What a PITA.
That explains my day in a very accurate few words.
To expand on the conundrum -
I thought I was off to the races pretty quick today. I made a test cut in 3" OD 1/8" wall square tube and the saw wasn't cutting too bad. I did end up switching out the switch tab/tang for the original. I had to drop the down stop some to get the saw to cut all the way through the work and that extra drop took out the slop in the push I needed to trip the switch. However - that was only the beginning of what turned in to around 6 hours of head banging.
After the stops were adjusted the first cut adjustment I made was to bring the twist of the blade in so that top to bottom it cut square. In that process I managed to get things set in such a way that the blade wouldn't make it 1/4 of the way through the work before running off the pulleys.
The other day I did happen to find this document:
that describes a lot more detail on setting up these saws. That was an invaluable read-through as it turned out.
I read through some of that document and got the gist of the adjustments etc then went to town on the saw. Without adjusting the guides I was able to get the blade to stay on by tilting the upper pulley (in the vertical position). However, what struck me odd was I was never able to get the blade to seat on the rims of either the top or bottom pulleys. It was always about 3/32" from the rim.
So I went back to the guides and played with them a bit. I found the bearings that ride on the smooth edge of the blade were putting a lot of pressure on the blade. So I backed the guides off so that those bearings weren't rolling = no contact with the blade. At that point I went back to the tilt adjustment in the upper pulley and found I could very easily get the blade to ride on the rim. So I tuned the tilt to where the blade just made contact with the rim. At that point I went back to the guides. They were all out of whack.
Going back to the switch and the tab/tang that turns it off - there were a few problems now with this after the adjustment in the guides. First up - the frame and blade guard door/housing were bottoming out on the saw table by the switch assembly. So there is no way to get the saw to drop any further. With the guides where they were there was no way to get through the work - the saw would bottom out with about 1/16" left to cut in the work. So I went back to the guides and dropped them (made the bearing that rolls on the smooth edge of the blade push down further to hold the blade in a "deeper" position). Guess what? The blade went right back to rolling off the pulleys!!
I added a 1/4" plate under the work as a riser and tried to tweak everything as best I could there. I am not having much luck. I was able to add tilt back in to the upper pulley to get the blade to stay on, but I am right back to where I was at the start. Since I put the riser plate in what I have not done yet is to loosen up the guides and go back to the beginning of those not adding any down pressure to the blade. So when I get back to the saw again tomorrow I hope I will do that first thing and get the blade to seat on the pulley rims then work with the guides.
So far I have not been able to get a square cut. With the fence in its furthest back position at 0deg I still need to go a bit further. I started trying to account for that with the guides but I figured I'd pack things in and call it a night. When I do take all the adjustment out of the guides tomorrow that will reset all of that anyway....
Again, a very accurate few words is this is a PITA. OK, scratch that... Its a ROYAL PITA.
Did I mention I keeled the saw over on its motor a 2nd time trying to roll it around? This time it went over sideways at the bump where the garage floor meets the base where the garage door seal rests - about 3/4" drop. I tried to drop one wheel at a time off and lost balance. It bent the bracket holding the axle. I think a new cart is in order for this thing. I beat it in to submission with a ball peen hammer for the time being.
I will say, though, for all the cutting I've done in the past that would have been better off done with a band saw I am OK with battling this one out. I can already tell how big of a help this will be - the end result will be worth it.