Spring Tool Cleanup

Last night I discovered that saws are a lot like cars: sitting unused for extended periods does not improve them. My tools have sat idle since last fall, when I finished construction on my shed, mostly because this winter has been too cold to reasonably go outside and work in the garage.

My table saw was never a great machine to begin with. But I noticed it had gone appreciably downhill when the saw blade changed height when I rotated it. Turns out that at some point it had dropped the ring that sizes the spindle to the hole in the saw blade the last time I changed out the blade. Of course, I did that after I'd been working with the saw for a while, so that little ring was dropped into the pile of sawdust that accumulates under a saw that's being used. That was fun to find, and I really only found it by good luck.

The other excitement was my chop saw. The table had some difficulty in turning, which wasn't entirely shocking after not being used all winter. When I tried to adjust it again though, it wouldn't turn at all. I had to disassemble the saw, where I found that something very hard had worked its way between the table and the frame and gouged the heck out of the aluminum when I made that first adjustment. When I tried to make the second adjustment, the rough edges locked together. Burs ground down and surface polished, I reassembled the saw, and learned that disassembling a saw is very bad for maintaining its alignment. I spent another half hour to get it back to a satisfactory degree of square.

So now my table saw it back to functional, and my chop saw is actually a lot better than it used to be. But it cost me a night of working on the bar.