A few months ago, Cgrutt contacted me about gifting me their vintage Skil 534 sidewinder saw so that I could give it a proper restoration.
I finally got the time this week to rip it down, clean it up, give it a nice new coat of paint and put it back together.
The saw was actually in pretty decent condition when I received it. It had been used to cut brick at some point, but it really had not invaded the motor much and was not present in the gear case.
After ripping it down and sending it through the parts washer for a few hours, I took it to the wire wheel and removed the majority of old factory paint, then masked it and primed, painted and clear coated it.
Disasembly
I used 2 coats of automotive primer, sanding in between coats for a nice clean flat surface for paint, then onto 2 coats of matte silver metallic paint and a coat of clear coat to seal it.
Overall the saw was in pretty good shape, with the exception of a light coating of red masonary dust from cutting brick, which was on practically everything throughout the saw. I used Awesome and 3M citrus cleaner to clean all of the internal components and the electrical components.
The switch had stab-lock ports for the wires, however, it did not have release points for me to remove the original wires, so I left about an inch of original wire past the switch, then cut the wire on both the switch and the new cord, used uninsulated butt connectors, soldered the connections and then heat shrunk them.
I was very happy with how the paint turned out and got an almost exact match to the original paint.
Finished
I Put a new Skil cord and strain relief on. I had to grind off a bit of rubber from the strain relief for it to fit in the handle of the saw, but I am overall very happy with how it turned out.
I was able to save and clean up the original label just by gently pick the label off of the saw. The glue on the back of the label was still pretty soft so it came off relatively easy. Once I had the saw back together, I put a bit of spray adhesive on the back of the label and put it back on the saw.
All finished.
Overall, this was a pretty easy restoration. The saw was in great condition when I received it and it didn't need much work beyond a good coat of paint and a new cord, as the cord it came was extremely short and had an aftermarket cord end on it.
I finally got the time this week to rip it down, clean it up, give it a nice new coat of paint and put it back together.
The saw was actually in pretty decent condition when I received it. It had been used to cut brick at some point, but it really had not invaded the motor much and was not present in the gear case.
After ripping it down and sending it through the parts washer for a few hours, I took it to the wire wheel and removed the majority of old factory paint, then masked it and primed, painted and clear coated it.
Disasembly
I used 2 coats of automotive primer, sanding in between coats for a nice clean flat surface for paint, then onto 2 coats of matte silver metallic paint and a coat of clear coat to seal it.
Overall the saw was in pretty good shape, with the exception of a light coating of red masonary dust from cutting brick, which was on practically everything throughout the saw. I used Awesome and 3M citrus cleaner to clean all of the internal components and the electrical components.
The switch had stab-lock ports for the wires, however, it did not have release points for me to remove the original wires, so I left about an inch of original wire past the switch, then cut the wire on both the switch and the new cord, used uninsulated butt connectors, soldered the connections and then heat shrunk them.
I was very happy with how the paint turned out and got an almost exact match to the original paint.
Finished
I Put a new Skil cord and strain relief on. I had to grind off a bit of rubber from the strain relief for it to fit in the handle of the saw, but I am overall very happy with how it turned out.
I was able to save and clean up the original label just by gently pick the label off of the saw. The glue on the back of the label was still pretty soft so it came off relatively easy. Once I had the saw back together, I put a bit of spray adhesive on the back of the label and put it back on the saw.
All finished.
Overall, this was a pretty easy restoration. The saw was in great condition when I received it and it didn't need much work beyond a good coat of paint and a new cord, as the cord it came was extremely short and had an aftermarket cord end on it.