Excalibur Sliding Table by Sommerville Design

[William Parks]

I have EXSLT60 sliding table on my PM66 and have not had much success with getting it set up right. Reading through the instructions it says one should watch the 18 minute video before installation. Since I purchased mine used, there was no video that came with it.

Just a wild request, but would someone out there still have a copy of this video that they could make a copy of for me? I will certainly pay for any expense incurred.

I called General last week and no such luck. In fact the gentleman I spoke with did not even know a video existed at one time and the newer SLT60's are build differently than the Sommerville units.

Thanks,

William

[Kevin Groenke]

William,

We have an old (15 yr?) Excalibur and a newer (5yr) Exactor table, they are functionally identical. We got no video and had no particular problem installing. If you can identify particular issues I'll help if I can.

-kg

[John Lucas]

I have EXSLT60 sliding table on my PM66 and have not had much success with getting it set up right. Reading through the instructions it says one should watch the 18 minute video before installation. Since I purchased mine used, there was no video that came with it.
William

To put your mind at ease, the video did not go into the setup or adjustment. I shot the video. Sorry. That said, it is not ease to set up but it isnt hard either. There are two bolts attaching it to the table saw table. They sometimes have washers as spacers. Your success with the table will be when you have both of these equal. You have to set everything up and attach a test piece of wood to the moving fence. Mark it and slide the front and b ack length and see if it traverses parallel to the miter slot. Adjust the bolt and spacer pack as needed until this distance is right on. From the point on, it should be easy.

[Steve Griffin]

William,
I just set mine up on my new saw after using it for maybe 7 years on another saw.

It's a great tool and I highly recommend it to anyone cutting sheetgoods.

Here's a couple more set up thoughts:

-Putting the sliding table in plane with the saw table is an obvious task, but is very important to getting good cuts.

-I can't think of any reason anyone would not want the fence in the forward position (so you push the work against it)

-Before bolting to your saw, make sure that when the fence is fully towards you and the blade fully raised, it allows you to put a piece of wood against the fence with out touching the blade.

-Buy a right to left adhesive ruler tape and attach it to the extension so you don't need a tape measure for pieces longer than the fence. I calibrated mine to show the length of cut where the extension enters the fence.

-I like the fence to be located about .5" to the left of the blade.

-While my fence stop is set up to locate the fence at 90degrees, for critical work I always test for square. An easy way to do this is take a 20-45" wide rip and make a test cut. Turn it upside down and make another cut a fuzz smaller. Any error in square will show up and you can make corrections. (The error will actually be doubled).

Got any other questions or problems, just ask--many guys have these. Let me know if it would be helpful to post some pics.

-Steve

[William Parks]

Gentlemen,

Thank you for the replies and suggestions.

My biggest complaint is that when pushing the slide some areas have a tendency to bind where other areas tansition smoothly. It binds up the first 1/3 of travel then moves smoothly after that. There seems to be some wear on the top of the outside rail (was there when I got it). I wonder if putting some mylar on the rails would be a good idea.

I also noticed that the table had more up and down movement when pulled all the way back then when pushed forward. I attribute this to the outside leg adjustment which I never did like. They're OK for a coarse adjustments, but not to fine tune. Today I added 1 1/4" diameter threaded feet to the bottom of the legs so I can dial them in better.

I'm tearing it down and starting from scratch so hopefully I can get this to work better than it has. I like the slider, and I especially like the safety aspect. Just wish it worked as advertised.

[Rick Potter]

William,

Mine has mylar, or UHMW tape on the bottom of the table where it slides on the rail next to the saw. You also need to clean and was that rail.

Rick Potter

[Kevin Groenke]

My biggest complaint is that when pushing the slide some areas have a tendency to bind where other areas tansition smoothly. It binds up the first 1/3 of travel then moves smoothly after that.

This might be either the parallelism of the two rails or the dimension of the opening on the right side of the table where it "sandwiches" the rail: there should be UHMW strips on the top and bottom of that "sandwich" if there aren't or if their damaged, I would replace them. You might also have to increase the distance between the bearings on the outside of the table slightly: those are on a cam which you adjust by loosening the socket head screws and turning the large hex bolts.



There seems to be some wear on the top of the outside rail (was there when I got it). I wonder if putting some mylar on the rails would be a good idea.

I think this is where the bearings beneath the table contact the rail (and probably why Exactor went to the SS rails). I doubt any plastic tape would withstand the bearings rolling back and forth over it for long. I've buffed these areas (they're on the sides of that rail too) with a composite wheel in a die grinder to take off all the paint, I ocassionally apply paste wax to all contact areas after which the table rolls like new.



I also noticed that the table had more up and down movement when pulled all the way back then when pushed forward.

I think this is just a function of the design. The outside rail is contained only on the top and sides. When the table is way back, it's basically cantilevered and weight applied to it has more leverage which can lift the far corner. There is a standoff and washer beneath that far outside corner of the table that you can probably modify to reduce the distance that the table can rise. Over 14 years I haven't noticed the table, or even the far leg being lifted occassionally has had any detrimental effects.

Hope this helps without confusing too much.
-kg