My son gave me a call the other day and told me he picked up an old
Craftsman 8" Cabinet Saw. "Huh!" says I - "never heard of such a thing".
Well, the other night I had a chance to stop by his house and take a look.
He'd completely disassembled it, cleaned everything all up, painted the
cabinet, fence and miter, graphited all of the drives, and cleaned up the
top to a very respectable shine. He didn't have the top bolted back on yet
so we spent a bit of time admiring the simple but fairly heavy duty
construction of the saw. Really a nice little saw. No measurable runout,
good tight bearings and a set of holes to mount a riving knife. We'll have
to fab a knife for it since it's missing but that's a pretty trivial
undertaking for us. The base looks like the base of a table saw at first -
until you realize that it's cast iron. But - it's not a floor standing
unit. It has two access panels on the sides that make it easy to get in and
clean gunk out of the drives or to just put your fingers in to test the
rotational speed of the blade without getting your tabletop all bloody. It
has a calibrated blade height indicator as well. All in all sort of a neat
little saw. It will be interesting to see this thing cut wood after he gets
the motor mounted and the top trued up.
--
-Mike-
[email protected]
I have seen these before Mike, and if it is like the ones I have seen,
they are fairly old say about 50 years or so. The ones I saw had the
big star style faucet handles for adjustments, and the Sears tag had
two tiny rivet holding it on the cast iron base. Both of the ones I
saw were sitting on home made bases with wheels on them.
Solid as a rock, heavy as hell with all cast metal parts made to be
rebuilt as needed, never to really wear out. The ones I saw cut
beautifully and ran like a swiss watch, really very accurate.
I tried like hell to get the guys that had them to let me buy them, but
they simply were not for sale. I would love to hear how you like this
rascal when you get it up and running.
Robert
"Upscale" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> <[email protected]> wrote in message
> > they simply were not for sale. I would love to hear how you like this
> > rascal when you get it up and running.
>
> Even better, let's see some pictures of it now in abpw and then more of
them
> as it's restored.
>
>
I'll see if I can get a couple of pics this weekend. I don't think he got
any pics before he took it all apart so everything will be post-paint and
cleanup. I should be able to get some shots inside it though - don't
believe he has the top back on yet.
--
-Mike-
[email protected]
<[email protected]> wrote in message
> they simply were not for sale. I would love to hear how you like this
> rascal when you get it up and running.
Even better, let's see some pictures of it now in abpw and then more of them
as it's restored.
<[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> I have seen these before Mike, and if it is like the ones I have seen,
> they are fairly old say about 50 years or so. The ones I saw had the
> big star style faucet handles for adjustments, and the Sears tag had
> two tiny rivet holding it on the cast iron base. Both of the ones I
> saw were sitting on home made bases with wheels on them.
>
> Solid as a rock, heavy as hell with all cast metal parts made to be
> rebuilt as needed, never to really wear out. The ones I saw cut
> beautifully and ran like a swiss watch, really very accurate.
>
> I tried like hell to get the guys that had them to let me buy them, but
> they simply were not for sale. I would love to hear how you like this
> rascal when you get it up and running.
>
> Robert
>
I'll keep the group posted when we get it tuned and fire it up. It's really
neat to see the rack and pinion inside this thing. Simply designed to be a
good long lasting saw. For his needs - at least for now, it'll be all he
needs. He doesn't have the room for anything bigger. At some point he may
want something bigger, but I'll bet he'll never get rid of this saw. The
best part is he paid $25 bucks for it and the guy threw in a 4" Craftsman
jointer and an infra red heat lamp bar. Now that's a successful shopping
day.
--
-Mike-
[email protected]
"Robatoy" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> In article <[email protected]>,
> "Mike Marlow" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > The
> > best part is he paid $25 bucks for it and the guy threw in a 4"
Craftsman
> > jointer and an infra red heat lamp bar. Now that's a successful
shopping
> > day.
>
> Never mind that crap....tell him I said he sucks!
Hell, I damned near whipped the boy. That's suckage of biblical
proportions. I raised him to be a better person than that...
--
-Mike-
[email protected]
In article <[email protected]>,
"Mike Marlow" <[email protected]> wrote:
> The
> best part is he paid $25 bucks for it and the guy threw in a 4" Craftsman
> jointer and an infra red heat lamp bar. Now that's a successful shopping
> day.
Never mind that crap....tell him I said he sucks!
In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] wrote:
> The ones I saw cut
> beautifully and ran like a swiss watch, really very accurate.
I know the one and completely agree. Nowadays the 'sweet' pops into my mind.
A Hall Of Fame piece, imho.
Is the mitre bar the normal width but only 1/4 thick? If so I think I have
one laying around that came from such a saw.
"Robatoy" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> In article <[email protected]>,
> [email protected] wrote:
>
>> The ones I saw cut
>> beautifully and ran like a swiss watch, really very accurate.
>
> I know the one and completely agree. Nowadays the 'sweet' pops into my
> mind.
>
> A Hall Of Fame piece, imho.