Hey All,
Long story, and frankly I am not sure how I actually ended up doing this, but I did, and I would really appreciate some help...
I was cutting a 12" diameter circle in a piece of 3/4" birch ply. I put another 3/4 inch piece under it to act as the backer for tear-out etc. I dont have room for an assembly table, so I use my saw. For some reason I chose to do this over the iron end of the saw, it was the only place with room at the tiime. I clamped the plywood to the top of my Sawstop cabinet saw and began the process of routing - taking progressively deeper 1/8" cuts. Everything went very well (first time I was doing this)until I got near the bottom. I was at "zero" on the router but hadn't cut all the way through, so I removed the stop and pushed the router down through what I thought was the first piece of ply. Well - as you can probably guess, I went through BOTH pieces, and routed a beautiful 12" diameter circle into the top of my beautiful Sawstop saw. The bit is a 1/2" upcut, so the path it left is about a half inch wide, and it varies in thickness/depth. It is a few thousands of an inch deep, possibly more in a couple of places.
I take care of my tools. It is more than 15 years old, closer to 20, but up until I did this it still looked really nice. Now I have a Christmas wreath on my saw... Unbelievably the router bit doesn't look too bad - I thought I would have to add the $50 I spent for the bit to the cost of the repair, but it seems OK.
So I need to somehow get this engraving out of the top of my saw. It just looks terrible. I need advice on how to remove this. I called Sawstop - they can replace the parts, but its $900 when you throw in shipping. I am thinking of possibly taking it to a machine shop. I wouldn't know how to explain what I needed. Any of you with that kind of experience give me an idea of how to present this to a machinist? What needs to be done to it - should I take all three parts - the main center table and the two wings? Can they remove the engraving and leave the table useable? I realize it will depend on the depth of the groove, but damn am I embarrassed.
Its an old saw obviously. I have used it on and off for about 17 years, and it has been fantastic. I dont want to sink $900 into it just to hide my embarrassment, but I dont want to look at it every day either.
I appreciate the understanding, and really appreciate the help.
Joe
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