Cross Cut Clean Up – Part 2

Once we’d made a start at cleaning up the saw we had to bring our attention to the electrics. We knew that they would work as we’d seen the saw running back in Kent but they were very old and we’re not that keen on fires! The bearings inside the motor didn’t appear to be in too bad condition but the grease had hardened and as they receive such a lot of use we decided to have them renewed at the same time as sending the motor off to be re-wound.

The next big job for us was to get the slide of the saw working smoothly and this was tedious work as the mount and bearings for the slide were truly caked making the motion very stiff and uneven. Each bearing and its housing needed a lot of attention if we were to continue using them so we stripped each one right down, thoroughly cleaned all of the parts and re-greased them before re-assembling. We considered replacing the bearings themselves but they moved so smoothly and freely once cleaned it didn’t feel necessary. Richard had been worrying that wear to the sliding rods could cause a lot of play once the saw was back in use, but when he remounted the bearing housings he realised that the fixings on one side would allow for some adjustment in their positioning and this would enable him to take up any slack later on.

After giving the paint work a gentle clean to remove all of the loose dust we could see that it was in great condition so we decided to apply just a coat of wax to bring it up like new, protect from rust and preserve the original finish.

Like with the rise and fall, the slide of the saw was now working smoothly so we waited for the motor to be returned.