| Blog series by Kevin | updated 269 days ago | 6 parts | 2750 reads | 62 comments total |
Part 1: Cleaned up and trying to decide if I should keep it.
I have decided to put all of this into a blog instead of the forums. Here is a link to the previous forums. Should I buy this Unisaw? http://lumberjocks.com/topics/1877 Unisaw Advice Needed? http://lumberjocks.com/topics/1989 Well, I finally got pictures of it. I wish I had pictures from before working on it. I have spent a lot of time trying to clean up the cast iron top. I tried to get pictures that show what it looks like, but it is hard to capture. I picked up a new tape for the ...
Part 2: Got lucky with the motor.
I took the pulley off of the motor tonight and success!!! I tried the nickel test and I would just like to say that the nickel test is worthless. My nickel stood up even before I took the pulley off and you could see the saw vibrating. Now the same test with a dime is very accurate. I could stand a dime on end and start, run, and shut off the saw without it falling over. That is impressive. The Ridgid ran with the nickel easy enough, but the dime would fall over when starting or stop...
Part 3: Not so lucky with the age of the saw
I have been suspecting that the guy I bought my saw from did not really know how old it was. The saw was his father-in-laws and he got it when his father-in-law passed away. He said that he knows the dust collector was bought less than two years ago and he thought the saw was bought at the same time. If so, then it wasn’t bought new. I was afraid the saw was older because of the condition of the table top & fence and the fact that the motor cover was metal and not plastic. Once I...
Part 4: More motor/pulley issues
I finally got around to checking on getting new pulleys. The guy at the electric motor shop told me to have them balanced instead. So I went to a machine shop and had them balance the pulleys. When I got home, I tried the saw – no pulley and it worked fine. Put the pulley on the motor and vibrating badly again. At this point I was a little ticked that the balancing didn’t work. So I decided I’d take the motor off and take it and the pulley to the motor shop and get their opi...
Part 5: Motor update
I ended up having to get the motor worked on. Would have done it myself it I had known it was going to cost me $200. Well, new bearing, new insulation, and a good cleaning. Now it runs just great. But, the saw still vibrates too much. The only thing I can think of to do now is to pull the rotor out of the motor and have it and the pulley balanced together. Anyone have any other good ideas?
Part 6: Video of it running with/without pulley on
Well I have both a video of the saw with the pulley installed and a video with the pulley pulled off. It doesn’t show as much in the video as I hoped it would. You can barely see the throat plate moving across the saw with the pulley on. I can assure that it is much worse than the video shows. The biggest difference you notice while standing near it is the sound change from with a pulley to without. I don’t know if the video picks that up or not. Oh well, I guess it was wort...
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