23/6/2014

On Sunday I finally made the effort to set up my radial arm saw and my planer (both DeWalt but from different eras) on the red steel table (first photo). About eight weeks ago I took the radial arm saw off it’s custom steel table and bought a new cross cut blade for it. I decided to move it to the red steel table to create more space for my new 18th century workbench that I am in the process of building. It used to reside next to the red steel rack that house all my offcuts (second photo).

In order for these two power tools to be functioning next to each other I had to get them on the same plane. That meant that I had to lift the planer.

Here you can see how the radial arm saw now acts as an out-feed table for the planer and vice versa. It took ages, fiddling around with different strips of wood to line the two surfaces up perfectly.

I also flipped the old chip board over that did duty as the radial arm saw table and made a new fence. Once I managed to set the saw up perfectly square in the two important dimensions, I cut a new zero clearance groove through the fence.

… and finally I cleaned the track in which the saw runs, which had heaps of antediluvian grease- sawdust-crap obstructing the saw’s path. A fresh serving of grease got it back to it’s former self.