Project Information
This is my first table saw, and I found this older machine for sale in a local classified ad. I became interested in possibly purchasing an old Unisaw after reading the article in Popular Woodworking magazine about cleaning and and tuning up a 1944 Unisaw. A few weeks later I happened to stumble across this one for sale, and since it was only an hour away I drove to the owner's place to check it out.
The saw ended up being in very good condition, with all the original parts minus the original switch housing, goose egg motor cover, and a lock down lever for the fence. I found a goose egg cover for sale on the owwm.com "bring out your dead" section, and the switch cover on eBay. Someone on the owwm.com site was nice enough to give me an original locking lever and knob for the Micro-Set fence for free.
I stripped down everything down to the last nut and bolt and cleaned, polished, and re-painted with Rustoleum Smoke Gray on the outside and Rustoleum Machine Gray on the internal parts. There were a few broken welds in the cabinet in addition to a few extra holes that had been drilled, all of which were re-welded and ground smooth. I ground and polished the tilt and elevation wheels with a series of emery paper grits and sand papers to a chrome-like finish, and then coated with Renaissance Wax. I coated just about every other piece of steel that wasn't painted with Boeshield T-9.
The previous owner had replaced the bearings in the 1 phase, 1 hp bullet motor, but I had to replace the arbor bearings myself which went off without a hitch. The saw runs very smooth and overall I'm very happy with how it turned out. I didn't spend a lot of time cleaning up the rails to perfection since I'll probably replace them with a Biesemeyer fence system in the very near future.
http://markbriley.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/old-iron
The saw ended up being in very good condition, with all the original parts minus the original switch housing, goose egg motor cover, and a lock down lever for the fence. I found a goose egg cover for sale on the owwm.com "bring out your dead" section, and the switch cover on eBay. Someone on the owwm.com site was nice enough to give me an original locking lever and knob for the Micro-Set fence for free.
I stripped down everything down to the last nut and bolt and cleaned, polished, and re-painted with Rustoleum Smoke Gray on the outside and Rustoleum Machine Gray on the internal parts. There were a few broken welds in the cabinet in addition to a few extra holes that had been drilled, all of which were re-welded and ground smooth. I ground and polished the tilt and elevation wheels with a series of emery paper grits and sand papers to a chrome-like finish, and then coated with Renaissance Wax. I coated just about every other piece of steel that wasn't painted with Boeshield T-9.
The previous owner had replaced the bearings in the 1 phase, 1 hp bullet motor, but I had to replace the arbor bearings myself which went off without a hitch. The saw runs very smooth and overall I'm very happy with how it turned out. I didn't spend a lot of time cleaning up the rails to perfection since I'll probably replace them with a Biesemeyer fence system in the very near future.
http://markbriley.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/old-iron
