Thread: Just purchased a Wadkin Table Saw for $53

Originally Posted by chambezio

What is it about restoring old equipment? What sucks us in to get down and dirty with Cast Iron and Alloy?

Here's a (stupid) theory ...


Women can give birth ...

Men restore old machinery.


You might be able to argue that both can be equally painful, ...

and hopefully the end results last equally as long

...

going for a lie down now.

Ok only small progress so far unfortunately (too many responsibilities getting in the way of fun).

So I have managed to clean up and paint some of the other parts:

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We had a street collection this week, so after a bit of driving around, I found an old computer to take the power supply. After cutting off all the plugs for the hard drive etc., I simply sorted out all the wires into colours, I used the black wires (negative) and yellow wires (12v+), this power supply is rated for 15 amps on the 12v+ rail (the electrolysis I have done so far has only pulled about 2.5 amps max). The trick is to connect the green wire to one of the black wires (otherwise the power supply will not come on). I prefer this over using my car charger as if it dies it was free anyway, but they also have a handy cut off (so if you accidentally short circuit them they just shut off and by turning them off at the power point they reset).

I am using carbon rods on the negative side, they don't gunk up, and are easily sourced (welding gouging rods). The hardest part is removing the copper coating, I just used a 3M abrasive wheel in the drill to wear through the copper and lift an edge, which I then pealed like an orange. It was a bit of mucking around, but at $14 for a box of 9mm rods, its the cheapest way I could find.

Below is the setup (it's a bit simple at the moment, but it's doing the job):

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Below is a picture of how the adjustable feet looked before electrolysis (I ha'd already tried squirting them with WD40 twice daily for about a week and a half, but I couldn't get them to turn, at least not with any force I felt comfortable with). I have never tried heating the cast before and I figured doing this first still leaves me with that option anyway:

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Below is a picture of one of the feet after about 6 hours in the electrolysis (I didn't even need to use a hammer to free it, just a pipe over the top with holes that line up with the holes in the feet, and an allen key slid through and a pair of vice grips on the pipe). I sprayed it with some WD 40 and now it twists in and out by hand.

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Thanks,

Camo

looking good, can't wait to see the finished product!

Col

Well she is almost all put back together now.


This is a picture with the table fully forward:


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And the table in the locked position with the inner bar in the forward position to allow standard use:


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As you can see she is still missing the Wadkin Bursgreen badge (I am trying to decide between painting it green or red). The on off switch has not been attached yet (as I am trying to look at the best place to mount it for safety, I may build a bracket to hold it forward and will be adding a perspex kick guard for an emergency stop).


The fence is not attached yet I am planning on trying my hand at building one of the clone biesemyer fences like this one https://www.woodworkforums.com/f44/table-saw-fence-clone-8268/ (thanks Morry and others for all the details). I made the decision when I found a large industrial printer during the council collection and thought I could use the aluminium channel as a fence (thought it was a great find, and it was, except for the 3 hours work to get the printer apart and remove everything, which of cause all had security screws).

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The advantage with making the fence is that I plan to add my router table as an extension table (in the place of the previous extension table), so the fence will double as a tablesaw and router fence.



But before I can do any of this, I need to complete the mobile base (it's only half built). I needed to get the table together first to ensure that the mechanism would be capable of lifting the approx. 600kg's (I will add a foot pedal, locking mechanism, shroud and paint it all green when it’s finished). I know I should have made it out of timber, but it is lifting over 600kg.


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Another safety issue is the lack of a guard and riving knife, so that will probably be the next thing after the mobile base.


So in conclusion, now that I have just read what I have written, it looks like I am far from finished .


Cheers,

Camo

Looks very excellent.

Your middle rail moves out of the way !?!?!?!

NOW I'm jealous!



Paul.

very nice job. I love the base and how it works.

I think I have a pic of the crown guard around with the riving knife some were.

If you need that to work off just say so.

jack
English machines

Jack,

I would really love to see any information you might have on the guard and/or riving knife (I'm sure I will be able to make something up that will work, but it would be good to see more detail on what was originally on the machine). If you had any information on the original design of the fixed crosscut fence (the one that is bolted to the sliding table, that would be great too).

Paul,

I have never been known for great explanations, so I took a couple of pictures of the sliding rail in the hope that it clarifies how it works.

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The outer bar is fixed, but the inner bar can slide along two tracks (one at the front of the saw and one at the back). I guess when crosscutting boards you can slide it in to what you need and then lock it off, this restricts the tables backward sliding potential to what you need and means you don't have to walk around the bar if you want to move over to the extension side of the table. If you lock the table (using a pin) to the fixed position in line with the extension table, you can move the bar forward and lock it out of the way (like in the previous posts photo).

I am glad you asked about this, because I have now realised I have put this bar in back to front so both of the end stops are on the rear side of the table. At the moment if I pushed the table top from the back of the machine there would be absolutely nothing stopping the table top from just rolling straight off and crashing to the floor . So THANK YOU FOR POSTING you probably saved me from breaking both my legs the first time I got over excited pulling the table top back for a big cut!!.

Cheers,

Camo

Ha - funny and scary isn't it?

I did something like that when I put mine back together.

For one, when it was sitting on the pallet trolley - getting the table levelled up - pulling the table all the way forward would have over-balanced it ... and I nearly did a few times.

Secondly, somewhere in the levelling process I also realised that ... I had the rails on back the front - aargh! PITA to lift the tabletop again - rotate the bars - and start levelling again.

But ... it's all fun right?

I would not have worried about a lifting mechanism. My TS and the cabinet I built to go in between the rails is sitting on a mobile base and it never moves. In fact to move it requires a great big effort even though the castors are big industrial ones which cost a small fortune. In fact I have some hover pads ready to go under it to reduce the issues of moving it if that becomes necessary.

What colour paint did you use? I might get energetic and do my jointer one day! The badge on it is the same green as the cabinet.

Hi Mini,

Your right about the mobile base, but unfortunately the location that I intend to position the table saw, is a spot that I will need to move it (a pain, but it is the best spot for it and it won’t need to be moved often). I plan to hang positioning markers from the ceiling before moving it, so I don't need to worry about levelling it each time. I guess I also wanted to know how hard it would be to make something to easily move it (I probably could have come up with a less permanent way of moving it, but it's all part of the fun , and it gave me a chance to do some more welding).

It is actually very easy to lift and lower (just push down with one leg and lock it on each side, then lower when in position, it lifts and rolls very easily).

The paint I used was Galmet Hammered finish in Jade Green (which unfortunately I have since found out is no longer being made ). I managed to get 2 spray cans on clearance, for any touch-ups should I require in the future. Initially I was going to try to have the colour matched, but after cleaning the cabinet down, it was quite clear that it had been touched up several times in the past (so I didn't feel as guilty about not matching the old colour exactly). I chose the Galmet over some others, because it seemed to give a better hammer finish and matched the colour the most.

Thanks for the info on the badge, I thought it was supposed to be green, but I thought I had seen it as red on some Wadkins, so I wasn't sure if it had also been repainted.

I now have a replacement riving knife.

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Thanks go to Ray G for his suggestion of going to a saw sharpening place and asking for an old saw blade. https://www.woodworkforums.com/f65/sm...49/index2.html. I managed to get a 17 inch blade which had some issues with the teeth (which is no problem for what I needed it for and is big enough to probably make 5 riving knives)

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I haven't decided on if I will attach my guard to the riving knife or have an overhead setup (thought I would wait to see if Jack has any luck finding the pictures of the original setup), so this will either be the riving knife for cutting half through cuts or the main riving knife.

Cheers,

Camo

If you have compressed air available PM Soundman and see if he has any hover pads left, that is where I got mine from what seems like about 50 years ago. I really must get the TS off the base and install them instead of tripping over the box. But then there is the hundred other jobs that need doing, oh well....

Have a look at these videos...

http://www.hoverbench.com/

I am really impressed with you outcome after cleaning the table top, I have been restoring n old tanner planner and while the surfaces are a lot better, they are not as good as yours

Any advice?

the notion of this stuff being addictive is so true, from a block of rust to a useful tool - awesome!

Thanks

Hi Cliff32,

Sorry about the delay in responding (too many things not enough time). Unfortunately I don't think I have any magical solutions in relations to cleaning the table tops, and I'm sure others would have much easier solutions (which I would also be interested in, if anyone wants to share some of their tricks).

What I did (after a lot of goggling for ideas) was apply WD40 to the surface and then put a 3M scourer pad (from what I have read it is not worth trying it with any inferior brand pads) under an orbital sander (don't use your best sander it will be covered in WD40 mixed with rust in no time). The downside is it is not a 2 second job, I probably put the best part of 3 hours into these table tops and several scourer pads. After I was finished I removed the WD40 and other residue with some metho and then applied some silverglide.

I think I read in one of Jack's posts (English Machines jgforsberg) that he uses a razor blade to clean the surface. From what I could see from the photo's it seemed to be much easier than my approach, and I will probably try that next time.

One really cool thing I have been playing with (which I posted a bit about earlier), is electrolysis. If you look at the photos of the table saw you will see the two rails that the table top rides. They are about 2m long and 50mm diameter made of solid steel. One has a lower and upper rail system with lots of crevices which would have made rust removal difficult. To remove the rust from these I used a 100mm plumbing pipe (sewerage), cut a section out down the length of the pipe (all but the last 6 inches either end) and added caps to each end. I placed the rail in the pipe, filled it with the washing soda solution and placed the carbon rods about every 6 inches on either side. I left the electrolysis to run for about 14 hrs (probably could have done less). It literally is like magic, you simply give it a bit of a rub over with a scourer (like you were doing the washing up), just to rub the carbon off the metal and you are back to bare metal. The only downside is it will take paint off, and you have to protect the metal quickly because it will oxidise quickly after cleaning.

Thanks,

Camo

Camo

Nice find, & you are doing an excellent job of the refurb.

I have a Wadkin BGP 1500 which came with the original riving knife and guard. Are you still looking for photo's? I am not using this at the moment as the riving knife is bent in several places & I have not got around to fixing it. I could also take photo's of the crosscut fence if you would like those.

Regards