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Post by cabby on Sept 18, 2024 10:54:52 GMT -5
Not sure why it took so long to click but I just realized that my 18” saw is actually a 16” saw running an 18” blade. The blade fits and I have gotten used to using an extra board against the back jaw to give me more space to seat rocks. Is there anything other than the jaw space that could be an issue? I don’t see any kind of actual mods done on it, and the “collector” wasn’t the type to do big changes.
The “hints” that I somehow never put together til today was needing fewer gallons of oil than expected, stationary back jaw being in the way of the blade, and having a old 16” blade sitting around… yeah, should have figured it out a lot sooner!
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Post by Peruano on Sept 18, 2024 11:26:01 GMT -5
Less oil depth, more frequent cleaning. I doubt there a significant dif in how much oil will heat under constant use. 16" will be less costly purchase. Ideally big blade will cut faster because larger circumference.
My old hp saw is technically a 14 but would appear to have room for a 16 blade.
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Post by cabby on Sept 18, 2024 11:42:28 GMT -5
Less oil depth, more frequent cleaning. I doubt there a significant dif in how much oil will heat under constant use. 16" will be less costly purchase. Ideally big blade will cut faster because larger circumference. My old hp saw is technically a 14 but would appear to have room for a 16 blade. I need a new blade, anyway, so was thinking about 16” for the price since I have extremely few things that would be pushing it on the size. Not likely to have damaged the arbor? Will buy a replacement for a warped pulley while I am at it, so would be a good time to examine anything that may have been affected by the larger blade. Just don’t know what to look for! |
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Post by Rockoonz on Sept 18, 2024 12:03:24 GMT -5
What causes you to call it a 16 if the 18" blade fits? If the tub or arbor location wasn't altered it would have been made for 18 and many smaller blades if you want to put more oil in. Can you post some pictures? Peruano if the HP is a M series saw with square rails like the one I got over there awhile back, it was sold as a 14/16, BTW I got a metal lid for that one finally so it will be back in process soon. HP was notorious for placing the blades lower in the tubs than I like, the round rail 14" saws I have had mostly ran with 12" blades in them because I hate oil changes. |
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Post by cabby on Sept 18, 2024 12:20:38 GMT -5
What causes you to call it a 16 if the 18" blade fits? If the tub or arbor location wasn't altered it would have been made for 18 and many smaller blades if you want to put more oil in. Can you post some pictures? Peruano if the HP is a M series saw with square rails like the one I got over there awhile back, it was sold as a 14/16, BTW I got a metal lid for that one finally so it will be back in process soon. HP was notorious for placing the blades lower in the tubs than I like, the round rail 14" saws I have had mostly ran with 12" blades in them because I hate oil changes. One of the main things was the amount of oil. The 18” manual printout that I was given says 8.5 gallons but I only needed 5-6 (didn’t measure what was in the bucket but wasn’t full). Will post pics of the vise issue later, currently have a rock going. |
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Post by Rockoonz on Sept 18, 2024 12:21:17 GMT -5
cabby I doubt the arbor was in danger, while I'm not a fan of the carriage design and feed clutches on Covington saws, the arbors are robust. A lot of hobbyist saws are built to fit in a garage, so the tub size can cause the vice clearance to be minimal, I use the board on the back jaw a lot, especially when doing glue ups to 2x4 end cuts. Use steel pulleys, and buy them to get an optimal blade speed. Amazon has some relatively affordable steel pulleys. Older saws ran a lot slower blade speeds than the new blades like. If your arbor isn't noisy, the bearings are probably fine, but you can yank up and down on the shaft at both ends to check for looseness, any movement at all indicates time to replace bearings. Seemingly bent pulley can also be arbor shaft damage from previous loose pulleys, pretty obvious once the pulley is off.
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Post by cabby on Sept 18, 2024 12:59:45 GMT -5
Sadly, I know for a fact that the pulley is bent because it’s my fault! It was rubbing against the door catch and just couldn’t get it to shift no matter what I did, so I got fed up and tried a pry bar… not a good idea! Have since been told that heat works so will do that when I replace it. Can see the shiny spot where it was rubbing.  this is the jaw issue I mentioned. Carriage is pulled back to the absolute maximum. If I didn’t shim with the extra board the materials wouldn’t clear the blade. This vise is designed to have the back jaw stay in place while the front jaw moves to clamp.  haven’t SEEN issues with the arbor and doesn’t shift in the least when I tug it. This old blade is slightly cupped/bowed so a bent arbor would probably make the “wobble” look far worse than it does! I know this machine could use a lot of love but I’ve been too lazy/impatient to do a complete refurbishment. most of the roughs and slabs I’ve looked at have clean cuts, except for a few uneven thickness slabs that have a clean cut on one side and lots of saw marks on the other. Inlaws looked at me in confusion and said it was never a problem for them when I asked how they seated the agates to avoid blade deflection… pretty sure the saw was in really good shape and the bent blade is a more recent issue, so it’s not like it’s been running poorly for ages! |
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Post by cabby on Sept 18, 2024 13:31:53 GMT -5
Rockoonz forgot to ask for more details on the blade speed! According to the manual for the 18” saw I am currently running at about 675 blade rpm, and 8” per hour feed. Might swap out the feed pulleys while I’m at it! Been running it sloooow since the slightly warped blade is already affecting cuts. *sighs* guess I will need to take things apart to examine before placing the order. Finally got started slabbing things up, and now I gotta stop and take it apart and wait for new parts and and and…. Wishing I had done this BEFORE I started getting serious with slabbing 😆
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Post by chris1956 on Sept 18, 2024 14:59:01 GMT -5
cabby I doubt the arbor was in danger, while I'm not a fan of the carriage design and feed clutches on Covington saws, the arbors are robust. A lot of hobbyist saws are built to fit in a garage, so the tub size can cause the vice clearance to be minimal, I use the board on the back jaw a lot, especially when doing glue ups to 2x4 end cuts. Use steel pulleys, and buy them to get an optimal blade speed. Amazon has some relatively affordable steel pulleys. Older saws ran a lot slower blade speeds than the new blades like. If your arbor isn't noisy, the bearings are probably fine, but you can yank up and down on the shaft at both ends to check for looseness, any movement at all indicates time to replace bearings. Seemingly bent pulley can also be arbor shaft damage from previous loose pulleys, pretty obvious once the pulley is off. Funny, I found myself using the extra board on the back jaw for the same reason. |
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Post by Rockoonz on Sept 18, 2024 21:29:45 GMT -5
Rockoonz forgot to ask for more details on the blade speed! According to the manual for the 18” saw I am currently running at about 675 blade rpm, and 8” per hour feed. Might swap out the feed pulleys while I’m at it! Been running it sloooow since the slightly warped blade is already affecting cuts. *sighs* guess I will need to take things apart to examine before placing the order. Finally got started slabbing things up, and now I gotta stop and take it apart and wait for new parts and and and…. Wishing I had done this BEFORE I started getting serious with slabbing 😆 Looks like your blade is the old style, if you were able to find another the high end of the 301 column is where I like to be. If you get a sintered blade, segmented or continuous, I like mid to upper end of the 303 column for whatever blade size.  |
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Post by Rockoonz on Sept 18, 2024 21:40:26 GMT -5
FYI the brand name of the pulleys I get for my rebuilds are TB Woods, the sales page on Amazon will allow you to choose whatever ID and OD you need.
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Post by cabby on Sept 18, 2024 22:14:49 GMT -5
FYI the brand name of the pulleys I get for my rebuilds are TB Woods, the sales page on Amazon will allow you to choose whatever ID and OD you need. I was planning to order the blades from Covington (10” needs replacement too). I *want* a 301 but since I am so new to this was leaning towards a 303 in 16”. Had considered just starting with the gold series and decide on a better blade later, but frankly I feel like that’s stepping back a bit too far! My cuts aren’t fantastic but they aren’t absolutely terrible, either. Not sure if a new budget blade would be much better than my old blade, so want to get at least a 303. Any idea what material Covington pulleys are made of? Site and catalogue don’t specify but say it’s marked with A. Does that mean aluminum? Sorry for so many questions! I really started off on the deep end but haven’t given up yet! Slowly but surely starting to understand this stuff… even just a month ago I didn’t really understand different blade styles *pats self on back* |
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Post by chris1956 on Sept 19, 2024 11:20:08 GMT -5
If you get your new blade and you are still having alignment issues (marks on the slabs), if it is a Covington (even an old one), it might be worth a call to them to ask about how to align the blade. They have or at least they did a year or so ago a couple technical people who were very knowledgable about their current saws. They were very helpful to me.
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Post by cabby on Sept 19, 2024 12:12:36 GMT -5
If you get your new blade and you are still having alignment issues (marks on the slabs), if it is a Covington (even an old one), it might be worth a call to them to ask about how to align the blade. They have or at least they did a year or so ago a couple technical people who were very knowledgable about their current saws. They were very helpful to me. When browsing the catalog I’ve noticed that Covington saws are practically identical to what they used to be! Makes it easier to get spare parts, but also harder to fine tune because there are minute changes made to the design over the years and figuring out Exactly which variation I have is a pain. The alignment is a slight concern, noticed a teeny bit of wonkiness in some of my slabs, but with the dished blade, bent pulley, and shimmed vise it’s hard to pin down what the cause is. I’ve also noticed that the crossfeed feels very stiff and looks slightly wobbly when I’m getting closer to the blade, so need to check if that is bent as well. Like the blade dishing, can easily see that happening with throwing Brazilian agates in Willy nilly. This saw is reminding me of the adventure of rebuilding the deck at my last house. Yeah, it’s cheaper to rebuild on previous framework than to start new, but tracking down and fixing every issue when it’s your first time doing it is HARD. Don’t have experience with what’s correct to help me figure out what isn’t. |
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Post by chris1956 on Sept 19, 2024 12:36:25 GMT -5
If you get your new blade and you are still having alignment issues (marks on the slabs), if it is a Covington (even an old one), it might be worth a call to them to ask about how to align the blade. They have or at least they did a year or so ago a couple technical people who were very knowledgable about their current saws. They were very helpful to me. When browsing the catalog I’ve noticed that Covington saws are practically identical to what they used to be! Makes it easier to get spare parts, but also harder to fine tune because there are minute changes made to the design over the years and figuring out Exactly which variation I have is a pain. The alignment is a slight concern, noticed a teeny bit of wonkiness in some of my slabs, but with the dished blade, bent pulley, and shimmed vise it’s hard to pin down what the cause is. I’ve also noticed that the crossfeed feels very stiff and looks slightly wobbly when I’m getting closer to the blade, so need to check if that is bent as well. Like the blade dishing, can easily see that happening with throwing Brazilian agates in Willy nilly. This saw is reminding me of the adventure of rebuilding the deck at my last house. Yeah, it’s cheaper to rebuild on previous framework than to start new, but tracking down and fixing every issue when it’s your first time doing it is HARD. Don’t have experience with what’s correct to help me figure out what isn’t. Funny, the crossfeed on mine has been hard to move at certain positions. Have you put grease on the threads? |
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Post by Rockoonz on Sept 20, 2024 0:11:37 GMT -5
cabby misalignment or something moving during a saw cut are the possible causes of blade dishing. If you haven't yet the HP lapidary youtube video on checking alignment is the only correct one on youtube as far as I've seen.
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Post by cabby on Sept 22, 2024 17:57:32 GMT -5
Got the saw mostly disassembled today! Thankfully the arbor seems to be great. The style mine is has no adjustments, comes as a complete arbor block that fits into a very specific place, so if anything goes wrong will need to replace the whole thing.
Carriage wasn’t as bad as I thought. Crossfeed threaded rod is ever so slightly bent at the far end (by blade) but not enough to be an issue. Found a deep gouge and a lot of thick dried stuff on the back of the carriage, and noticed the bearings weren’t moving, so think that’s what was sticking.
Today was disassembly and examining pieces. Tomorrow I will finish cleaning things and start putting stuff back together! Will reuse old blade and pulley while waiting for new ones, since I will want to test how things work after putting it all back together. Bearings for cross feed is the only previously unknown issue, so I am happy!
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Post by cabby on Sept 26, 2024 10:37:31 GMT -5
I thought I *FINALLY* settled on blades to order but while adding things to my cart I realized that I have another question 😆 when taking a close look at pics I noticed that the 301 and equivalents look like they are just sintered with cutouts. Is that right? The only thing I’ve found so far that looks like the inserted segments of my old blade is the green agate eater blades… anyone know of other options? Both of my saws are running that old style, so could someone tell me what the functional difference would be between my old blades vs 301 style?
Have decided to start out with cheap notched Kingsley 16” for the big saw, then decide later if I want something else. Was going to get a 301 style for the 10” saw but not sure if that’s actually equivalent to what I am now used to…
Edit: the reason I am aiming for something like the old blades is because I noticed that they can chew through anything with zero issues. Would like something that has that same “nothing can faze me!” aspect but slightly thinner kerf would be awesome. I AM really careful with clamping super tight and running slow, but I like the peace of mind knowing that if something is slightly off the blade won’t give a damn 😆
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