Executive Summary: "I love my BT3000!"
Details:
I had chats with a couple board members and learned a lot about the saw's capabilities. The only two parts I'm missing now are one of the wrenches and the SMT. I thought I couldn't change the blade out without the larger wrench, but one of the board members gave me a 'if you absolutely have to' technique by jamming a piece of wood in the blade to keep it from turning! Wasn't pretty, but it worked!
I went through the parts schematics and noticed that the accessories table was installed on the left side, instead of the right, which explained this strange gap left of the blade. However, until I have a SMT, that is where it will stay. I cut down some wood to fill the gap temporarily. (my first BT accessory!)
Let's see what else... Oh, I found the long rails to be difficult to adjust, so (again, on a board member's advice) took then off, shop-vac'd the dust and lubed them. Slides nicely and locks down great!
Raising and lowering the saw blade is a bit difficult. I'm not sure what's going on there... Not a real problem right now though.
Oh, and when I put the Diablo D1040X blade (another board member's advice) and adjusted the height properly...and learned how to adjust the riving knife (all of this is brand new info to me!)... the cuts are amazing! OK, I just went through pine, but it went through reasonably quickly and was quite smooth. Sigh...
I've been answering Craigslist ads for free wood. Picked up some 1 inch plywood from a house remodeling site (one piece is too massive for this saw, so need to shop for some hand tools..sigh..) and some beautiful melamine backed particle (seems high quality though). This is to practice my cutting techniques with different materials. My understanding that cutting particle board can mess up nice blades, so won't be doing that until I learn more. I'm sure I will get some hardwoods too.
I signed up for a 3 hours class at Woodcraft on Table Saw 101, which besides the basic safety and anatomy of the saw will go into tuning and maintenance. If I can get the table saw working as it should (tuned/calibrated/etc), then I can focus on my own skills.
Thanks all for your support!
Aaron
Details:
I had chats with a couple board members and learned a lot about the saw's capabilities. The only two parts I'm missing now are one of the wrenches and the SMT. I thought I couldn't change the blade out without the larger wrench, but one of the board members gave me a 'if you absolutely have to' technique by jamming a piece of wood in the blade to keep it from turning! Wasn't pretty, but it worked!
I went through the parts schematics and noticed that the accessories table was installed on the left side, instead of the right, which explained this strange gap left of the blade. However, until I have a SMT, that is where it will stay. I cut down some wood to fill the gap temporarily. (my first BT accessory!)
Let's see what else... Oh, I found the long rails to be difficult to adjust, so (again, on a board member's advice) took then off, shop-vac'd the dust and lubed them. Slides nicely and locks down great!
Raising and lowering the saw blade is a bit difficult. I'm not sure what's going on there... Not a real problem right now though.
Oh, and when I put the Diablo D1040X blade (another board member's advice) and adjusted the height properly...and learned how to adjust the riving knife (all of this is brand new info to me!)... the cuts are amazing! OK, I just went through pine, but it went through reasonably quickly and was quite smooth. Sigh...
I've been answering Craigslist ads for free wood. Picked up some 1 inch plywood from a house remodeling site (one piece is too massive for this saw, so need to shop for some hand tools..sigh..) and some beautiful melamine backed particle (seems high quality though). This is to practice my cutting techniques with different materials. My understanding that cutting particle board can mess up nice blades, so won't be doing that until I learn more. I'm sure I will get some hardwoods too.
I signed up for a 3 hours class at Woodcraft on Table Saw 101, which besides the basic safety and anatomy of the saw will go into tuning and maintenance. If I can get the table saw working as it should (tuned/calibrated/etc), then I can focus on my own skills.
Thanks all for your support!
Aaron
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