Homemade 18" Slab Saw (Pic Heavy!)

Agreed, nice welds. My eyes are aging and welding has become challenging.
I have a copy of the same plans you're using and I have a problem with one detail. If you have access to a way to line bore your holes in your carriage oversize and install bronze bushings for feed and side feed you will get less blade marks on your slabs.

Lee

Hey James and Lee,
Thanks for the compliments! There were some very tricky welds, so I'm glad they look good (at least from a distance).

James... yes, those holes were a major PITA!

Lee... Great idea about the bushings. Too late for this project, but when I do a redesign and build a new saw, I'll do that.

Jeff

In my laziness I will find a piece of pipe with the correct ID to weld to the hole-the hole I cut w/a plasma cutter. Laaazzyy

If the pipe would accept Lee's bushing then it's for real.

As long as those pipe guides carries the rock parallel to the blade and has no looseness you should get a good cut. I guess the pipes best be exactly lined parallel to each other

My 10 inch saw is the same basic design only with a vertical vice like a lortone and a lockdown clamp on the crossfeed.
Since I got a BD303 blade the saw marks have been minimal. Whenever I decide I want it down for long enough to fully dissassemble it I will devise some type of gibs to tighten it up from bronze or maybe just braze a thin coat of brass onto the holes on the carriage.

Pic is from before the 303

Lee

Jenkins sold both the plans, kits and the saws back in the day. Royal saws are now made on the Oregon coast by someone who bought all their stuff years ago. I don't know about the person who sells the plans on ebay, I imagine the design isn't patented so he was within his rights to sell his plans, and protect them by copyright. I got the plans with a nicely made saw tub and lid, arbor, and steel purchased to build a saw. Most of the angle and bar steel was galvanized, thank God he didn't make it to the welding stage. One of these days I'll finish it. With my own steel.

Lee

Well, there is definitely not a shortage of typographical and dimensional errors in the plans, so he's covered that way.

I'm going to make a SolidWorks model of the saw after I'm done, then do dimensional drawings and an assembly diagram. I'll also put in some upgrades that I'm learning about during the process... things like bronze bushings if I decide to do that, etc. I'll offer to sell the upgraded prints to Ray (the guy who sells them on Ebay), otherwise I'll probably give a copy to whoever asks for them. (I have no desire to sell the plans in competition with him, even if it would be legal.)

Today was difficult! It took most of the day to get the vice jaw assembly built. Part of the problem was one part of the instructions called for 3/16 inch holes, and another part called for 5/16. Annoying, but I eventually got it working like it should.




I also took the entire vice assembly apart and painted it. No pictures of this yet, I'll just put pictures of the finished assembly up once I get it back together.

In the set of saw plans you bought the picture aFigure9 is a picture of a 20" saw I built years ago and inspired some of the design you are working on. Of course I modeled it after a Jenkins so nothing special or unique there. It's nearly impossible to get a tight fit on the 1" holes but I was able to get them good enough. I have tricks up my sleeves these days to get out of work of drilling such pain in the ass holes like jamesp mentioned. Of course you are just building one so it is no big deal unless you had to buy the drill bits.

I have a new concept in my head for a saw. If it works it's going to blow everyone's mind because there is nothing like it anywhere. Of course the first prototype will have 10k suggestions on how to make it better because i'm not going to spend months building it and get too elaborate before I even find out how well it works ill throw it together in a week and see what happens.

Don't want to screw around with a patent that is long tedious and expensive so not really sure how to approach this maybe just say screw it and start building them because you only have to change a few things to copy someone elses idea and im sure if a major mfg took hold of it they would do all sorts of stuff like make parts out of castings vs. weldments etc.

Sorry..........no hints lol.

Thanks Lee for the information tidbit, I didn't know Jenkins sold plans and kits too. We have a 16" Royal and a homemader copy thereof, and I've seen several just like them. Yesterday we had "rock people" company, one couple just bought a homemader that looks just like our Royal, likely the plans and kits are where all these saws have come from. Our factory-made Royal and the homemade one both cut a very nice slab and have proven durable, says a lot for the design.
Larry