bt3100 tuning / modifications

[mnmphd]

I am getting close to having my new shop setup and decided to disassemble my saw to give it a good cleaning before I put it in place and get it tuned. While it is apart I am thinking if there are any modifications that have been done that would be easier now that is is apart. A short list of maintenance and modifications I have come with is below. Any other recommendations?

1. Use some foam tape to give a better seal my pan/lower dust port and the saw.
2. replaced manged fence tape
3. clean/lube gears and guides
4. check riving knife - I think mine is bent
5. Setup some new ZCPs
6. Grind the armature to accommodate an 8" dado set set at 3/4"
7. modify right side panel to allow for easier removal when it comes time to
clean. The easy route it to remove the lip on the plug housing so the
panel can be pulled straight out. The fancy route has a hinged door added.
8. investigate a new handle
9. Add miter slots to left and right of blade
10. "knee bar" to power off saw

Anything else?

[Dal300]

Grind the armature?

An 8" dado and a 6" dado should fit exactly the same on a 5/8" arbor. the problem with the BT series is the back side of the housing. There isn't enough room for anything more than a 5/8" or 13/16" X 8" dado. the 6" dado doesn't have that problem.

Dust port: I've never had a problem with mine. Have you actually used yours to see how it works?

Not sure what you mean by #7 and #8. please describe your thoughts in detail, maybe Loring or one of the other experienced guys will chime in.

Miter slots: easy enough to make on a piece of MDF, PLY or even have cut from Aluminum. Or, you could just buy a couple of the used miter slot accessory pieces.

Maybe it's time to ask Loring, (Humbly if I might add), to send you his BT3X file.
It might save you a lot of time and money.

Or, you may have come up on some new stuff none of us has tried. You may be on to something!

whatever you do, good luck, I wish you all the success in the world!

DF

-30-

[LCHIEN]

right side cover mod - what occurs to me is that the right side is a pain because the ground wire connects to the panel itself so after you remove the panel screws you have a panel dangling by a short ground wire. which then needs to be removed to avoid dangling.

the solution is to move the ground wire to another point on the chassis that is not the right panel.

sure don't want to be grinding the armature!

[mnmphd]

oops,Clearly I have minced my terminology

By "armature"I am referring the the cast piece that the riving knife mounts to.
The way it is cast, an 8" just grabs this if used with only a bevel washer. My thinking was to grind this out a small amount to give the 8" blade some clearance. It has been 2+ years since used it but I recall I had to use short
spacer and the bevel which meant the outside blade of my dado stack sat on the threaded portion of the arbor and was not centered.

A 6" stack would solve this, but I already have this nice 8" stack. I was just playing with this and realized an easy solution it to just use some shims between the bevel washer and the inner most blade. 40mils gave enough clearance for what I am planning to do in the short term.

As Loring mentioned there is the annoyance of the ground wire but I moved that long ago. on my BT3100, The plastic box where the cord enters has a slot on the side that the right side panel fits into. So, when you try to remove teh panel, you can't just pull it straight out,you need to pull the right edge out first. However,when I do this I frequently get the top of panel stuck under the lip at the top of the back panel. I like the access door idea, but I think the fast and east solution is to just widen the notch in the panel such that it doesn't need to fit into the plastic block that houses the cord connection. This would be 110% clearer if I had some pictures, but I currently don't.

As for the handle, I find the plastic one I have is not as stiff as I would like. I may look into getting a one from a different model, or maybe see about modifying something else to work

speaking to dust port. I added a plywood bottom panel and added a 4"port to collect dust from the cabinet. I decide to use some foam weather striping around the edges of the panel to prevent leaks. I also noticed there is a gap in the blade shroud above the back dust port. I am not sure why it is there. Seems to be is should be blocked to maximize air flow from the area of the blade.

That's it for now. If I discover any significant improvements from my experiments, I will pass it along.

Mark

[LCHIEN]

Armature: Electricity .
a.
the part of an electric machine that includes the main current-carrying winding and in which the electromotive force is induced.
b.
the pivoted part of an electric device, as a buzzer or relay, that is activated by a magnetic field.
c.
the iron or steel applied across the poles of a permanent magnet to close it, or across the poles of an electromagnet to transmit a mechanical force.

I think the term you're looking for is the locker bracket.

Another point I would suggest is that you not seal up your machine. You want openings for the air to come in and provide maximum air flow into your hose, with the air going mear to the dust source to pick it up. Consider that a totally enclosed saw except for the hose port would result in no air flow and no dust being picked up. Ideally the saw should have openings for air that have an area larger than the cross-section area of the hose so as not to reduce air flow.

The other extreme is to have so open a chassis that air comes from all around from so many directions. Suppose the air is drawn in from an area 100 times as big as the hose then the velocity falls to 1/100th of the hose velocity. Clearly that's not good either, it won't carry the dust. SO have SOME openings, don't choke it off.

Look at my pics here, I did not seal up anything but have a piece of plywood set on the bottom rails of my saw and it gets just about every bit of dust that comes off the blade to the inside. http://www.bt3central.com/showthread...ht=BT3000+dust

[mnmphd]

Loring, thanks for the clarification on terminology.

I have a pan very similar to yours (probably inspired by if memory serves).
While I wasn't looking to seal the entire, this article, seems to advocate
aggressive sealing of gaps.

http://www.finewoodworking.com/Workshop/WorkshopPDF.aspx?id=32303

As I said it is all a big experiment for me

[jnesmith]

WRT the miter slot tables - yes, you can make your own. Or, you can buy new OEM ones from a guy on ebay - I think his name there, (or maybe on this site) is komatoast. Safes a lot of time and trouble.