Radial arm saw tips for setup

[Shawn Christ]

Hey Creekers. I haven't found much advice on this topic yet.

I inherited from my father-in-law last weekend a 10" radial arm saw. It's a 10-inch Craftsman model 113.29461 (1969, I believe). Seems this is a decent piece of 'old iron'. Yes, I know it's a space hog and unsafe, but hey, it was free and should prove useful.

I'm looking for your advice on setup. I have a smallish shop, roughly 14 x 17. I'd like to use the RAS for 90-degree crosscuts only, mostly dadoes in plywood for cabinets and furniture. Here are a few questions I have at this point:


Should I remove the RAS from the open metal base and build an enclosed plywood cabinet for additional storage?
I hope to have side supports to both the left and right of the machine. I am right-handed, which means board length will be more often to the left than right. How much overhang should I retain on the right?
How about dust collection? I'm limited to a shop vac for at least a few years. Should I bother?
Should I build a new tabletop or continue to use the particleboard top?
I plan to download the saw's manual soon for setup and safety instructions. But I'm curious, how difficult is it to adjust these machines for accuracy?

As always, your help is appreciated.

[Stephen Tashiro]

I had a Craftsman 10 inch radian arm saw in the 70's. I never found a way to eliminate the play in the arm that would cause a slight error in a 90 degree cross cut. The angle you got would depend on whether you tugged more to the left or right. The dadoo cutter I tried was the "wobble" kind and it did not make smooth cuts. Many radial saws have a router attachment and I've read articles about converting the whole saw to a router carriage. That might be more useful to you than the saw! I think the saw was as safe as you expect a powerful saw to be. If you cut a short fragment of wood off the end of a board (or worse yet, off the end of a dowel) you have to watch for the fragment falling back into the path of the blade when you slide the saw and getting thrown at you.

You might think about building a table for the saw that has a bin to collect the sawdust.

[Joe Jensen]

I have a large old Dewalt 14" RAS that I have setup exclusively for crosscuts. In order to get perfect crosscuts, I locked the column down. Meaning, on my saw, there are bolts that will tighten down the column opening. If I tighten them down a lot, the column will no longer move. The crosscuts with it set up this way are so precise that a 5 cut test yields only a .001" variance in the cutoff. My saw is much heavier duty than a Sears saw, but I think the same thing could work for you. It wouldn't be very useful if you wanted to do dado however.

On the other adjustments, you should try to download a manual for a RAS. Old Woodworking Machines website will have them. There are more adjustments;
1) Arm to fence
2) blade parallel to arm
3) blade to table
4) heel