John Girouard said:

Greg G. wrote:
But purely from an engineer's standpoint, when I look at this photo:

http://www.thevideodoc.com/Images/UniSaw20.jpg

Logic tells me, bend the one on the right.
The stationary hand holds the left wrench, while resting on the table,
and the right hand is swinging the arbor nut with the other wrench.

Different strokes for different folks, I guess. To me it makes sense that
the hand doing the moving (right hand for left tilt) be close to
perpendicular to the arbor axis. Maybe this is just me making an
ill-informed non-ergonomisist (is that a word?) non-mechanical engineer
guess, but I would tend to think one would be less likely to have the arbor
nut wrench slip off that way. With a straight arbor nut wrench, you can pull
it straight toward you or push it straight away from you. Also, I've always
run the blade up to full height whenever changing it. Like I said before,
different strokes for different folks.

John,
You are absolutely right about the on-axis leverage, but if you just
HAD to bend one, which would it be? I'm not promoting bending either,
but Frank suggested that it was to allow for knuckle clearance.

And I also suppose that I am used to automotive combo wrenches, they
also have a slight bend in the head/shank relationship. But they also
have a thicker head that offsets the inclination to slip off the nut.

Personally, I liked the wrenches on the old saw - both were simply
flat steel - never had a problem slamming my knuckles together.
But, alas, they won't fit the new saw - first thing I tried.

But that's progress...


Greg G.