2015 POTD Thread Archive

[Mark in Indiana]

For all of you who bought the latest versions of Craftsman radial arm saws before Sears totally gave up the ghost on American production, there was some kind of recall/mod on them.

That's true. If you Google "Craftsman radial arm saw recall", you should find out that Emerson will send you a check for 100$ for certain models of the Craftsman RAS. I don't plan to get the check for my RAS at this time.

 

[John Hasler]

That's true. If you Google "Craftsman radial arm saw recall", you should find out that Emerson will send you a check for 100$ for certain models of the Craftsman RAS. I don't plan to get the check for my RAS at this time.

I have one of those saws, but I couldn't replace it for $100.

 

[FOMOGO]

I've had the one in the pic for thirty five years. When I first got it, it wood pop the reset on the motor when I was ripping a lot of 2x material. Bypassed the thermal switch and figure it would either do the job or burn up trying and its been running great ever since. It has been used on probably 40+ home builds. Did replace the slide bearings about 15 yrs ago. I see quite a few of them on Craigs List for cheap. Mike

 

[kennyv]

Josh that is a Perdy new mill Good luck with it... what did you do with the PM25Mv ?
Now that's a major improvement with putting good use to the basement space . Ohh your lathe bench altho it may be temp u may want to rotate the cinderblocks the strength is on the vertical columns not on the hollows ...

 

[joshua43214]

@kennyv
Thanks. The old mill went back to Matt. The dovetails on the column were machined kinda like a bow tie. If you adjusted the gibs so it was perfect in the middle of the column, it would jam up to the point were it took two hands on the crank to reach the topmost 2 or 3 inches. Since I do a lot of boring, I needed the full travel of the head. After making a video of it, Matt ordered me up a new column, then offered to swap out the machine if I did not want to wait on the slow boat from China. I took his offer to upgrade. I got the impression Matt was going to set the old mill up at his shop, but it might appear for sale as a used machine once the column shows up.

As for the cement blocks. The lathe only weighs 460lbs, the top feels like about 200lbs. So that is less than 200lbs per corner, no where near enough to stress the blocks, but plenty heavy enough to keep the rig evenly distributed over 2 or more corners to absorb the shock of vibration. I laid them like that so I could string 2x4's across and make shelves, but ended up using just the lower half of a knock together steel shelving unit I found in the garage instead.

I will be modifying the stand at some point. I studied up a bunch on optimal machine height, since I am over 6'5" and I have a bad back. I wound up making the stand about 1" too tall, it is very comfortable to operate, but just a tad too tall to look over the back side of the work. If I replace the legs, I will turn blocks just because it is good practice.

 

[MattM]

LOL Franko,
I did the same thing a couple of years ago. Walked into a parts store and asked a pimply faced teenage kid for an electric fuel pump. He asked what type of vehicle, I said just pick one. He looked at me like I had 3 heads and started stuttering, but, but, but you have to know what its for.
I said, I do, so just go back and get one. Again, the long blank look.
Come to find out unless he had a number to go with the part he didn't know where to look for an electric fuel pump.
LOL must have been a new kid.

Walked into the local NAPA store and said, "Gimme a screw on oil filter". "Whatsit offa", asked the PFK. " A 1944 Witte 12hp diesel". Fingers flew over the keyboard, pages were flipped and he finally said, "We don't carry one for that make".

 

[Billh50]

Napa is a good place for those parts not related to a Car or Truck. If I go into Advance Auto or Autozone they can't find anything without a part number or vehicle year, make & model.

 

[Billh50]

Napa is a good place for those parts not related to a Car or Truck. If I go into Advance Auto or Autozone they can't find anything without a part number or vehicle year, make & model.

 

[sanddan]

Yesterday was fab and weld day in the shop. I built a pair of supports that span across the 2 sets of arms on the 2 post lift that allow me to hoist the lawn tractor up thus making it easier to clean the grass buildup under the mower deck. Today was clean up day as the shop was a huge mess after yesterdays work. I did make a set of copper jaws for my 3" Wilton vise which involved some mill work.

 

[omni_dilletante]

Managed to finish a 22mm mill arbor for my Hardinge UM. Surprised at how well it turned out.

Did not like how much metal was spinning around with my late dogs, so I made some out of wood. They worked pretty well.



I discovered that 5C collets have two mating surfaces that must be machined to close tolerance. I knew about the taper. But when I turned the body of the collet to 1.250" it would not fit. Turns out that the body of the collet next to the threads needs to be about 1.247" where it mates to a ground ring in the taper. None of the 5C drawings I found mentioned it.