A Workout for my HF 3" rotary Table

[RichD]

I've had an old 1959 9" Craftsman Radial Arm Saw for quite awhile now, but it never had the anti-kick-back device for ripping. I've ripped lot's of boards without it but finally decided to make one.

There's probably several ways to go about this, but I wanted to use the rotary table.

I broke out my 3" rotary table and plopped it on the mill table. I've never really used it much so here's some pictures.

First I drew a picture in AutoCad and used Ordinate Dimensioning with the center of the stock as 0,0,0"
My plan was to create the shape for the pawl on the face of the round stock, then part off two slices when done. The diameter is 1.8125" and it's cold roll steel. The endmill is 3/4".

I started out with my 4" lathe chuck screwed onto the rotary table adapter to hold the piece, but that was way too tall for what I was trying to do. I gave up on that setup as it was too scary.

I cobbled together some odds and ends and went straight onto the little 3" faceplate. Looks odd, but it was solid as a rock. I used emory paper under the work piece for anti-skid.

I drilled two 1/4" holes first. One for the pawl pivot, and the other where I planned to plunge the endmill in .350" for the inner curve shape.
I was supprised at how well the X3 mill did the 3/4" plunge cut.

Once the plunge cut finished, I offset the cutter and plowed across the face. I used slow ~60rpm speeds and .010" depth/cut. It felt like it could do even more, but I didn't want to get in a hurry/screw up.

I used my home made DOS program for XYZ readouts (manual inputs off the scales) since it does the math and offsets for me. You just have to do the move on the keyboard, before the actual machine move to get your targets.


The little 3" RT did great. I did use a flat blade screwdriver on the little table lock screw though to cinch it down good.

Here I'm breaking down the job. Note the little "fence" I used to align the table for 0 degrees for the X-axis.
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I didn't have any 5/16" hardware for clamping the table to the mill so that's why there's so many pieces on the table. Those mounting slots are tiny. I'll open them up to 3/8" soon.

Tomorrow I'll part off the two pieces and remount them on the RT one at a time to round the ends. No pics yet on that. I needed to run a tap through the center hole on the table since the factory didn't thread it all the way through to the top side of the table for a center hold-down. I think it was 7mm I don't remember.

I hope to get some use out of this little cheapo RT.
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Rich

 

[RichD]

Made some progress...used the slitting saw to slice off two matching pieces.


Then rounded the ends using the RT...




Two matching pieces...Finished with these parts. Now on to the part that holds them.


Rich

 

[RichD]

All done. Works good!



Rich

 

[Swifty]

Hi Rich, just make sure that the grabbers are located the correct way, here is a picture of my saw showing the grips.



On my saw the grippers are on the infeed side, yours are on the outfeed side, I don't think that it makes any difference, but I think that your grippers should be the other way around. If the saw wants to throw the wood back at you the points on the grippers should bite in to prevent this.

Paul.

 

[RichD]

Thanks Paul,
I believe mine are correct. If you look at the blade rotation, mine turns clockwise as pictured, whereas it looks like yours turns counterclockwise as pictured. But hey you're right about how important it is to has them pointed the right direction.

Also, my saw has a drop-down (sliding) extension on the ripping-infeed side that acts as a presser-foot to hold the board down to the table for ripping. When using the saw for crosscuts, the gizmo I made with the grabbers will be retracted up out of the way since they're not possible to use when sliding the head for a cut.

The picture I took was with the saw in the usual cross-cut position...not parallel to the fence. That may help make sense of it.
Rich

 

[Swifty]

I took the picture of my saw in the ripping position, when it is in the crosscut position the blade rotates the same way as yours, I just took the picture from the other side. The more that I look at your picture, I think that your are correct, it's just the fact that yours are on the outfeed side, while mine are on the infeed side. My grippers are made up of about 5 pieces each, not one solid piece that it may appear like in the picture. I was just making sure to prevent any accidents.

I've had the saw for about 30 years, and it's served me well, radial arm saws are so versatile.

Paul.

 

[RichD]

Yep,
Thanks again Paul!