# Cold Saw rehap



## Larry$ (Jul 4, 2021)

I was given this old cold saw. It came out of a business that was closing. The left overs after the rest was sold. It is Italian made but I can't make out the name. XXXRIS
There is a distributors tag but long out of business. Seems like a well made machine. Heavy steel cabinet. Cast iron base, the vice slides in a T slot. The fence is fixed to the base and has spring loaded plungers that ride on the turn table. A quick handle locks the table rotation. All the rest of the machine is attached to the rotating table. A vertical dovetail column, a gear box dovetailed to column, raised by a rack & pinion. A two speed 3 phase motor. Gears are quite heavy and run in oil. There is a one shot lubricator for the ways. A coolant pump that comes on when the switch on the operators handle is squeezed to start the blade. The pneumatics had been totally trashed, mostly missing. The vice can be used manually or made to operate via the valve on the gear case so that when the blade is in the up position the vice is opened slightly but clamps as soon as you start to lower the blade, eliminating manual clamp/unclamp for each cut. There is a stop rod that could use some improvements. 

I did a total tear down except for the gear train. Gears look good. Many years of coolant, chips, dirt, oil, and left over lunch needed to be removed. Pressure washing didn't touch the dried on chips. Scrape & solvent wash several times. All small parts into the ultrasonic cleaner. A 1/4" roll pin had been driven into and bent that held the pinion to the shaft. It was rubbing on the casting. Hole in shaft is 6mm! I had a hell of a time getting that out. Used my Foredom tool to grind away most of it so I could rotate the shaft. Then much pounding with a pin punch. Ordered 6mm roll pins from McMaster. I made a bracket to bolt to the gear case and used the forklift to take it off & later on the machine. Same for the column & rotary table. I replaced some pieces of bolts that had been substituted for what I'd guess were originally brass friction pins. I turned new brass ones. Got the chips out of the coolant pump and it still runs fine. Ultrasonic cleaned the lube pump and fittings, new lube lines. The stop valve was still there but didn't operate. Disassembled and ultrasonic cleaning, lubed and it works. Made an aluminum manifold for the compressed air system, new regulator, fittings & tubing from Automation Direct. Took the pneumatic vice operator apart lubed. Made aluminum brackets to hold the air lines. Made a decorative aluminum cover for the front panel that had assorted unused holes in it. An idiot had done some wiring and didn't use a proper crimp tool to fasten the ends on. They fell off when I went to disassemble. New parts, properly crimped. There were lots of other things that I took care of as I went.   Rattle can paint job. 

Assembly went mostly OK until it came to the counter balance spring. It is housed inside of a cover that I couldn't remove because of the jimmied up pinion shaft to pinion gear. A quite strong clock spring accessible only through a very small opening.  4 hours latter, success, took a lot of 4 letter words to convince it. It works great. I cut a piece of 2" cold roll quickly. Way faster that my 4x6 bandsaw and the cut is dead on square and very smooth. It uses steel blades with fine teeth.  

I reused the gibb that was obviously not original. Now I wish I hadn't. It was a crudely made piece of black plastic that had been recycled from ?? complete with miscellaneous holes. Now I want to make a proper gibb. I need to measure the clearances to find the correct taper. I can't get the gibb out w/o taking the gear case off the column. I got some shims to measure with but can't budge the gibb to get clearance. Should have done it right in the first place. Now it's likely to take a lot more work and dealing with that counterbalance spring again. Got to order some cast iron for the new gibb. Enough that I can screw up a few tries.


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## projectnut (Jul 5, 2021)

That looks like a nice, extremely well built machine.  How is it for noise when cutting?  Most cold saws I've used in the past are so loud hearing protection is all but mandatory. 

I have an older (circa 1980) US made Black & Decker 14" cold saw.  It's a nice machine, but rarely gets used due to the noise factor and blade cost.  According to the manufacturer it needs a different blade for aluminum, brass, ferrous metals, and plastics.  Make sure you're sitting down when it comes time to pricing blades.  The 14" blades for my machine start around $120.00 each.  The fancier ones are in the $300.00 to $400.00 range.


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## Karl_T (Jul 5, 2021)

??

Not an expert on these machines, but i have seen the expensive ones running and no more noise than normal metal working.


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## Larry$ (Jul 5, 2021)

It's actually fairly quiet. I suspect due to the slow rotational speeds (it has a two speed motor) and everything is cast iron.  I got two used blades with this saw. They are steel, not carbide. Made in Holland. I checked prices, about $250 list. They can be sharpened, I think. So far I've cut mild steel, aluminum and brass with the same blade. All worked well. Odd looking teeth, every other one is sharpened from both sides into nearly a point. The others are just flat ground kind of like a wood rip blade, no hook. I use WD40 on aluminum to keep from cold welding it into the teeth. I don't have any coolant for it, probably won't use any. The biggest piece of steel I've cut is 2" round bar. The blade and the bar remained barely warm. The cut is very smooth and much faster than my 6x4 band saw. I was surprised by the blade turning toward the vice instead of the fence. Good idea, keeps the small cutoffs from becoming trapped and binding something in the fence gap. One piece cast iron fence. Massive pneumatic vice! The motion of the blade is straight up & down because the motor, gear case and blade are moving on dovetail ways. I suspect this was an expensive saw, new. It survived well in spite of little or no care. It took me way longer (that's normal) than I had expected to get everything fixed & presentable. 

When I went to look at it, it was sitting in a room full of trash all the rest of the equipment had been sold off. They didn't know if it ran or not, just wanted to clear the place out. They even delivered it across town for me.    Finally after seeing all you guys get good deals on used stuff, I got one.


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## matthewsx (Jul 5, 2021)

Oh heck yeah, free coldsaws are the best kind.









						Bandsaw - $250 (santa cruz) Now $100
					

https://sfbay.craigslist.org/scz/tls/d/santa-cruz-bandsaw/7175778490.html




					www.hobby-machinist.com
				




Have you tried finding a tapered gib that'll work on Grizzly's website? I got one for my lathe that is close enough....

John


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