The funky tool on top of the tires is designed to help stretch them onto the band saw wheels. The directions that came with them say to soak them in hot tap water before mounting them. Because I'm leaving the wheels on the saw and the tires are really, really hard to get on by oneself, I decided to wait until my dudes (Trey and Reed) are here on the 24th so they can help me. You know, in the Spirit of the Holidays.
As I shifted my attention to the tilt gear, I noticed that it appears to be made of a better quality material than the one that stripped out, which is think was aluminum. This one looks like a hardier metal, but I know about as much about metals as I do electrical wiring, so we'll just leave it at that. I ordered two, just in case.
I located an exploded diagram of the saw - sorry, cutting system - on the Interwebs and was able to get the machine back together pretty quickly; much quicker than I had anticipated. The photo below shows the tilt gear mounted in its proper spot inside the case.
I know, it doesn't look like much, but it looks wonderful to me. As you can see in the photo below, I was able to tilt the blade to 45 degrees; the tilting action went as smoothly as I had hoped - like a hot knife through butter. And, yes, the saw runs just fine - the new switch is a success! The only thing left to do is install the riving knife assembly when it arrives and put the saw back together.
Now that the table saw is nearing completion, I've decided that part of the Tortuga Ancient Instruments Holiday Maintenance Program will include building a new hood for the chop saw. The current blue monster is huge and I'd like to build a smaller one out of plywood that funnels the sawdust into a box or small garbage can. I have the materials to make this pretty quickly and will probably put it together tomorrow as part of my cleaning the chop saw area task(s).
Don't you just love it when a plan comes together?
Until next time...
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