The table saw I want to build is fairly basic, and I want to be able to use it to cut fairly large pieces of timber. So I want a decent amount of saw blade sticking out from the table. Best way to start is with a big saw blade then.
You can also see that I have some pillow bearings, a lump of brass bar, and a rusty piece of angle iron in shot. The pillow bearings are because I want to run the saw on a shaft and not have it directly driven by the motor. This way, I don't have to get the table up and over the motor, which will maximise the amount of protruding saw blade, hopefully. The brass bar is to make a blade clamp. This will attach the blade at right angles to the drive shaft.The angle iron is for the fence. The fence on a table saw is the thing that regulates how much is cut off. So you set the fence where you want it (say 20mm from the blade), press your timber up against the fence and push it towards the blade. The strip between the blade and the fence will be 20mm.
Because I don't have the shaft and a couple of necessary other tools, I started on the fence.
I chopped the angle iron down to size. So far it's a 1500mm fence. Now I needed to make it onto runners.
I had some linear bearings from a CNC machine project that I've yet to start, so I've robbed them:
They come on a track as you can see. The track is 1000mm long, so that's the order of the fence's travel (less dimensions of bearing carriage).
I wanted to use both bearings on each track (bit overkill probably), so I needed to join them together in a carriage arrangement. I had some aircraft grade aluminium alloy, so I used my Evolution chop saw to cut the carriage tops:
Then it was the painful process of marking and drilling in order to make the carriage. The required accuracy is high. If the bearings are not square to each other and to the rail, the carriage will have, at best, massive stiction. Or it won't run on the rail at all. This process was made harder because I didn't have a diagram showing the hole centres for the bearings, and I couldn't find one for the precise model of bearings I have. In any case, with a bit of jiggery pokery with a vernier caliper I made some progress, and used an optical centre punch to mark the holes:
Took a while to get all 8 holes drilled - probably about 20mins a hole when all said and done!
You can kind of see where this is going. The fence will glide on the bearings. Clearly I need to mount the bearings such that the fence is right on the saw table top, but we're moving in the right direction.
Some more stuff has arrived from the 'bay, so hopefully I'll be able to continue the project soon. I'll need to, as I'll need the saw with all the DIY I have going on in the new house!
