Throat Plate Screw

[jackellis]

Mine is a cautionary tale about using a power drill to loosen and tighten the throat plate screws. The loosening part went fine but I waited a split second too long and had left too much torque dialed in so the screw locked tight and would not budge. I would now end up wasting 45 minutes from a botched attempt to save 20 seconds.

Following one of the many excellent posts on this topic, I very carefully and very slowly drilled out the screw head. Once the amount of material remaining in the screw head became paper thin, I could turn what was left of the head and the still-attached screw with a finger. Tomorrow I'll get some replacement screws.

Many thanks to all those who made the same mistake before me. Let this be a warning to all those who will make the same mistake in the future.

Patience is a virtue in woodworking. Gotta remember that!

[Wood_workur]

don't get screws too long- you will go nuts. Measure, and see how shore you can get them,. (easy in/out, espically with ZCTPs)

[JimD]

I keep a couple cheap HF screwdrivers on the BT3100 in a drawer with cutouts so they fit nice and I consistently put them back where they belong. Not having to walk across the shop to get a screwdriver saves some time, maybe not as much as using a drill but I don't get tempted to walk across the shop to get the drill. A yankee drill would be quicker without much torque capability.

Jim

[LCHIEN]

I almost always use hand screwdriver on the throat plate screws.
for one thing, the table top is aluminum which is soft, you don't need to be putting a lot of force on those threads lest they wear out or get stripped. It's way softer than steel.

For another thing, there's not a lot of force on the throat plate, I means where's it going to go? You don't need a lot of force to retain it.
Another case of "easy does it" is best with this saw.

On the few ocassions I use a powered driver I usually use the lowest clutch setting there is and avoid bottoming out at full drive speed, too!