On Thu, 24 Mar 2005 23:16:56 +0000, Joe wrote:

I know the opinion of the "wreck" on Craftsman products but the wife
bought me one of those Craftsman tablesaws with the router extension
wing for father's day about 3 years ago for a good price. With a
Vega replacement fence, a router fence based on Norm's Deluxe Router
station and an 890 PC router bolted on it with a link belt driving a
Forest Woodworker II, it cuts like a dream.

Now the problem:

After about 4 mos. of regular use I started getting noise from the
arbor bearings and returned it for a new one - same model. Another 4
mos., same story except I opted for in-home service. The serviceman
took one listen and said "yep, bad bearings". He ordered new arbor
bearings, arbor housing and a new arbor to be sent directly to me and
told me to call him back if I needed him to install the parts. Long
story short - I have a complete set of bearing pullers and changed
them out myself and reinstalled the assembly - piece of cake. The
only problem is I have to keep repeating this process. The last time
I ordered bearings from Sears, they were USA made but that didn't make
any difference neither did the China made bearings I bought local.

Now the saw is 3 years old and Sears has decided to raise the price of
the bearings to almost $35 a piece!


McMaster-Carr www.McMaster-Carr.com is another good place for bearings.
ABEC-1 sealed bearings should be around $10 per pair for the 6202 series.

Don't forget you have two separate pulleys that need to be in alignment.
Once you have the blade dialed in, you have to go back and make sure that
the motor is still lined up with the other pully. The bearings in this
application are not very tolerant of side loads, so even a small amount
of misalignment will kill them pretty quickly. I'd take a look at the
pully alignment with a straight edge, or a small level. If the pulleys are
not lined up slide the motor arround to get it in line.

Tony