PM 66 Owners

[Paul Dombroski]

I got a PM 66 (green) at an auction yesterday. I removed the wings, rails and fence to make her lighter. Now I am wondering if I can remove the table and not run into problems when I reassemble it. A dealer who was also at the auction told me it is a headache to reinstall the top and line it up. Thanks in advance.

[Mike Hollingsworth]

Just realign til the slot is parallel to the blade. No big deal
You should check all the guts after buying it at auction anyway.

Nice purchase!

[glenn bradley]

I got a PM 66 (green) at an auction yesterday. I removed the wings, rails and fence to make her lighter. Now I am wondering if I can remove the table and not run into problems when I reassemble it. A dealer who was also at the auction told me it is a headache to reinstall the top and line it up. Thanks in advance.

Lining up is a no brainer. Getting it flat, another matter. Remember to tag the shims and the positions they were in between top and cabinet. Very rarely does a top just bolt to the cabinet and turn out flat.

[mark page]

Not much different than buying a new saw. Just mark the shims for the top, if there, and re-mount back in the same position.

[Bob Feeser]

I got a PM 66 (green) at an auction yesterday. I removed the wings, rails and fence to make her lighter. Now I am wondering if I can remove the table and not run into problems when I reassemble it. A dealer who was also at the auction told me it is a headache to reinstall the top and line it up. Thanks in advance.

I have a PM66 Gold circa 2004. I was told by PM that taking the top off was fine. Taking the motor out for making it easier to move down the steps was fine, and their is only one way for it to go back in, the right way, but do not touch the trunion. It is set up at the factory, and would be a bear to realign. I did not have any shims for where the cabinet joins the top. I was assuming, although not sure, that when they set up the trunion, they do so with the top on, and adjust it properly.
I am unfamiliar with PM66 Green as far as the top goes. It is considered the sweetheart of the 66's by many.
So to move mine down the stairs, I removed the top, (the extension wings were already off) then I removed the motor, by tilting the saw over onto its side on a blanket, adjusted the motor until it hit the blanket, removed a couple of bolts, and the belt, and then picked up the 100 pound monster, and tied it to a hand truck, wrapped in a blanket, and moved it downstairs. I did the same thing with the top, and of course the saw.
With the new 66's and several people had a problem with this, according to the reviews, I had to remove the top, and drill-increase the length of the slots in the cabinet, to allow the amount of distance I needed, to be able to get the blade perfectly aligned with the miter slot in the table. Their is a single metal plate, that is welded onto the cabinet, that has the bolt slots in it. With a simple eyeballing, they did not take the time, to even try to align the top. With me, I would be breaking out the rule at least, and get the top on properly. They just plopped it on, and welded it up. Well after getting it drilled, the top then lined up perfectly.

One thing I did want to share with you is when you resintall the cast iron extensions. Here is a tip,and it worked beautifully with mine. Use aluminum foil as a shim to get the extensions perfectly level with the top. You have to experiment with how many folds you use, but it works great. Just fold regular aluminum foil over, a few times until you get about 8 total layers, which is 3 folds. (2, then 4, then 8) That is a good place to start. Cut a section about 1/4" or thin enough to go between your bolt hole, and the top surface. An inch long piece is all you need for each of the holes. Then tighten up your extension. Check it again, with a straightedge. If it is still off, or actually up too high, loosen your bolts, adjust the number of thicknesses, and try it again. You can tweak it until you get it perfectly, and I mean perfectly flat with your top. It works great, and it is technically an all metal repair. I know it is possilbe that yours is true already, but I found that they were off, only a few thousandths on the bolting surface edge of the extension, but that resulted in being off by serveral hundredths by the time you get out to the end of the extension. It was sufficient to see a slimmer of light under your straight edge.

Anybody with a table saw with extensions can do the same thing. The nice thing about it, is since it is such a slight adjustment, it doesn't open up a gap along the seam or anything. As a matter of fact, you can try and put a razor blade edge down in the seam, and it won't even start to penetrate. As far as the visual is concerned, it is still a metal, butting up to metal seam.

If you do have any shims, I would replace them as mentioned.

By the way, great buy. How about some pictures.

[Bob Feeser]

What is interesting is that you have me thinking about the challenge of aligning a top, on a table saw. When you think about it, you have 2 planes to consider. One is the plane that you would get by placing your hands on eiither side of the blade, and trying to rock the top. The other plane is the one you would be changing, by placing your hands under the leading lip edge closest to you, and trying to lift the saw. So you are either raising the sides, where the extensions go, or you are raising the front and back.

So now here is where the creativity flows. When you think about it, the side to side adjustment, could be adjusted by simply setting the stops, at 90 or 45 degrees, after you had the top on. The measuing rule on the cabinet, if up properly in the first place (mine wasn't by PM, so I still have to reinstall that, but for the time being, the 90 and 45 stops work perfectly, so it is not on the top of my to do list) would be an indicator, although crude to see if your top is going back on the way it came off. (In the event you lost the washers placement, and couldn't tell how they went back on.)

Now the interesting part, the front to back adjustment. This is critical, and could be a little challenging to get it right. Assuming that it is off to start with, which I am doubting, but I am not a table saw across the ages, set up expert. But logical challenges are intriguing. So just for the mental exercise, lets say you have a top that is off its rocker so to speak. :) Anybody who wants to chime in here is more than welcome. Especially if they have a set up trick that solves these problems. Just for the logic of it, if you had a slight ramping front to back. and let's say the back of the table was lower than the front, that would affect, not a 90 degree cut, but it would affect a 45 lets say. (Or any angle cut) Not that it still wouldn't be a 45 at the front of the blade, and also a 45 at the back of the blade, just a wider one. The blade would be extending farther out of the table, but the angle would still be a 45. The problem would arise, because as you move the board past the saw blade, the waste part of the board, riding over the top of the blade so to speak, would have to rise up while passing the back part of the blade, while the workpiece would be moving along by dropping down along the lower plane.

So the question is how do you determine the tilt angle front to back on the saw top. If you use a level, is the cabinet itself on a level plane? Furthermore is the trunion already set up relative to the installed top, with or without shims. This is a real brain teaser. Does anyone out there have the simple answer? You know what it is like when someone gives you a riddle, then someone comes along with the answer, and it seems so obvious, it is almost like you knew it all along.

I am going to sleep on it, and maybe I will wake up with the answer, but then again, maybe I will not. Help:confused:

Paul, we're working on it buddy. I have a feeling, we are all in for a table saw set up education, coming up real quick. Hope you have your seat belt on. :)

[Bob Feeser]

Ok one more. It would seem to me that the cabinet, assuming it is square, and the bare top of the cabinet would be level to the floor, then putting the cast iron top on, it should also still be level with the floor, and if it is not, then shims would be called for. That way you have the axis of the table top, and the floor all along the same plane, which is beneficial for outfeed tables, extending out to the side, and to the back.
Then you would adjust the trunion to the saw top, so your blade would be correct on both side to side, and front to back planes. I noticed that their are threaded rods, in the trunion, with allen head ends on them, with locking nuts. Their are several of them, so they enable you to adjust along different planes.

I have not seen the PM2000 up close, but I know it has mobility built into it. By any chance have they installed adjustable feet so when it comes to a rest, you can adjust the levelness of the saw, including the top. If so, that would enable you to simply bolt the cast iron top on without any shims. Since it is level with the floor, then the only thing to consider is that the trunion is set up perfectly, relative to the cast iron top. I guess you can tell, that when it comes to the PM2000 I have insufficient data captain.

I am still wondering how you determine the setting for the front to back plane relative to the blade???