"DCH" wrote in message
...
Greetings all...

I found an older Craftsman (1960's) radial arm saw a few days ago, for 40$
looked fine, cleaned up real nice, leveled the table, added a new fence,
it
runs fine until you cut with it, once the blade gets into the cut it seems
to wobble, making a kerf much wider than it should, the saw was made for a
9" blade but the guy had a 8" blade on it...I thought that might be an
issue, but thought I would see if anyone else has seen this before and
what
the possible causes and/or cures that are out there....

First thing to check--are _all_ the adjustments locking tight? Grab the
blade guard and try to move it in all directions. If it moves in any then
you need to find out what's loose and tighten it.

Next, try to wobble the shaft up and down and in and out and see if it
moves--if it does then you may need new bearings, which you should be able
to order off the Sears site.

Check the blade runout--is it wobbling on the shaft? If so the shaft may be
bent or the flat surface on which the blade seats may be deformed.

Next, get Jon Eakes' radial saw book
http://www.wired-2-shop.com/joneakes/ProductDetail.asp?ProdID=3&nPrdImageID=&CatID=1
and do what it says (there are a lot of adjustments to tune, several of them
could be causing the problem that you're seeing).

Also, see if it is covered by the recall
http://www.radialarmsawrecall.com/. If it is you can get a hundred bucks
by sending the motor back--not as good as having a working saw but it beats
not having anything.


Thanks for any help...

DCH