Built about four years ago. Some of the pictures are from modifications since. Designed mostly from pictures of commercial units. It was pretty much a leap of faith as to whether it would be a worthwhile endeavor but it it actually works very well. The original home made hydraulic lowering cylinder was replaced with a store bought unit. The main arm pivoting shaft bushings where replaced with 6203 bearings and the vice counter balance was modified. Since the unit is quite heavy I added a crank down dolly with pivoting wheels on the front.
The wheels where made from 1/4" x 1" flat iron, bent on a home made ring roller. Spokes and the hubs where welded in and then turned on my South Bend 9" lathe. Tires where made from 1/4" x 1" tarp strap vulcanized together and glued on to the hubs. At that point they where to large to fit in the lathe and where just trued up with a Dremel rotary tool. The top wheel has two 6203 bearings and the bottom keyed for the 1" output shaft on the worm drive.
The blade length is adjustable roughly between 84" and 88". There is a solenoid wired in parallel with the motor and has a snap action type switch for the auto shut off. I found a regular switch would shut the unit off before it was all the way into the off position and the saw would restart when the arm was manually lifted. The solenoid allows the oil to flow from the hydraulic cylinder when the unit is powered up. There is a needle valve for controlling the lowering rate as well as a bypass ball valve for manually lowering the arm. There is also a graduated adjustment to set the cutting force on the blade.
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