My new Jet has ball bearing guides. Stacked bearings, which is nice so I can
narrow them when I have to; very nifty mechanism: the bearings are riding on an
excenter that you can rotate and lock in place to effect adjustment, nothing
could be easier.

Except, well, the lower bearings pick up sawdust, don't they. Upon which they
start howling uproriously. At that point I can usually not be bothered to go
clean them so I just back them off a bit, but that's not really what I want to
do, is it? I do not have them as tight as a ciggy paper sized gap in the first
place.

Anything I could do easily? Would a couple of toothbrushes mounted to clean the
bearings work in your opinion?

-P.

--
=========================================
firstname dot lastname at gmail fullstop com

"Peter Huebner" wrote in message
t...

My new Jet has ball bearing guides. Stacked bearings, which is nice so I
can
narrow them when I have to; very nifty mechanism: the bearings are riding
on an
excenter that you can rotate and lock in place to effect adjustment,
nothing
could be easier.

Except, well, the lower bearings pick up sawdust, don't they. Upon which
they
start howling uproriously. At that point I can usually not be bothered to
go
clean them so I just back them off a bit, but that's not really what I
want to
do, is it? I do not have them as tight as a ciggy paper sized gap in the
first
place.

Anything I could do easily? Would a couple of toothbrushes mounted to
clean the
bearings work in your opinion?


I had the same problem with the Rikon that I bought and returned. Noisy
roller bearings. Way noisy if you cut wet wood that has not been dried.
They then go bang as the wood chips stick and get bigger like a snow ball.

I prefer the ceramic guides. No moving parts.

In article ,
says...

I had the same problem with the Rikon that I bought and returned. Noisy
roller bearings. Way noisy if you cut wet wood that has not been dried.
They then go bang as the wood chips stick and get bigger like a snow ball.

I prefer the ceramic guides. No moving parts.


Ironically, I would've preferred to get rotating disk or block guides - which
is what virtually all the other saws on offer had. But the Jet's workmanship
was a standout - head and shoulders above all the other Chinese/Taiwanese made
saw, so I figured I'd put up with the ball bearing guides. Little did I know
just how much of a din they can make! Still think I got the best bang for buck,
by the way, the saw is a sweetie in all other respects :-)

-P.

--
=========================================
firstname dot lastname at gmail fullstop com

Peter Huebner writes:

Ironically, I would've preferred to get rotating disk or block
guides - which is what virtually all the other saws on offer
had. But the Jet's workmanship was a standout - head and shoulders
above all the other Chinese/Taiwanese made saw, so I figured I'd put
up with the ball bearing guides. Little did I know just how much of
a din they can make! Still think I got the best bang for buck, by
the way, the saw is a sweetie in all other respects :-)


I had a similar problem with my Jet, (the bearings were getting
clogged, and stopped moving) and at first I got the bearing upgrades
from Iturra, but then I got the ceramic bearings. Once in a while I
rotate them so the lines wear evenly.


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"Peter Huebner" wrote in message
t...
In article ,
says...
I prefer the ceramic guides. No moving parts.


Ironically, I would've preferred to get rotating disk or block guides -
which
is what virtually all the other saws on offer had. But the Jet's
workmanship
was a standout - head and shoulders above all the other Chinese/Taiwanese
made
saw, so I figured I'd put up with the ball bearing guides.

There you are. Perfection is a dream, shortcomings reality. If it's
"better than" where it counts, you just have to put up with what you have,
or put in the ceramics, which I would do, especially if I were sawing damp
wood. Actually, it's what I have, and what I do.

Peter Huebner wrote:
My new Jet has ball bearing guides. Stacked bearings, which is nice so I can
narrow them when I have to; very nifty mechanism: the bearings are riding on an
excenter that you can rotate and lock in place to effect adjustment, nothing
could be easier.

Except, well, the lower bearings pick up sawdust, don't they. Upon which they
start howling uproriously. At that point I can usually not be bothered to go
clean them so I just back them off a bit, but that's not really what I want to
do, is it? I do not have them as tight as a ciggy paper sized gap in the first
place.

Anything I could do easily? Would a couple of toothbrushes mounted to clean the
bearings work in your opinion?

-P.

FYI, I have the Powermatic which is suppose to be a sister to one of the
Jet models and determined the bearing to have the following dimensions:
Inner diameter: 8mm
Outer diameter: 22mm
width: 7mm

When I visited Powermatic's parent site and entered in the part number
for the bearings, their search came back empty.

I found a supplier of roller skate bearings http://www.vxb.com
and ordered 20 bearings as follows:

2ISB 20 ABEC-7 inline Skate, rollerblade hockey Ball Bearings 1 $14.95
$14.95
Shipping:UPS Ground: $7.22
Sales Tax: $1.72
Total: $23.80

The bearings have arrived, I haven't been able to test them out, but I
fitted one on the the lower bearing spindle I removed and it seems to
match up to the original equipment bearing nicely.