Restoration of radial arm saw - Montogomery Wards TCP 2610E
4/17/2018
Purchased for $20 - craigslist
I already have one fully functional Craftsman radial arm saw and a DeWalt that I plan to restore later. Why buy this Montgomery Wards saw? I've been wanting one ever since I found out it has an extra deep cut depth and it has a 20,000 RPM spindle.
I brought it home in the Subaru Outback. I had to remove the saw from the stand and disassemble the stand to get it to fit. The seller helped me get it into the car.
It's missing the anti-kickback device and the rubber elbow that goes on the guard. The vertical movement is frozen. The bevel motion is frozen. The arm does rotate on the column and the saw assembly does slide back and forth along the arm. The motion that allows the saw to rotate from crosscut to rip is OK. The plug is missing the ground pin.
After I got it home and started reassembling the stand, I realized it was damaged and flimsy so I won't use the stand. The table it came with is worthless. There were no arbor wrenches.
The wood on the old table was soaking wet. I think they had this sitting outside in the rain recently. It looks too rust-free to have been out there for a long time.
Search for a router adapter part 84-2613. The shaft is 15/16 inch diameter - 20 thread per inch. There was a post on lumberjocks saying that a porter cable collet would work. I spoke with a customer service rep at Porter Cable and he said they don't have anything that would work. He referred me to Delta as he thought they took over the Powr Kraft line. The Delta service rep said no they don't have any parts either.
4/27/2018
I found a open end 15/16 inch wrench that was 1/8 inch thick at Habitat Restore. It bent when I tried to remove the saw blade. I've ordered a piece of 3/16 inch thick steel from Amazon and will make a wrench from that.
I checked the cut depth and was happy to see that it's more than 3 1/2". That means I'll be able to cut a 4Ă—4 in one go. My craftsman's capacity is about 2 1/4".
5/2/2018
I made a wrench from the 3/16 inch thick steel bar. I used a drill and hacksaw to remove most of the material. Finished with a file. I also had to use a grinder to reduce the thickness slightly near the opening. It worked great: I got the saw blade off.
I finished making a wooden base for the stand and installed the saw onto the stand. After that, I diassembled it into all it's major components.
I installed a new 3 prong plug and ran the motor. It works but makes an unpleasant noise. That might just be how it sounds since it runs at 20,000 RPM and has hears to reduce the speed to 3450.
5/9/2018
On May 4, I tried to get the column and base separated. I used lots of PB Blaster and then used some pipe clamps to apply force. It did not work.
Based on what another Lumberjack experienced, I decided I need a press to apply more force. I took it to my auto mechanic and he put it in a 12 Ton press and it didn't budge. The auto mechanic suggested I freeze it and then apply heat to the outside. I took it to a local tool sales/service shop and they only had a ten ton press. His advice was to order a new assembly and if that's not possible then it's junk. I bought a 20 Ton press from Harbor Freight and got it assembled today. By itself, even the 20 Ton press did not work.
The base is aluminum and the column is steel. Because Aluminum's CTE is higher than steel, all I have to do is uniformly heat it rather than applying heat only to the base. The base will grow faster than the column and cause the parts to want to separate. I used my outdoor gas grill to heat it up. I then put the column (steel) end into a bucket of cold water. Back to the 20 Ton Press and it moved right away! I pushed it down as far as I could and then turned everything upside down and pushed the column all the way out. I preferred this method of heating because the base is painted and I didn't want to scorch it with a torch. I think it's also less likely to crack or for me to accidently cause a fire. Note that if I had followed the auto mechanic's advice to freeze it, that would have backfired. Freezing the entire assembly would have caused it to get tighter because the aluminum base would shrink faster than the steel column.
4/17/2018
Purchased for $20 - craigslist
I already have one fully functional Craftsman radial arm saw and a DeWalt that I plan to restore later. Why buy this Montgomery Wards saw? I've been wanting one ever since I found out it has an extra deep cut depth and it has a 20,000 RPM spindle.
I brought it home in the Subaru Outback. I had to remove the saw from the stand and disassemble the stand to get it to fit. The seller helped me get it into the car.
It's missing the anti-kickback device and the rubber elbow that goes on the guard. The vertical movement is frozen. The bevel motion is frozen. The arm does rotate on the column and the saw assembly does slide back and forth along the arm. The motion that allows the saw to rotate from crosscut to rip is OK. The plug is missing the ground pin.
After I got it home and started reassembling the stand, I realized it was damaged and flimsy so I won't use the stand. The table it came with is worthless. There were no arbor wrenches.
The wood on the old table was soaking wet. I think they had this sitting outside in the rain recently. It looks too rust-free to have been out there for a long time.
Search for a router adapter part 84-2613. The shaft is 15/16 inch diameter - 20 thread per inch. There was a post on lumberjocks saying that a porter cable collet would work. I spoke with a customer service rep at Porter Cable and he said they don't have anything that would work. He referred me to Delta as he thought they took over the Powr Kraft line. The Delta service rep said no they don't have any parts either.
4/27/2018
I found a open end 15/16 inch wrench that was 1/8 inch thick at Habitat Restore. It bent when I tried to remove the saw blade. I've ordered a piece of 3/16 inch thick steel from Amazon and will make a wrench from that.
I checked the cut depth and was happy to see that it's more than 3 1/2". That means I'll be able to cut a 4Ă—4 in one go. My craftsman's capacity is about 2 1/4".
5/2/2018
I made a wrench from the 3/16 inch thick steel bar. I used a drill and hacksaw to remove most of the material. Finished with a file. I also had to use a grinder to reduce the thickness slightly near the opening. It worked great: I got the saw blade off.
I finished making a wooden base for the stand and installed the saw onto the stand. After that, I diassembled it into all it's major components.
I installed a new 3 prong plug and ran the motor. It works but makes an unpleasant noise. That might just be how it sounds since it runs at 20,000 RPM and has hears to reduce the speed to 3450.
5/9/2018
On May 4, I tried to get the column and base separated. I used lots of PB Blaster and then used some pipe clamps to apply force. It did not work.
Based on what another Lumberjack experienced, I decided I need a press to apply more force. I took it to my auto mechanic and he put it in a 12 Ton press and it didn't budge. The auto mechanic suggested I freeze it and then apply heat to the outside. I took it to a local tool sales/service shop and they only had a ten ton press. His advice was to order a new assembly and if that's not possible then it's junk. I bought a 20 Ton press from Harbor Freight and got it assembled today. By itself, even the 20 Ton press did not work.
The base is aluminum and the column is steel. Because Aluminum's CTE is higher than steel, all I have to do is uniformly heat it rather than applying heat only to the base. The base will grow faster than the column and cause the parts to want to separate. I used my outdoor gas grill to heat it up. I then put the column (steel) end into a bucket of cold water. Back to the 20 Ton Press and it moved right away! I pushed it down as far as I could and then turned everything upside down and pushed the column all the way out. I preferred this method of heating because the base is painted and I didn't want to scorch it with a torch. I think it's also less likely to crack or for me to accidently cause a fire. Note that if I had followed the auto mechanic's advice to freeze it, that would have backfired. Freezing the entire assembly would have caused it to get tighter because the aluminum base would shrink faster than the steel column.