Tink goes the shim, and a question

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Tonight was the night. I had noticed that the elevation mechanism was getting stiff at the bottom and while working it tonight I found one of the shims descending on my BT3000.

But that was okay. About a year ago I had ordered the BT3100 shims and bracket. With some of the tutorials here they went on pretty fast.

The 10-24 x 1" pan-heads (the four of them) that hold the bracket weren't that tight. But one of them was actually much tighter than the others and that, combined with the fact that the head was already chewed-up when I got there made getting it out a challenge.

That is sort of one of the reasons I hate Phillips head screws. So I was thinking of replacing these with some Torx (T25) or Allen-head screws. I wonder, though, whether the finish has anything to do with whether they will seize over time. The originals are black. The Torx are available in zinc and stainless. I haven't found Allen-head.

I could use anti-seize, I suppose, on whatever I use. But I have some concern about using anti-seize where a motor holding a blade spinning at 4000-RPM's is concerned.

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BTW, the new shims really take a lot of the play out of my motor bracket. I had been able to pull up on the riving knife and lift the rear of the bracket by about .125". Can't do that with the new shims.

[Black wallnut]

I agree with your assessment of philips heads. A correctly sized driver makes a big difference and the anti-camout ribs also help. It can be proven that a simple slotted is superior to allen head in the amount of torque that can be applied before stripping but that also requires a correctly sized and shaped driver, and most aren't. Torx on the other hand only work with the correct sized driver and the area of contact between the driver and fastener is great.

It has been my experience that anti seize does not compromise holding power of fasteners. We used, and I'm sure they still do, it on farm fertilizer and pesticide application implements. These implements were roaded to farms sometimes 70 miles away then used to cover 1000's of acres each season. For perspective these implemnts if 50' wide covered 6.06 acres per mile. Thus subjected to far more vibration than the BT3x saws that pass the nickel test.

If you gowith torx head and use anti-seize you could add a lock washer to cover all your bases. Even then it is wise to check and clean the insides of the saw at semi-regular intervals, at which times you could re-torque the fasteners.

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I agree with your assessment of philips heads. A correctly sized driver makes a big difference and the anti-camout ribs also help. It can be proven that a simple slotted is superior to allen head in the amount of torque that can be applied before stripping but that also requires a correctly sized and shaped driver, and most aren't. Torx on the other hand only work with the correct sized driver and the area of contact between the driver and fastener is great.

I'm going to head-out to one of the larger local hardware stores this afternoon. I hope they have Torx in the sizes I need. I have grown fond of them in working on hard drives, where nearly everything is Torx.

BTW, I noticed that the bracket that the BT3100 bracket that I ordered with the shims looked very similar (identical) to the BT3000 bracket. I think Crokett mentions this as well. The BT3000 version has set screws that the BT3100 version doesn't.

Of course, I didn't measure to see if they had machined the ways a little more to accomodate for the spring of the shims.

Anyone know if the bracket is actually different in any meaningful way?