:58:35 PM
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I got this saw for free months ago. It's taken awhile to restore it, but I think it was worth it. Just a lot of cleaning and scraping almost a half inch of gunk on the bottom. I replaced both bearings since one was shot. The guy that sold me the bearings (new old stock) said those specific bearings haven't been made since the 1950's. For those worried, the guard for the belt and pulley is completed and just needs to be installed. I would be cutting but the thing has a 3/4 inch shaft but the new blade, with a 1 inch hole, come with a bushing for a 5/8 inch shaft. Highland Park (great people with great customer service) is sending the right bushing and should be here on Monday.
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Nice restoration. Looks like a home built that was really well done. Wish my saws looked that good.
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The cabinet is home built by me. The saw itself is factory made. The tank is thick, welded, steel. The innards are all machined.
The clamp mechanism would not slide on the rails when I got it. The oil on the bushings had solidified. I was trying to figure out how to clean the inside of the sleeve bearings and noticed a handle from an old foam paint brush I saved. It was one of those things you don't want to throw away because it might come in handy some day. I put a strip of sand paper in the slot on one end and put the other in my drill. Kind of like a hone you use for a cylinder on your car. Worked great.
Home made or not, I can't wait to start cutting.
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Ranger -Dave great restore. That saw should give you years of enjoyment. :hello2:
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Congratulations! Great job on refurbishing that saw. You're going to have so much fun cutting stuff up! :occasion14:
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Interesting to look at new and different saw designs and features. Yours has several which caught my eye.
1. I was curious why so much overhang for the bearings for the arbor. If I see it correctly both are outside the tank; less oil and grit contamination out there.
2. That bearing placement did cause (or allow) the blade to be placed much closer to the edge of the tank than would normally be the case. You might find a situation where you wanted to half a big rock where your lateral space would hamper you. But it sure would make it easy to watch the cut through a window in the top (is there one ?- I forget).
3. That top that is hinged on the side is noteworthy. It should allow better access to the back of the saw when cleaning is needed.
4. I can't see a threaded drive shaft (is it a gravity feed?)
Lets hear the adventures of cutting with it. Congratulations on the restore. I too have a saw with a 3/4" shaft which make for care when buying blades.
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Nice job on the rebuild Dave ! And you will always have the satisfaction of using something that you brought back from the grave.
Happy cutting.
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The cover does have a window. Someone soldered a piece of super thin sheet metal over the opening. It was held on mostly by rotten duct tape. I put in a piece of 3/8 inch plastic. I'm not sure why the bearing/shaft housing sticks so far out. There are some extra holes here and there. Maybe the motor was mounted there somehow. There was no way to fasten the base to anything so it may have been a freestanding unit. I had a friend weld some angle brackets to it. Now it's bolted down to the cabinet I made. It's on wheels too.
It is gravity feed. It takes about 10 pounds of pull to move the carriage. Does anyone have any idea what an average pressure should be? I know it would change for softer or harder, I just want a starting point. Five more pounds?
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Sorry for the dumb question about a window. Of course it has a window - I was just in the middle of my response and did not take the time to go back and check the photos as my post evolved.
I too have a homemade saw which has both of the arbor bearings perched outside the saw tank (like yours), and braced similarly. I might guess that the space between the bearings affects the sensitivity of the alignment in terms of aligning the blade with the sled movement trajectory. I will say that having the pulley for the belt outside of both bearings will allow you to change your belt easily, whereas I have bearings on each side of the pulley (and hence the belt, making belt changes a bit more troublesome).
I have limited experience with gravity feeds, but would suggest that you determine it considering the speed with which your saw cuts the rocks YOU are cutting. Too much weight will cause the sled to crowd the blade (i.e. push faster than the saw can or wants to cut creating stress or heat. Slab saws like to cut slowly and when they do they cut for years on the same blade. The big question is how to determine that the saw cut is still progressing and not just sitting in gentle contact with the blade. For that you can listen carefully and or rig a ruler beside the weight and watch it continue to drop with time (perhaps a flag visible through the window)? I'm not really kidding here because even tho I can usually tell the saw is happily cutting, once in awhile when the rock slips in the vice or the glue gives way on the stub, the rock does just sit in loose but in noncontact with the blade and it hard to tell it other than it doesn't advance as expected, and that's with a power drive. It would be even harder to evaluate with a gravity feed where every rock is slightly different (at least until you are attuned to the sounds and speed of your saw setup). Enjoy the saw. Its unique. You might consider water as a weight (it would be easy to add or remove weight for fine tuning a cut).
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With the bearings and mount outside, the tank doesn't have to be made so big. The welding and assembly looks factory made.
Here's a picture of the window. Not sure how good it will work. I don't know how much oil the blade will throw around. I'm sure it will be covered with oil right away. It looks like someone cut the lip off in front of the window. I'm hoping oil doesn't leak out there.
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Oil will get thrown at the window, but it runs off sufficiently that you can see (with a bright light) adequately . . . until your oil starts to get really dirty. Then the sediment in the oil will obscure vision and you will know when to clean the saw. I like to see how far the cut has progressed. . . i.e. how far can I walk away or how much can I grind on the other machine, before it finishes. I have some oil that makes it to the outside of the window, but it tends to run back into the lower edge and does not create a major problem. I station a tray of oil-dri (Walmart) under the places where drips occur and have very few messes to clean up on a concrete floor.
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Excellent job on the restoration........Going to be some cutting good times with that saw......
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It's working great. Oil drips out of the whole where the cable for the weight comes out. I still need to find a handle with a 1/2 inch square hole.
If anyone wants to trade, I'll be cutting a bunch of thulite/zoisite I picked up last week. It's white with a pinkish tinge and dark green, almost black, spots. The white fluoresces pink under SW.
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:thumbsup:
It's working great. Oil drips out of the whole where the cable for the weight comes out. I still need to find a handle with a 1/2 inch square hole.
If anyone wants to trade, I'll be cutting a bunch of thulite/zoisite I picked up last week. It's white with a pinkish tinge and dark green, almost black, spots. The white fluoresces pink under SW.
:thumbsup: Beautiful Job! You have a real treasure! If my 12" project turns out half as nice, I'll consider it a success. :icon_thumleft:
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Thanks. I had fun restoring it. I just noticed that the blade is not vertical. A couple of washers under the bearing housing should take care of that. Or, just leave it as is since all the cuts will be the same angle.