On Thu, 01 Dec 2005 22:21:18 -0800, Grant Erwin
wrote:

I've been posting a barrage of questions related to a 16" abrasive saw which I
believe is the same saw as an Everett 16" dry cutoff saw made today. I bought
this saw yesterday from a guy who bought a warehouse and contents at a
bankruptcy sale. (Today I found out the guy who went bankrupt was once a friend
of mine, sad story.) It wasn't running, and was priced accordingly - pretty
cheap. I hauled it home today, put it on the bench and started monkeying with
it. The first thing I did was rewire the motor from 440 to 220, put a plug on it
and fire it up. My phase converter starts it fine, don't know if it will run it
full blast or not until I get a little farther. (The motor is 7.5hp 3 phase and
I'm running it off a phase converter with a 7.5hp idler.) The motor is
incredibly noisy. The bearings are probably shot, most likely 6205 and 6206. I
may replace them but it would be a lot of work. As far as I can tell the spindle
bearings aren't very noisy, but until I rebuild the motor or replace it with a
quieter one, I won't be able to tell.

Sounds familiar in several ways. The 2HP TEFC motor I had on mine
for years had bad bearings. I put up with it for a long time meaning
to replace them when I got a chance but never got around to it. When
it finally came time to do something about it I changed to the 3hp 3
phase that's on there now. I wanted more power (if I'd had a 5hp on
hand I would of put that on there) and had real 3 phase power by that
time as well.

The vise is both cool and unfortunate. It's a nice cam-action vise which works
quickly. The bad thing about it is it only works at 90° and 45°, can't cut any
angle I want. I may think of a way to cobble but for now I'll go with it.

That's one of the problems with the commercial saws like that.
They're great for straight cuts. There are some out there that are
miter saws which is what I want. They don't clamp as fast but there's
just like a wood miter saw when it comes to versatility. If I ever
manage to gather up enough round tiuts I'm going to overhaul mine into
a miter saw.

The machine has been hit sometime in the past. The stand (a sheet metal affair)
is pretty bent, and the fiberglass belt guard is broken, and the motor's
electrical connection box, an aluminum cast box, is broken out around the power
wiring, which comes in via flex conduit. The switch is old but works fine.

Ouch. Well sounds like there's some work to do.

There was a simply incredible amount of grinding swarf caught up under this
machine. Big chunks that must have weighed 25 pounds were falling off. What's
left seems to be very tightly bound.

Yep. I know that the commercial one in the local welding shop (which
BTW I believe is a 20" saw) is totally enclosed and very few sparks
make it out of the cabinet. I can't imagine what it looks like under
there.

Mines not so well guarded and tends to throw the sparks straight
back from the saw. At least those that don't hit the pipe I've got
across the hinge stand. There tends to be a rather large pile welded
to that pipe most of the time. Currently I've got a piece of sheet
metal behind mine that I curved so that the majority of the sparks are
gently directed to the ground. It's worked fairly well so far. One
thing you don't want to do it have a flat plate for the sparks to hit.
That just bounces them back at you.

I may take a crack at trying to fix the fiberglass belt guard, because this
machine, already dangerous, would be about five times as dangerous with 3
V-belts running fast (the motor runs at 3450 rpm) driven by a 7.5hp motor, were
the belts to be exposed.

Care is needed with these things for sure. I do have a partial belt
gaur on mine but never finished the bottom half.

The main wheel guard is a solid aluminum casting, in fine shape.

Good that's the important one.

The main castings of the saw are heavy aluminum, and they are in good shape. The
upper casting, the one that swings up and down, had been fitted with a long
handle but the handle broke out and is gone. This is the biggest issue with this
saw. I'll probably just weld a 3/4" pipe socket at a 25° angle to a little steel
plate and bolt it over the broken out hole in the casting, and use a piece of
3/4" pipe for a handle.

Sounds good.

No showstoppers so far.

Good.

This saw certainly *looks* like it could cut steel very seriously indeed.

I think you'll be amazed once you get it up and running.

Wayne Cook
Shamrock, TX
http://members.dslextreme.com/users/waynecook/index.htm