Difficult raising RAS arm

[Vince Shriver]

I have an old dewalt 9". The arm lowers smoothly and with no stress. Raising the arm is another story - it does crank up, but with quite a bit of resistance. Suggestions?

[david brum]

On my '56 MBF the elevating screw inside the column had 50+ years of congealed gunk in the threads when I got it. It was almost impossible to raise the arm. After a disassembly and thorough cleaning it worked just fine. As I recall, it wasn't hard to disassemble except that the two screws on top of the column were really stuck. I think that's a common problem. I was told to try a hammer actuated impact driver. It worked beautifully and didn't cost much. Plan to use lots of degreaser and rags to clean out the old grease. Over the years it decays to something about the consistency of tar.

[HANK METZ]

David's advice will likely be the cure, if not post back with the model#, more specific fixes can be given.

- Beachside Hank
Improvise, adapt, overcome; the essence of true craftsmanship.

[Paul Fellner]

I had a similar problem with a Delta shaper; it descended easily -- but elevating it turned into a cardio session. After disassembling it and scraping 50+ years of hardened crud from the elevation screw threads, I couldn't believe how little effort was required to elevate the mechanism; it worked as easily as my table saw.