Who's dropped the arbor nut into the saw?

[Sawatzky]

What about dropping it while the dust collector is running! You will know it if you do!

[Dal300]

I haven't done it on the BT3.... yet. I'm awaiting that fateful day.
Maybe if I wait until the blade is so dull it won't cut balsa wood, I'll lose it fewer times.

Other saws? Well...... let's not got there.

[Pappy]

several times but, with the blade removed, I can reach into the blade cavity to pick itr up. Worse is when it falls to the deck and rolls off into the grass.

[Ed62]

I think the better question would have been "Is there anybody who hasn't dropped the arbor nut?". Of course you wouldn't have received many replies.

Ed

[cabinetman]

I've dropped the nut on every table saw I've had. It pays to have a variety of these.

Before hooking up a DC to the TS, especially with saws like the Unisaw, or PM 66, with full cabinets, there was a little pile of sawdust, that the nut would get lost in. It didn't go shooting across the floor, but you had to sift into the pile. Magnetic pickups helped.

.

[LCHIEN]

Once. Have been extremely careful ever since, so as not to have to remove the DC fittings and fish it out through the port.

Pain in the neck, isn't it.

[Bill in Buena Park]

Once. Have been extremely careful ever since, so as not to have to remove the DC fittings and fish it out through the port.

[mpc]

Multiple times. Both when removing the nut and more often when trying to re-install it.
I'd bet the number of "never" on BT3s or any other saw is vanishingly small... unless you count folks that have never used a table saw.

mpc

[LCHIEN]

I've done it more than once.

The shroud (unique to the BT3), and the left-handedness (all saws) and the difficulty of getting the nut started with the partial threads due to the two flats on the arbor always seem to make it easy to drop especially when trying to do it one-handed.

I now use a three-finger technique, two on either side of the nut and one pressing it to the end of the arbor, to keep from dropping it - haven't lost one lately.

BTW if you ever lose your arbor nut (because as we all know from Murphy's law they roll under the largest and heaviest shelf unit in the darkest corner of the garage), don't despair, i think most ACE hardware and other stores carry 5/8" left-hand nuts because of all the table and miter saws out there that use them. You don't have to buy one from a ryobi parts dealer.