Thread: Wadkin BGP table saw

mmm..... Wadkin.... So nice, big and green.... What's you plan with the saw?

Originally Posted by Barterbuilt

One thing I did notice is the feet are in two pieces and are joined by the sheetmetal structure that supports the saw housing.
This seemed a little dodgy, large castings joined with sheetmetal.

Hi Andrew,

Great to hear you have finally got her home. It definitely sounds like she was not being looked after well, but at least it looks like they have kept most of the bits and pieces together. As you know I also have a 12" BGP (https://www.woodworkforums.com/f163/j...w-53-a-149296/), this may show some photos that may help, but if you need any measurements, close up shots let me know.

This is the brochure: http://www.wadkin.com/uploads/files/...%20Saw.pdf,and the manual for the larger machine (but to me they were very similar and this manual has more details): http://www.wadkin.com/uploads/files/...rts%20List.pdf

It sounds like you know what you are doing, so I won't patronise you, by telling you how you can fix your problems, other than to say, that the problems above should be fixable, my sliding table does not rock, 1/2" rod should be straight (I had an issue with mine, some scratches due to one of the brass guides being missing and not replaced, thought I would add that in, given the way yours has been treated, in case yours are missing), table does lock firm, spindle should not be sloppy.

I am looking forward to seeing you bring this saw up to good condition. I am very interested in the crosscut fence (which I do not have), if you are OK with it, I might hassle you for some measurements later.

Although the BGP does not have the look, or build quality of some of the older Wadkins, it is still in my opinion a well made machine (certainly better than anything else new you will get for anywhere near the money, even when you add the cost to repair), and I have been happy with the accuracy of cuts I can achieve with mine, although it was a pain to get right initially.

Originally Posted by Barterbuilt

One thing I did notice is the feet are in two pieces and are joined by the sheetmetal structure that supports the saw housing.
This seemed a little dodgy, large castings joined with sheetmetal.

I was also a bit disappointed with that initially, but it does have balist in it, and it already weights in at 550kg, so you could imagine how heavy it would be if it was all cast iron.

Cheers,

Camo

Hi

It won't be green for long. I'm a toolmaker and every machine I have ever worked on is either green or grey and I am sick of it.
Not quite sure of what colour yet, maybe blue and white.
Sorry if this upsets the traditional among you.

Thanks for the info Camo.
All the things I mentioned should be easy to fix, it's just suprising as the machine was in use in a shop building quality staircases.
Actually I'm supprised nobody was hurt. It took me a while to figure out why the main bars were 25mm out of parallel and had been for quite a while from the track marks. The main saw casting (where it was attached to the sheetmetal base ) was only held in place with 2 loose screws.
The sliding carriage ran off the flat top rail if pushed too far. And the fixed top was also loose.

Any way......

Camo, brass guides?? any chance of a pic.
Any measurements you need, just ask.

Updates to come...

Andrew

Progress

Managed to get the trunion out, although removing the roll pins from the tilt worm shaft was some trick.
A few more bits to remove and it will time to remove the old paint.

Hi Andrew,

Below is an old picture of the brass guides I was referring to:

brass guide.jpg

Not a great picture (sorry, if you need, I can pull one out and give you some measurements, and a more current photo when I get a chance). It is stretching my memory a bit, but if I remember correctly there are 4 in total, 1 each side of the rollers front and back, on the bar closest to the fixed table (the one with the attached guide bar). They also had a felt material on the outer edge (you should be able to tell how many just by looking at the assembly for screw holes). They are just designed to ride the rail, and prevent things from trying to pivot when pushing the table, but even with one missing, I had some minor gouges in the rail were the table had tried to move off line.

Originally Posted by Barterbuilt

Progress

Managed to get the trunnion out, although removing the roll pins from the tilt worm shaft was some trick.
A few more bits to remove and it will time to remove the old paint.

I am hoping you did not fall into the trap that I nearly did when trying to remove the trunnion. I couldn't work out how to pivot the trunnion to work out how to fit the rise and fall shaft through the hole. After taking a break, I realised there was a grub screw on the bottom that once removed enabled the casting on the shaft to pivot 45 degrees so it would fit through the hole.

Looks like you are really powering through. Keep up the pictures, brings back memories, and as for changing the green colour, I would have to agree, and if I did it over again, I would have painted it a different colour.

Cheers,

Camo

A bit of work ahead of you to bring it up to scratch but when you have , that will be one sweet saw !

Stewie

Camo

Those brass guides, are retaining plates for the rail wipers. they hold in place a piece of felt ? to wipe sawdust et al off the rails.

Regards

No brass guides, wipers or felts anywhere to be seen. Thanks for the pic Camo. Don't go pulling anything off your machine.......
There is 2 tapped holes in the outside edge of the carrier blocks ( 4 off ) which would be where they go. But........
Not to worry, I'm sure that I can nock up something.
Got most of it stripped down now and starting to think of paint.
There is way too many nooks and crannies to think about sanding, and it would take about 20 lt of paint stripper to clean it up.
There is actually 2 different colours so it has obviously been repainted before. Green twice
I spoke to the local powder coaters today who also do sandblasting. I'm no painter that's for sure. ( and after bogging, fairing and painting my 8 mtr ally boat I can honestly say I don't do paint anymore. A mate actually spat the paint on but we did the prep work. 8 weeks of swinging on a 2 mtr torture board= no fun )

Any opinions on this technique?
I thought if I took to the sensitive areas with the wire wheel on the angle grinder to remove the paint and then masked up, then the sandblaster should be able to avoid those areas. I know it would take more than a layer of masking tape to do this, but could it be done?
I also looked at an antique silver powder coated sample which looked quite good. It's more like a 2 tone/ hammer tone finish.
I think it would also hide some areas of ruff casting. That means no serious sanding and no bog. I will go over any areas which really need to cleaned up with the sanding disc ie. sand joins in the casting.

I'd appreciate your views.

Cheers

Andrew

Andrew,

regarding the brass guides/retainers they are made of about 6-8mm thick brass (from memory, definitely at least 6mm), and look like this:

wadkin piece.jpg

(the bottom arc is not really a good representation, as it should be much deeper, as it covers most of the rail profile) the middle hole is threaded (the top two are not), and a piece of sheet metal like this:

wadkin piece2.jpg

holds the felt in place (with the bolt going through the hole in the sheet metal, then the felt and mounting in the middle hole in the brass). Basilg is definitely correct about them being used to remove sawdust away from the rail, but they are also cut and mounted so they closely follow the profile of the rail (almost touching), and from my experience of missing one, the sliding table did seem to want to move a bit and bind as it rolled, so I would highly recommend adding them, not just for the dust removal, but to assist with guiding the rollers.

I will leave the comments regarding paint preparation to others that have more experience than I do, except to say that most of the casting I found to actually be fairly smooth (no major bog underneath like what I have found on some other machines). The paint on the sheet metal and cast, was fairly thick (at least on mine), and if you spot strip, you will need to add some filler to even out the surface, or I think it will show through (even if you are using a hammered finish). Fortunately the paint on my one in the sheet metal section was actually in very good shape (just issues were the paint had been chipped off due to wear and tear), so I did not sand everything back to bare metal, just stripped and sanded areas that needed it, prepped for painting adding primer and filler as required as part of the prep work. Again I am certainly no expert at this, and I guess time will tell how the finish holds up, but at this stage no issues. Most of the cast got stripped back as part of the electrolysis process (to free up parts), before being repainted.

Lastly as a word of warning (depending on how you want to assess the risks), and I am not sure if it does or doesn't, but I just assumed that the paint could be lead based, and took appropriate precautions (this is another reason why I did not go crazy and strip everything right back).

Cheers,

Camo

update

In the interest of trying to do a good job I thought I would seperate the 3 sheetmetal base cabinets to paint them........Hmmmmm
The angular plate inside the base covered the area that contained the bolts to allow separation.
Removed the panel which was tack welded in position.
Camo, you said it had ballast in there, I didn't quite expect what I found....... CONCREEK... Its solid all the way to the top, about 40kg of it.
Well I guess that I'm not going to separate the cabinets after all.
Also interesting to see that the machine was originally painted with the feet in situ, no paint under the feet.
There is a little bit rust, but nothing too bad.

Andrew

Andrew,

i admire your dedication in the process of dismantling. I was initially intending to do the same, but stopped when I realised the panel was in the way. I ended up deciding best to leave alone, I didn't want to effect the alignment, or end up with a sloppy connection.

I had not actually seen what they used as a ballast, just knew it had some, from trying to roll it over.

Don't give up, break out the pick and cold chisel.

Cheers,

Camo

Finally got back to the project. Had to go back 4 pages to find it. Time flies.

I couldn't find anyone to do some carefull sandblasting so I went on the lookout for one to buy.
This one is approx 1800x1000x1000 so it should come in handy for future jobs.

Here is the progress after a couple of days.
Sandblasting is not an overly quick process. Lots of nooks and crannies.
Had to take off about 4 layers of paint then sand all the casting irregularities out.

Decided on antique silver ( a hammertone finish black/silver )

mini-sawbits3.jpgmini-sawbits1.jpgmini-sawbits2.jpg

More to come

Originally Posted by Barterbuilt

I couldn't find anyone to do some carefull sandblasting so I went on the lookout for one to buy.
This one is approx 1800x1000x1000 so it should come in handy for future jobs.

I'm giving you extra points for that.

Looking forward to seeing more.

cheers,

Camo

Hello all,

I realize this thread has been inactive for a very long time but I just bought a Wadkin BGP panel saw and have a question about it. Mine did not come with a cross-cut fence on the sliding table. Would anyone have a photo available with some details on how it was originally designed to be mounted/adjusted?

Thanks in advance!

Thomas
(the Netherlands)