jgohlke
My other hobby
I've been working on this for 6 months and it is finally coming together. Here's the pic:
The story:
My wife works in a store located in a local strip mall. One of the other stores was a picture framing store and the guy bought another store across town and consolidated both of his locations to the one bigger store (across town). He put the word out that he had some extra stuff for sale, so I stopped by to check it out. He had this really nice 2 miter saw setup mounted on a table with fancy extensions and measuring stops. It was very impressive, but not for sale. He has some other very specific framing gear that I wasn't interested in and I was almost ready to leave when I spotted in the back room, on the floor, 2 Dewalt miter saws. He said they were broken and he had replaced them with new ones (the ones he was using). A couple of days later, he discovered that the miter saw table he had planned to move wouldn't fit, so he offered that up for sale. Long story short - I picked up the 2 broken 12" Dewalt Combination Miter saws and the table for $150 total.
One of the saws was an easy fix...he had left out the washer that increases the arbor size from 3/4 to 1". I actually found the washer stuck in a saw blade in his pile of "saw blades to be sharpened". The other saw turned out to have more problems. Apparently, he had started the saw with the blade lock on (the button you push to keep the blade from moving so you can change the blade). This mechanism jams the transmission gears so the blade can't turn. The motor of the saw has enough torque to spin anyway and this was what I found when I took it apart:
Notice the shaft is hour-glass shaped? It isn't supposed to be...it should be straight. The armature spins and drives the big gear which is the same shaft as the blade. With the blade locked, the motor just stripped the gears right off the armature. Imagine how that sounded...
I hunted around and for a while it seemed that the parts would cost more than a replacement saw. I looked online everywhere. A couple of weeks ago I knocked off work early and went to our local Dewalt service center hoping to buy a refurbished saw or maybe scavenge the parts off an old saw. Surprisingly, I was able to buy new parts there for about $100 (local B&M smokes the internet for service and price!).
Once I had the parts, I rebuilt the saw and it hums like new now! I got the table assembled (it's actually two tables side-by-side held together by a 2x4 frame and plywood)...installed the electric service (I had to move an outlet in the shop), hooked up the dust collection and I am ready to make some sawdust!
So far, I've only used the 2-saw setup once....that was making molding for a doorway. I had one saw set up to cut 45 degree angles and the other one for straight cut-offs. It was sweet not having to swing the saw back and forth between cuts.
All this for $250! (well, not including the saw blades....)
The story:
My wife works in a store located in a local strip mall. One of the other stores was a picture framing store and the guy bought another store across town and consolidated both of his locations to the one bigger store (across town). He put the word out that he had some extra stuff for sale, so I stopped by to check it out. He had this really nice 2 miter saw setup mounted on a table with fancy extensions and measuring stops. It was very impressive, but not for sale. He has some other very specific framing gear that I wasn't interested in and I was almost ready to leave when I spotted in the back room, on the floor, 2 Dewalt miter saws. He said they were broken and he had replaced them with new ones (the ones he was using). A couple of days later, he discovered that the miter saw table he had planned to move wouldn't fit, so he offered that up for sale. Long story short - I picked up the 2 broken 12" Dewalt Combination Miter saws and the table for $150 total.
One of the saws was an easy fix...he had left out the washer that increases the arbor size from 3/4 to 1". I actually found the washer stuck in a saw blade in his pile of "saw blades to be sharpened". The other saw turned out to have more problems. Apparently, he had started the saw with the blade lock on (the button you push to keep the blade from moving so you can change the blade). This mechanism jams the transmission gears so the blade can't turn. The motor of the saw has enough torque to spin anyway and this was what I found when I took it apart:
Notice the shaft is hour-glass shaped? It isn't supposed to be...it should be straight. The armature spins and drives the big gear which is the same shaft as the blade. With the blade locked, the motor just stripped the gears right off the armature. Imagine how that sounded...
I hunted around and for a while it seemed that the parts would cost more than a replacement saw. I looked online everywhere. A couple of weeks ago I knocked off work early and went to our local Dewalt service center hoping to buy a refurbished saw or maybe scavenge the parts off an old saw. Surprisingly, I was able to buy new parts there for about $100 (local B&M smokes the internet for service and price!).
Once I had the parts, I rebuilt the saw and it hums like new now! I got the table assembled (it's actually two tables side-by-side held together by a 2x4 frame and plywood)...installed the electric service (I had to move an outlet in the shop), hooked up the dust collection and I am ready to make some sawdust!
So far, I've only used the 2-saw setup once....that was making molding for a doorway. I had one saw set up to cut 45 degree angles and the other one for straight cut-offs. It was sweet not having to swing the saw back and forth between cuts.
All this for $250! (well, not including the saw blades....)
:thumbs: 
