Wadkin PK. One of the best table saws gets to live another life

[Mark Bolton]

The work you guys put in these projects is amazingly impressive. I only wish I had the time and perseverance. Really awesome to see.

[Matt Mattingley]

I’m in a set up right now using the fence to indicate blade run out and arbour alignment.

But here is a little entertaining video for you. 17 3/4” versus 7 1/4“

[peter gagliardi]

Matt, glad to see the thread restored. I enjoy seeing any brand of old arn rebuilds.
Nice progress.

[James Biddle]

Any idea why the start-stop labels were reversed after being cleaned up (post #23)?

[Matt Mattingley]

Any idea why the start-stop labels were reversed after being cleaned up (post #23)?

LOL. I’m glad somebody saw that. That was my goof. It has since been swapped.

[Joe Calhoon]

Nice job Matt! I can appreciate the time and effort you have put into this. My shaper restoration took a huge chunk of time but not to the level you are taking this. Enjoy!
joe

[brent stanley]

Enjoying this thread, thanks for bringing it back.

[Matt Mattingley]

I finally finished with the blade and tooth indication. Neutral which is on the surface table (not clamped or influenced by inner and outer flange) The blade has 0.002 deviation or a + or -0.001 to each carbide tooth. The flange run out is 0.0005” in a 4.875 diameter. I’m shooting to fix this. The flange clamping the arbour run out to fence (in all factory Doweled positions) are out .002. The fence has a plus minus tolerance using the Key way dovetail of +-0.00125.

In my opinion the flange motor mount need to be reworked as I’m thinking it’s out 0.0001”. The motor needs to be shifted 0.003 over a 6 inch span, and the blade being +-0.001 I will just have to deal with. Wadkin used soft dowels for alignment. I replaced them all with tooling pull dowels. Soft dowels allow sheer nudge and retighten in positioning. Tooling ground dowels weren’t available at that time... they are now. So the motor is out 0.003 to fence over a 16 inch span. The fence has a +-0.00125.

I will adjust (or pull) one of the motor dowels and adjust with a 0.005” shim to get my 0.003 Arbour alignment (A²+B²=C²) . I will stone the arbour mounting flange and lap or try to lap 0.0001. The blade to wobble I will consider exceptable at +-0.001.

I will leave the fence that has a +- 0.00125 teeter totter. (At 30° and 45°, the numbers are repeatable). I’m not going to fix, the blade has a +-0.001. When were talking these numbers it’s just blah blah blah blah blah. Most people don’t really care.

Sure there are videos out there showing how to fix your Arbour or Arbour flange. Just step back and think about it like a machinist would.


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[jack forsberg]

An interesting feature of the engineering of the fence on the PK is it’s ability to handle run out. You will notice that the fence locks down exactly at the apex of the cutting of the blade. In other words the dovetail slot in the table is right at the front cutting edge of the blade.Therefore Any toe In the fence is split between the clearance of the kerf and plate. In essence this will eliminates the necessity for it to be set dead nuts. In the last six years I have adjusted my fence once and that was after I had installed your Ampco bronze keys

[Michael Larson]

Matt,

Looking great!

Michael

[Frank Pratt]

I’m in a set up right now using the fence to indicate blade run out and arbour alignment.

But here is a little entertaining video for you. 17 3/4” versus 7 1/4“

Will you use a VFD with braking to slow that thing down a little sooner. I imagine it keeps going for quite a while after shutdown. Beautiful work you're doing there.

[Martin Wasner]

While probably smarter to have a motor brake, there's something satisfying about a saw still spinning a couple minutes after cutting the power.

[Bill Dufour]

Why the open bearings and not sealed for the motor? Nice job and good to see this thread restored.
Bill D

[jack forsberg]

Why the open bearings and not sealed for the motor? Nice job and good to see this thread restored.
Bill D

I don’t believe you could even order those bearings sealed. Although some self aligning bearings can be ordered sealed it is not necessarily better. Generally sealed bearings last about 20 years used or not. It is not uncommon for these bearings to last three times that. It should be noted that the bearings that you are witnessing in Matt Matt‘s motor are approximately $450 apiece and were made by Hoffman the same bearing manufacture for the rolls Royce engines. It’s also important if you look at the motor Diagram how the Grease never enters the winding as there is a purg Cavity as new Grease is pushed through and renewed it displaces the old grease

[David Kumm]

While a some sealed SA bearings can be had sealed, the high end brass cage generally aren't- at least for a price less than the whole machine. The seal limits the ability of the bearing to handle alignment issues and they will run hotter. Old industrial machines designed cavities for either oil or grease so the excess could be expelled and replaced with new, or metered out at an appropriate rate. Precision bearings are almost always open as well. Sealed are usually stamped steel cage standard precision. Contact seals reduce the speed rating which is all ready pretty low for the large size- high load- bearings run in industrial machines. Using smaller diameter sealed bearings is often claimed as an improvement for marketing purposes but there is substantial cost savings when not needing to design for large open bearings. Few understand the load or speed differences or the need to replace more often. This is a bigger issue when dealing with shapers than with saws but the old companies didn't compromise much on their high end stuff. Dave