Giving this tool a little love...

If you've ever worked in my shop, then you know I'm not a huge fan or radial arm saws. 

Oh, they do a great job of breaking down long boards, so that's all I use mine for... but for the most part - their cut is little sloppy, and not 100% accurate.  I don't have a lot of love for that tool - until now. 

Someone donated this old saw to the shop. 

The table was in horrible shape,

 and this back bolt was bent. This holds the fence in place, and allows you to adjust the fence square to the blade, so it's an important component. 

The previous owner installed a terrific blade in it, 

and the crosscut capacity was better than my other RA saw. 

I decided it needed a little love. 

It was easy to remove a few bolts and remove the old table. 

Although that old table measured roughly 20x30, I decided to make the new top a little bigger, with more capacity on the left side. Most people are right handed, so it made sense to lengthen the left side, to support the boards there.  

I've never seen a RA saw that uses a blade this size, so I had to figure out how tall the back fence could be. I experimented with a few boards I had in the shop, until I figured it out.  

Once that was all determined, I straightened that bolt, and installed the new table and back fence.  

Last step? 

Squaring up the fence to the blade.  Using a digital protractor, I got it fairly close, and then made a few cuts to dial in a perfect 90 degree cut. 

The first cut was off ever so slightly  (.05˚) to be exact! - so I tweaked the bolt on the fence, thus slightly changing the angle to the cut. 

It sounds complicated, but it was actually a simple process. 

Perfect!

I mean...PERFECT!

This tool really changed my mind about radial arm saws. It's accurate, cuts very nicely, and doesn't push along the cut as the carriage travels, like most radial arm saws do. 

It's a terrific machine, and I'm really conflicted - sell it or keep it? We already have two of these in the shop, so space is starting to become an issue.

Come to think of it - we have at least two of almost everything in the shop!