Popular Mechanics How to Fix Anything by Popular Mechanics

Author:Popular Mechanics
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, pdf
Publisher: Hearst

Everybody has old, worn tools that could live useful lives again. To rescue one requires patience, sturdy abrasives—and vision. A neglected tool has an odd, magnetic power. It pulls you in. Pick it up and the next thing you know, you’re scraping away rust with your thumbnail, trying to make out the manufacturer’s name. You vaguely recall how you came by it: a tag sale, or your father-in-law, or a neighbor who was moving away. “Restoring them is pretty easy,” says contributing editor Richard Romanski, a fine woodworker and unrepentant tool collector. We gathered a bunch of forlorn implements and went to work in his studio, a cavernous former church in North Salem, New York. We found that all it takes is some basic chemistry and a little work to salvage tools that look like they’ve been sitting on the bottom of the ocean for a century or two.

TARGET: A RUSTY, WOBBLY TABLE SAW

Even a good machine can be rendered inoperative by a little rust and parts that go out of alignment or calibration.

A table saw that earns its keep in an unheated garage, shop, or barn will soon rust. Condensation forms on its steel and cast-iron parts because they are cooler than the surrounding air (1). The rust makes it difficult to slide plywood across the table, which should be smooth and nonabrasive. It also makes it hard to raise and lower the blade or adjust its tilt. This early 1980s Craftsman saw cost $80 at a church auction. Its table was rusty, and its parts had been thrown out of alignment.

The first step was to move the saw to a warm, dry workshop. We took it off its rolling stand and hoisted it into a Ford F-150, then drove it down the street to Romanski’s studio (2).

Next came disassembly. We unbolted the cast-iron wings from each side of the saw and removed the motor (3). We were pleased to find that the motor was a commercial-duty type with twin capacitors—one to start the motor turning and another to provide extra kick to the run winding. The motor’s shaft and pulley were all in good shape. We used compressed air to blow accumulated sawdust and cobwebs out of the saw’s cavity (4).

Next came removal of surface rust from the saw’s table and wings. We wet down the surface with kerosene as a cutting lubricant and left it alone to penetrate while we ate lunch. To buff the rust away, we chucked up a variable-speed electric drill with a 2½-inch abrasive nylon cup brush embedded with 240-grit aluminum oxide. At a low 500 rpm, with a back-and-forth movement, the brush removed the rust without marring the surface.

We mounted the wings back on the saw and found that we could align them with the saw table by flexing them slightly and carefully tapping them into position with a dead-blow hammer. After placing a new 10-inch carbide blade on the arbor (the shaft the blade goes on), Romanski used a machinist’s square to ensure the blade was perpendicular to the table.

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