Powermatic 66 cleanup questions

[Stephen Bandirola]

I bought a 2004 PM66 5hp 3 phase 50 inch cut a few weeks ago and am in the process of cleaning it up (minor restoration) to bring it back into working order. The guy I bought it from said he bought it at an auction from a door company and after letting it sit for two years without touching it sold it to me. The top is rusty and has a little bird crap on it. The wood auxiliary table is badly water damaged (no big deal replace it). I looked inside, no rust but the raise/lower and tilt are very stiff.
So far:
I have removed the rails and the top and cleaned the gunk out of the trunion gears and used a lot of spray lube on the pivots and worked them back and forth for a lot so every thing moves smoothly now.
I replaced the drive belts. The bearings feel smooth and tight so I left them (I don't have a bearing puller/press)
I built a mobile base (I have a very small space and will need to move it out of the way a lot.)

All the teflon slider pads on the Accu Fence need to be replaced.

Where is the best place to get or make new ones?
What is the best way to remove the rust from the table top?

Steve

[Jack Frederick]

I bought my '48 Unisaw with brown fur on it. I took an angle grinder with a soft wire wheel to it after I scrapped the high rust off with a razor blade. Tedious, but it worked. I then took my RO polisher, so slow speed, with a 320 pad and WD-40 and worked it. I top that with Johnson's Paste Wax (no silicone). Make sure your trunnions are clean and that you don't have to much lube on them as once you fire that thing up the saw-dust will look for anything to cling to. I used the paste wax on the trunnions as well.
I don't know if your 66 is set up for dust collection but I used 3 pcs of 1/4" tempered hard board to make side ramps and a front to back ramp to improve the dust collection. nice saw. Good luck with it.

[Matt Day]

I think eRplacement parts has them, they do for Biesemeyer at least.

Scrape the bulk rust with a razor blade, then use a wire cup wheel on and angle clgrinder and attach scotch brite pads to it. Go to town. Jack Foresburg (sp?) has a good video on it. JPW or Glidecoat or whatever after that.

Post some pics!

[Robert Hazelwood]

I just bought an old PM66 myself and am in the process of restoring it. If the top is bad then I'd start by scraping with a razor blade, which gets most of the rust and gunk off and leaves a fairly smooth surface with mostly staining left. To take it further, I used a maroon scotchbrite pad stuck onto a wire cup wheel in an angle grinder with some PB blaster as a lubricant. I borrowed the angle grinder idea from Jack Forsberg, here's his post about it: https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?224326-keeping-cast-iron-Machine-tops-clean-the-easy-way It works really well but you have to be careful with the pad getting caught on edges and miter slots, it likes to throw the pad off at high speed. You don't really want the wire bristles to touch the top, so keep an eye on the pad because it will wear out pretty quickly. Scotchbrite works well generally, you can also put it on a ROS or even by hand will do pretty well.

For the fence pads, I'm interested to see what people say. I was figuring I'd get some UHMW tape or sections of UHMW I could adhere to the fence.

[Stephen Bandirola]

Thank you.
I'll try the ROS, I have green Scotchbrights, have to look for maroon ones.

I found WoodRiver Slick Strips at Woodcraft
https://www.woodcraft.com/products/slick-strips-3-width


Steve

[Robert Hazelwood]

Green is more aggressive than maroon, will leave some visible scratches, though not terribly bad. I would go for the maroon first, if you need more aggression then try the green and follow up with maroon. You can also finish with a grey pad, which is very fine.

[Stephen Bandirola]

Thank you.