Brian Dormer
02-21-2007, 5:54 PM
Has anyone ever heard of this problem? I dug out my Dewalt Biscuit Joiner (DW682) the other day to cut some slots - to tell the truth - it's been sitting in its box for a while. Last time I used it - I was putting slots in some Melamine shelf boards (I made a stand for the schools LCD projector to sit on out of some gray melamine shelf boards). I had a little bit of trouble getting the first slots to full depth - until I let the tool spin up for a few seconds before plunging. It's been a couple years and the stand is holding together just fine - the computer teacher still shows it off whenever parents stop in her room. Well - over the weekend, I tried to cut slots in some 50+ year old fir (at least I think it's fir - I'm recycling some pieces of my uncles old workbench). Its REALLY HARD stuff. Even letting the blade spin up for a good 3-5 seconds, I couldn't get a full depth (20mm) cut. I took the tool apart and found that the blade is VERY loose between the arbor nuts. The nuts are TIGHT - but the blade is almost free spinning. Just for grins, I flipped the blade over and found that it was nice and tight. (of course, it's unusable like this, but this proved my hypothesis) It appears that the arbor hole in the blade is very badly worn. Before it was mine, this was my fathers tool - and all he tells me is that he had some problems with it and was never able to figure out what was wrong. No help there - but even if he jammed the blade and ran the motor - it would take a lot (I would think) to chew up the arbor hole that bad. The teeth on the blade, by the way, look almost brand new. It's not like the tools been abused. I ordered a new blade and new upper and lower arbor nuts - hoping that this will fix it. I've googled all over the 'net and can't find any mention of this problem. Anyone else seen this? bd