# Made a 14" table saw



## Ed. (Dec 11, 2013)

*Made a 14&quot; table saw*

14" Table saw build.

Hi Guys, I needed a table saw so that I could slice and dice up some timber from the slabs I milled from 3 logs I had, this would enable the timber to dry out faster and give me an idea 
of how much useable timber I ended up with. Had a 4HP 3 phase motor lying around in the shed and an old aquarium stand as well, so thought it was about time I did something with 
them.

1. Made 2 bearing holders to fit 30mm ID bearings. Bored out some holes in some 80mm round bar, cut them off and welded them to some 10mm plate.

2. Welded a side plate at 90 degrees, these get bolted down to the frame and hold everything together.

3. Other side of the bearing holder.

4. Roughly turned a double pulley out of a larger round bar and turned down one end as that will be where the M10 grub screw locks down the shaft key. After it was cut, it was 
drilled to size and then the pulley was welded to a piece of 40mm stainless rod. The lot was then machined to make it all true and remove any distortion made by the welding.

5. I put a thread on the end of the shaft to accept a threaded blade hub, but later on I had to remove that thread and made a new hub (Pic 8.) with straight through hole and a 
larger flange. Having the thread on the end gave the blade a very slight wobble which at full revs would look normal till I started to cut some timber and then the blade would 
oscillate dangerously, couldn't work out why till I connected up the VSD to it instead of directly to the power and dropped the speed down to 500 RPM and then I could just 
barely see the wobble, at full revs the centrifugal force made it all look straight and hid the wobble until I started cutting. Probably from too much tolerance between the 
male shaft thread and the female hub thread.

6. Shaft assembled (showing the old hub)

7. Making the new hub. Drilled some steel rod, welded it to some plate, cut the corners off and attached it to the shaft, put the whole lot in the lathe, used a steady rest on 
the bearing and machined the lot true. there is a M14 x 1.5mm bolt which clamps the blade to the shaft and hub plus a M10 grub screw, no more wobbles.

8. Plasma cut out a slot in some 5mm plate to fit a M14 x 1.5mm bolt which clamps the frame to the right blade depth.

9. Plasma cut out some 3mm plate to make the lower blade cover/dust collector, added some 3mm x 25mm flat bar for the sides and added a piece of 40m tube for the extractor hose 
to clamp to. 

Originally this was going to be a 12" saw, so I made the frame to suit but with the drama I had with the blade wobbling I ended up getting an old 14" blade to see if it was a 
faulty blade(which it wasn't), so I figured I might as well make it to accept 12" and 14" blades, which also meant I had to take out some bits from the sides to make it fit. The 
larger blades come close but there is still enough clearance (just).

10.Added a strut for lift assistance when raising or lowering the frame, with the 4hp motor added the frame weighs approx. 60Kg so awkward to lift even when the other end is 
pivoted, the strut makes the lifting job easy.

- - - Updated - - -

11. Added a "micro adjustment" setup, 13mm threaded rod welded to a pivoting top, a turned, threaded and knurled round bit of rod for accurate height ajustment with a locking 
nut to keep the setting, the knurled adjustment is grabbed by a piece of slotted flat bar which had the flats twisted in and ground out to fit the top of it.

12. Welded some 1" SHS tube on either side of the blade to the frame body to support the top plate which stops the 3mm top plate from sagging/bending near the blade.

13. Oiled both the underneath of the top plate and the top of the frame body and then applied liberal amounts of silicon adhesive between the two to make a seal so that the top 
plate doesn't vibrate in operation. As the frame was an old aquarium stand which I turned sideways and added some legs, the fit between the plate and the frame wasn't perfect 
and doing this way would allow me to remove the top plate if neccessary at a later stage, otherwise the silicon would have glued it down forever, there are 4 (1/4") bolts on 
the sides holding the top down as well.

Made a fence out of some 50mm x 25mm x 2mm Aluminium RHS with some bolts welded to some angle underneath and going through the fence. As the bolts get tightened the angle grabs 
the underneath frame and locks it in place.

I have also made a 91cm x 230cm extension table for it for when I cut long pieces of timber but I don't have pics of it just yet.

Still to do/make is to cut down the riving blade, make a sliding fence for the saw which will be able to do angles, make a router holder and fence, but I will post those pics 
up at a later stage after completion.  


Cheers

Ed.


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## ecdez (Dec 11, 2013)

WOW!  Nice


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## Ed. (Dec 11, 2013)

Forgot to mention that I have also started making a top cover for the blade, which will be adjustable from the side both vertically and horizontally and will connect to a dust extractor I have ordered.


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## 283v8 (Dec 11, 2013)

Awesome job!!!


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## xalky (Dec 11, 2013)

That oughta rip thru some lumber like butter! Good idea on installing a blade guide on the back side of the blade, that should keep kick back to a minimum. How's the rip guide setup, cam lock?


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## JoeSixPack74 (Dec 11, 2013)

That is a awesome looking saw.  Wish I could weld that good!


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## Ed. (Dec 13, 2013)

Thanks Guys, added a pic of the extension table today so that will enable me to rip longer lengths of timber. It's made from 1" Galv. SHS  with 2 removable legs out of 20mm solid rod and have height adjustable feet,  the top is a 17mm layer of Form ply, drilled and tapped two 12mm bolts into the tables' end and the extension table has a slotted piece of steel which fits over these bolts and the bolts then tighten the lot togather. 

In the top of the pics you can see more logs waiting to be slabbed. I made the fence lock downs out of some 1/2" allthread rod which I welded the bottom of the rod to a small piece of angle and they get bolted through a hole in the the Ally RHS, not high tech but quite effective. The back lock down fits in the gap between the saw table and the extension table. As the bolt gets tightened, the angle just grips the table frame. The dust collection/blade guard will probably be finished off early next week.

Cheers

Ed.


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## mick-h (Dec 18, 2013)

Nice job Ed, some nice welding there as well, though by looking at the surface of your workbench, it looks like you have had a bit of practice )
Keep up the good work.


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## DAN_IN_MN (Dec 18, 2013)

Ed. said:


> Thanks Guys, added a pic of the extension table today so that will enable me to rip longer lengths of timber. It's made from 1" Galv. SHS  with 2 removable legs out of 20mm solid rod and have height adjustable feet,  the top is a 17mm layer of Form ply, drilled and tapped two 12mm bolts into the tables' end and the extension table has a slotted piece of steel which fits over these bolts and the bolts then tighten the lot togather.
> 
> In the top of the pics you can see more logs waiting to be slabbed. I made the fence lock downs out of some 1/2" allthread rod which I welded the bottom of the rod to a small piece of angle and they get bolted through a hole in the the Ally RHS, not high tech but quite effective. The back lock down fits in the gap between the saw table and the extension table. As the bolt gets tightened, the angle just grips the table frame. The dust collection/blade guard will probably be finished off early next week.
> 
> ...



So....there's an aquarium stand in there somewhere? :LOL:

Nice work!  You definitely made "metal scream"!

How about a vid of it in action?  Please!


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## Ed. (Dec 18, 2013)

Thanks guy's, I was hoping to have it finished this week but have to put it on hold for the moment.  I put  an advert on the web looking for some tree trunks locally, I got a reply from a guy who said I can have a small tree that he cut down and wanted removed, well I went down to his property and turns out that small tree was a lemon gum tree about 20m long and so I have to rip the tree trunk length ways just so I can manage to get the trunk halves on the trailer, I can only put on 3 halves before my trailers load limit is reached, (and even then it is probably way over).  That timber is heavy, even as a half log I cannot lift an end up without a large bar. Just as well I put a winch on the front of the trailer and drag the logs up a ramp, otherwise I would not even be able to get them up on to it. He also has some Ironbark to go, a smaller piece of about 1.5mt long and also the remainder of a  trunk that is about  1.4m in diameter, the trunk has the center rotted out, but should be able to get a nice slab from the sides. I wonder how many times I will have to sharpen the chainsaw to do it though? The ironbark is about 1.5 times heavier and tougher than the Lemon Gum so should be interesting.

Pics of it in operation will have to wait for a while. My dust hoses have arrived so in the next couple of weeks I will start back on it and finish off the dust/blade covers, probably just after the new year as I would like to slab this timber before then. The plan is to slab them 100mm thick and then use the table saw to rip them up into 100mm x 35mm or 100mm x 100mm (more or less), that way I can rip them further if I require smaller dimensions and will be quicker using the table saw than by using the Alaskan mill, plus it will dry faster.

Cheers

Ed.


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## Ed. (Dec 19, 2013)

Well, I have spent the last 2 days chain sawing in 30C heat and high humidity so I am going to give it a break till after X'mas, got most of the logs that I  wanted ripped  in half, which still leaves about another 7-8m left of the tree but I think I have enough to last me for a while, I will probably cut some rounds to take home for my wood lathe and will cut the rest for him into firewood sized round pieces as he has a smaller saw. Started to rip the Ironbark today, did the smaller log but will have to think about the big piece of trunk as it is odd shaped and the centre has rotted out. My chain bar is only 28" on the Husky so if I do try to take a piece of it, it will have to be cut from both sides.

The first pic is of some of the half logs, the rest I have already taken home. The second pic is of the ironbark stump and a small section of what is left, apparently he had several trees which all ended up being cut up for firewood by some other guys before me, they were only after timber for firewood so that is all that they left.

I still have 2 more trips to finish up there, I estimate that each half log weighs approx 200kg, so will have about 1800Kg out of that tree and leaving about half behind.

Cheers

Ed.


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## Ed. (Dec 24, 2013)

*Re: Made a 14" table saw- almost finished*

Finished off the blade/dust cover today.

Pic.15 Roughly cut the shape out of 3mm steel sheet and the back is out  of 50mm x 8mm Flat bar. Except I stuffed up and tacked the 100mm SS  tube on the wrong side of the plate, didn't notice it till it was all  welded up and then had to cut that side and the tube off and reweld.
Pic 16. Left side of cover with 4mm Polycarbonate plastic sheet bolted  to the frame on both sides, this enables me to see both side of the  blade when it's working.
Pic. 17. Right side of the cover.
Pic. 18. A simple Y junction with 100mm tube and a 40mm side tube for the bottom guard.
The two hoses get connected to it and then a single 100mm extraction hose connects the lot to the 2HP extractor.

The cover and the holding arm are fully adjustable and the bar holding it is from 20mm solid bar.


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## Ed. (Jan 19, 2014)

*Re: Made a 14" table saw - Finally made a video of it working.*

Hi Guys, well I finally made a video of it working.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64e4yb9xEk8&feature=youtu.be

Just a short video of my home made 3 phase table saw cutting wood, with the 2.4m extension table attached.

First piece of timber to be ripped was a 2.3m lemon scented gum tree  120+mm high and the second is a piece of Camphor Laural about the same height but was much easier to cut than the gum tree. It has a 4HP motor, 4060RPM unloaded spindle speed, 350mm 24 tooth blade. The blade guard is set a bit high as every piece I cut before was a different height so just left it at that height, which resulted in a bit of sawdust escaping. Apart from that it worked out OK.

I had to redo the bearings on it, the cheapo bearings I put in originally self destructed after about 5 hours cutting, so I ended up with putting in a set of 30mm ID pillow blocks, and so far after another 5 hours cutting these ones are working well with the running temps up to 55-60C which is well within the normal range. Only thing that I don't like about them is that they need to be greased occasionally.


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## cbtrek (Jan 21, 2014)

Why buy a table saw when you can build a better one for your needs. Great job!   :thumbsup:


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