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Still working on the new coffee table for the living room. I went to set the ole' BT3K up for some dado cuts and tried to lower the blade to remove the zero clearance throat plate to set up for my 8" stack dado. I discovered that I couldn't completely lower the blade below the table top. Oh Great! I thought, the slides have finally packed it in after 25 years and I'm going to have to do a tear down to fix it. I pulled the throat plate and discovered that the entire belly pan I made for the saw was completely filled with shredded maple "stuff" It was so full (how full was it?) that the blade shroud was bottoming out on the stuff before you could crank the blade all the way down. Fortunately, I built in a vac port in the belly pan and the ShopVac soon had the belly pan cleared. I sweep the top of the saw all the time, but for the last two years, I forgot about the belly pan. At least the slides have survived my neglect. I'll give them a shot of silicone spray before I mount up the dado set.
