Opinions please

[TB Roye]

Saw this on Craigslist was wondering if it is worth going after?

http://sacramento.craigslist.org/tls/524495710.html.
Might make a saw for dados and cross cutting. Gong to email him and see what model is and age. Look pretty clean.
Tom

[Pappy]

At that price I would go for it unless it has been abused.

[SARGE..g-47]

If I had room, I would have a RAS in one of my two shop areas. I don't have room to justify it.... but if ya do.. $50 if in decent condition over-all and running would be justified. Probably few would look for a Ward if looking for a used RAS.

The older Dewalts and Rockwells would be more desirable and can be had on occasion for $125-$150. You can find numerous Craftsman from $75-$125 even though I would not personally pay $125 for one unless hardly used and in mint condition.

Good luck...

[TB Roye]

Haven't had a reply to my email so probably won't heard until tomorrow. It looks pretty good in the picture.

Tom

[TB Roye]

Picked it up this afternoon

Guy emailed me this afternoon, went over and look at it and bought it for $40. It is a Wards Powercraft 10 " Radial Arm Saw Model T.P.C. 2610c. It needs some TLC and a new table, the old one is particle board and junk. I have a piece of MDF close to the same size. The thing has two aux. safts on the side one for 20,000 rpm and the for 3400 rpm it is designed to do Routing, Shaping, sanding and buffing. It has a couple of adaptors for the shaft and 1/4 collet and a shaper. It has a drum sander on the 3400 spindle now and a 9" steel plate for a disk sander. It also came with number of blades some are rusty a some are OK. It runs and no loosness that I can see or feel. the height adjustrt was not working very well but a good dose of WD40 seem to get it going. This thing can cross cut, rip cut (not me) miter and bevel. It also came with a steel stand which I will put a mobil base under. The thing hasn't been abused and has been take care of. It belonged to the guys dad. Don't really know how old it is. It does have safety features like a removable key, trigger switch and blade guard. It was not missing any standard parts that I could see. I would like to get new brushes and a parts list and exploded drawing of it. I do have the manual but would like to have any other manuals that came with it. Anyone have any Idea where I might find info on it. I did a search and found the Handyman web site that did have a topic dated June of 07 that had some info to use. Just wondering if any BT3ers had any info. This will be my project this while we recover from Christmas spending.

Tom

[Popeye]

Congratulations. I love my RAS for doing cross cuts, it's my main cutoff saw.
BUY a negative hook blade for the saw before you ever use it. You may have to get one online but please do it. RAS's with anything other than a negative hook blade (and sometimes even with a negative hook blade) have a real tendency to grab the wookpiece and pull back toward you.... very fast.
I wouldn't trade my RAS for anything ....BUT I also consider it the most dangerous saw in my shop. Pat

[Uncle Cracker]

I wouldn't trade my RAS for anything ....BUT I also consider it the most dangerous saw in my shop. Pat

Ditto. I use mine for one thing: cutoffs. It does that very well. But I learned long ago that all the exotic cuts, rips, dadoes, etc. that the saw "can" do are dangerous. And all the fancy add-on crap that you can get for planing, panel raising, shaping, sanding, drilling, etc. aren't worth the investment, don't get reliable results, and are often very dangerous. In a way, it's like a Shopsmith... does a lot of things, but not many of them really well. And it can be a PITA to go from one setup to another, and then to another, etc. But as a dedicated crosscut device, it can't be beat.

[LCHIEN]

Tom, congrats on the find. Do you really need a mobile base under it? I thought one of the advantages of a RAS were that you can put the thing up flush against a side wall and use it effectively, unlike a table saw that essentially requires walk-around room on all four sides to use it in all its modes.

[TB Roye]

Thanks for all the warnings. I have no plans to rip with it or use all the attachments. I might use the sanding drum and the sanding disk, I said might. Mainly cross cut and dado.

I have gotten it cleaned up pretty good, Sugar Bowl was C*** last night so I went out in the shop and started to disassemble it into big pieces so I could clean it up. Lot of greasy sawdust, a little surface rust and a lot of Nicotine. Got it finished this morning and reassembled and lubed it with the same stuff I use on the BT3, the spray lube with PTFE. Every thing operates smoothly. Now I am working on the table and fence. The Mobil base is so I can store it out of the way in the garage. We park both Vehicle in there so it has to be out of the way. The saw is from about 1985 as the date on the particle board table was 6-28-85. There is no plastic on it at all and not metric bolts. It is all steel, cast Iron and Aluminum.

What is a good negatiive hook blade to use on it? How about an opening in the fence? The manual shows the table with a fence, with no openings and a table piece behind it. I was planing on making an opening as wide as the 45 deg miters would be. The manual is not real clear on the fence in reference to the blade and table. I wish it had the assembley instructions or exploded drawing for it. I am going to get a hold of the one place that might have info and parts for it and see what they might have. I would like to get brushes for it. I did run it a while ago with a blade on it and no wobble in the blade or shaft and every thing else seems tight, so it is in pretty good shape.

Tom

[LCHIEN]

For RAS, you don't have to cut an opening in the fence, isn't it just customary to cut thru the fence as you use it.
Make sure there's no nails and screws at the cut thru point!

A good neg hook blade will usually indicate for miter saws and RAS.
probably Dustmight can recommend one of the Freuds.

[ragswl4]

Thanks for all the warnings. I have no plans to rip with it or use all the attachments. I might use the sanding drum and the sanding disk, I said might. Mainly cross cut and dado.

I have gotten it cleaned up pretty good, Sugar Bowl was C*** last night so I went out in the shop and started to disassemble it into big pieces so I could clean it up. Lot of greasy sawdust, a little surface rust and a lot of Nicotine. Got it finished this morning and reassembled and lubed it with the same stuff I use on the BT3, the spray lube with PTFE. Every thing operates smoothly. Now I am working on the table and fence. The Mobil base is so I can store it out of the way in the garage. We park both Vehicle in there so it has to be out of the way. The saw is from about 1985 as the date on the particle board table was 6-28-85. There is no plastic on it at all and not metric bolts. It is all steel, cast Iron and Aluminum.

What is a good negatiive hook blade to use on it? How about an opening in the fence? The manual shows the table with a fence, with no openings and a table piece behind it. I was planing on making an opening as wide as the 45 deg miters would be. The manual is not real clear on the fence in reference to the blade and table. I wish it had the assembley instructions or exploded drawing for it. I am going to get a hold of the one place that might have info and parts for it and see what they might have. I would like to get brushes for it. I did run it a while ago with a blade on it and no wobble in the blade or shaft and every thing else seems tight, so it is in pretty good shape.

Tom

Tom,

I purchased a Craftsman RAS this past summer and bought a Freud LU91M010 blade that works very good. It is a 60 tooth with -5 degree hook. As others have said a positive hook blade will tend to run the saw at you, sometimes pretty quickly and in some cases I have heard that the saw can actually climb on top of the workpiece, YIKES!! I started out with a +10 degree hook from a table saw and have to stiff arm the saw to slow it down when cutting. Needless to say, that was dangerous so I quickly went to the negative hook blade.

[nickg]

For $40 and a little TLC you can't go wrong - a new blade costs about that or more!!

I have a Craftsman RAS that I use for cross cutting and making dado cuts. I like it for dados because the work is facing up and you can see exactly where you are cutting as opposed to the table saw. I tried ripping with the RAS one time - the wood came flying back very quickly. I've never tried ripping with it again! I bought a new Freud blade for it that's a lot better than the cheapie blade the saw originally came with.

Nick