Delta 50C 16" long arm Radial Arm Saw rebuild.

I have the 10" version. I bought it new 30+ years ago. It is a great tool but not as nice as yours. Made a lot of furniture and even used it to gut metal. Yours is the professional version. Mine is the home hobbyist version.
 
I must say I’m impressed with your enginuity and resourcefulness. I wouldn’t have the skill or patience to build a table like that. It took me half a day just to level and square the table on my 14” Delta. It’s still not perfect, but it’s close enough to finish the pier project

When the pier job is finished I’ll disassemble everything and take it home to the shop. When I set it up there it will get a new table. The current one is 11/4 x6 white oak planks glued together. It was part of a built in counter. It’s so long (6’) and so deep it sags under its own weight.

I don’t think I can come up with anything as elegant as yours. I’ll follow your project and hopefully learn something.
Thank you for the vote of confidence. The metal bars in thee table is a design that I believe originated from the Mr Sawdust book about radial arm saws. Hopefully this table will stay flat over the years and not droop. The table (that drooped) on my RedStar was 6' and I really liked having that much working room. This one is only 5' for a couple of reasons. Where it is going to sit in the shop and the depth of the table makes a bit smallerr table a bit more practical. My new (1980's) sliding table saw has a 5' sliding table so it was much easier to cut a shorter table for this radial arm saw.

I look forwards to an update on your RAS build thread when you finish your current projects and have the time to post!


I have the 10" version. I bought it new 30+ years ago. It is a great tool but not as nice as yours. Made a lot of furniture and even used it to gut metal. Yours is the professional version. Mine is the home hobbyist version.

I learned woodworking from my father and the only stationary saw we had at the time was his 10" Delta turret arm RAS. I know the 10" Delta turret arm saws very well. I must have been around 10yo when I was first allowed to use the saw under close supervision. That 10" saw is still at my mothers house and I still use it when I am helping her out around her place. The 10" Delta turret arm RASs are great saws and much tighter and more rigid than the Craftsman RAS I owned for a brief time a few decades ago.
 
I cracked the motor fan when trying to pull it off. I will have to make a new one when I get a chance. I will probably just make one out of steel. You can see the rear plate on the motor, no slits or holes for air flow over the coils. I figure the fan mostly dissipated conducted heat from the stator. For my use I am not worried about over heating. With the VFD it draws a fraction of the current it did when starting on the RPC.

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That snap ring is supposed to retain the large bearing on go on BEFORE the endcap. I had to take that endcap off and put the snap ring on.
With the new bearing in it is MUCH quieter. I didn't really notice the noise until I put the VFD on, the idler on the RPC did a good job of drowning out any bearing noise.

For future internet search reference the big bearing is a: 6207ZZE
The small bearing is a: 6204ZZ

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Both bearings have metal shields on both sides. I stayed with metal shielded bearings. I discovered 2Z means metal shields on each side and ZZ means the same thing.

I am having a heck of a time aligning the lower arm to be perpendicular to the fence. I will post more about that later after I take some more pictures to help explain.
 
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Mike, since you're into radial arm saws I came across a couple you might be interested in on eBay. The first one is a bit pricey, but it does also say "best offer". It should make building a house easier. You can cut all the lumber with one pass.


This one was actually used to cut timbers for log homes.


You should probably inspect the blades before making a purchase. They appear to cost between $1,00.00 and $1,500.00 a copy.
 
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