Moving along with the restoration

A few notes on changes I've decided on.

1. I am keeping the yoke gloss black but have to decided to paint the motor metallic silver, since the blade guard that attaches to it will be metallic silver. I have also decided to use gloss black ball knobs and pulls. I purchased these from J.W. Winco. Here is the link to the page for these ball knobs. J.W. Winco Gloss black ball knobs
2. Since there will be no red in this rebuild, I will be painting the embossed DeWalt on the end cap in black instead of red.

I began the next step by dis-assembling the yoke and motor. The motor comes off the yoke on one side with one bolt which has an Allen head, on the other side there are three Allen head bolts holding it in place. I'm not certain yet as I haven't done the research, but maybe the two small ones on the side are for alignment? Any way there is a large bolt in the center and two smaller ones on the side. Soak them with PB Blaster over night and they should come out the next day relatively easily.

I removed the alignment set screws that hold the bushing in place on the open end of the yoke. I took the bushing out, measured those set screws and then put them back in to protect the threads during sandblasting and painting. I ordered new set screws, there are two that are #10 x 24 x 1 1/4" and one is #10 x 24 x 1". I ordered these on eBay from the lightingstainless store.

yoke replacement set screws 

Use this guy, he ships quickly and has quality hardware. I get nothing for that, I only recommend sources when they provide products that perform for me.

The motor end bells come off by loosening the four nuts holding the long retaining bolts. Once the bolts are out the end bells are very tough to get off. This is where you have to be very careful. If you break the motor fan, you have to either find a replacement fan from an old machine as new replacements aren't available (unless Wolfe machinery comes back in business) or buy an old replacement motor on eBay. The Delphi DeWalt Radial Arm Saw forum is also a wonderful resource to find parts.

The bearings on the motor shafts need serious PB Blasting and WD-40 before you can even think of getting them to release. Usually, from my reading the forums and rebuild articles, the wiring end bell comes off easily, this wasn't the case for me. You need an arbor press of gear puller to do this properly although if your mechanically inclined you can fabricate something to use in a vise so opening the vise acts as a puller. Since I have three more machines to do and possibly more after, I will design and build something for that purpose. I'll post on that when it happens, in the meantime take great care trying to get the bearings off the motor shafts if you intend on replacing them. If you don't, THEN DON'T TAKE APART THE MOTOR!

The motor on this machine ran but sounded a bit off which is why I'm taking it apart to rebuild it.

Once I took the motor nameplate off, the electrics inside the housing looked to be in great shape. Not much to do there.

I tried cleaning the nameplate as it was very blotchy. It din't come out write, an as they are not embossed, the usual methods don't work. I went on practicalmachinist.com to see if there were any other techniques to try but I found a reference to a gentlemen who can make perfect replica plates.
I ordered one for each motor I have. Once I receive them, I will post side by sides and give you his contact info should they be of the quality consistent with this rebuild. The motor nameplate is also shown below.

Since I broke the motor fan, it was then easy to use the gear puller to get the bearing and plate off.

After thoroughly cleaning the blade end bearing, it spun very freely so I am not going to replace it.

I finished painting most of the parts except for the arm. Each part received one coat of primer and two coats of paint. Once I give everything 2-3 days to fully dry, I will give them all one coat of gloss lacquer.

Here are the all parts but the arm painted (except for the motor housing which is only primed)

You may have noticed that the end bell of the motor still has the motor arbor in it. I tried for 3 days to get that bearing to come loose. I could not. After receiving many suggestions on what to do, including drilling a center hole, tapping it and screwing a bolt through it to push the arbor and bearing out, I decided that since I PB Blasted and WD-40'd it so much and it was spinning beautifully that I would leave it alone.

That meant some serious work covering the entire arbor assembly so I could sandblast the end bell and paint it. Here is what it looked like prior to sandblasting.

And here it is all primed and ready to be painted, with the other end bell and drive plate next to it.

I had another bearing problem in the roller head. One of the bearing bolts would not come out and I noticed it was very slightly bent by the threads. I had to heat the housing and cool the bearing and then pound it out with a hammer and another bolt. Of course that destroyed the threads on that bearing bolt, but I easily found replacements on the Delphi forum mentioned above.

The only thing left to do now is work on the arm. I have to remove the crank and top cap, take out the elevating screw so I can thoroughly clean it and the column, sandblast and paint the arm and top cap.

That's it for now, look for my next post in a few days.

MBF Rel230 teardown begins

I have now begun the rebuild process for the first of three MBF's that I hope to get three perfectly functioning machines from, but I'll settle for two. One of the MBF's waiting to be worked on is actually in extremely good physical and mechanical condition so I am leaving that alone for now. It is the one on top in the photo below.

Once I complete the MBF's I will be restoring a GW-2. Here it is dis-assembled and awaiting its turn.

I started work on MBF #1 by removing the end cap from the arm so I could remove the yoke and motor. It's best to take off the blade guard next. The cords will be replaced, so I cut the cord to remove the yoke and motor assembly in its entirety. The base and table can now be taken apart from the column base. The column base is held by four bolts, most of these bolts require 1/2" rachets or wrenches to remove them.

Most importantly, like a forensic investigator I bagged and labeled EVERY single item I removed from the machine since its likely this will take a few weeks of work as I can't work on it continuously. This way my memory won't be taxed. I am also taking many photos for the full article i intend to write on this process. I will post some in the blog as well.

As the motor and yoke assembly will require the most work, I decided to take the column apart first.
I sprayed PB Blaster on all the hardware and let it sit during dinner before I attempted to remove the hardware. The column base comes off first. BE CAREFUL HERE, there are two set screw dog bolts that have lock nuts on them gently loosen the lock nuts first then you can remove the set screws using a 5/32 Allen wrench. You should have a helper to hold the arm while you remove the column base so as NOT to bend the base or dent the column as the arm falls forward!

There are two normal bolts that come off next. The base should slide off the steel key easily unless its rusted, this one came off easily after some light twisting of the base. Then I removed the steel key-way from the column, it comes off easily, there are three Philips head screws that hold it in place.

Since I was anxious to use the sandblaster I decided to blast clean the MBF base, the column base, end cap and blade guard. The MBF base is a LOT of work as there are a lot of sides given all the interior support steel.

These are primed with Rustoleum professional grade metal primer (rattle cans). You may notice the blade guard is metallic silver (if you can't, then just trust me on that). The color scheme for this machine will be gloss black with a metallic silver trim (end cap and blade guard).

I had vinyl decals made to match the warning on the blade guard. The DeWalt on the end cap will get the same red as in the warning decal. I am also going to attempt to match the balls and pulls to the same red.

This was three days work, nights really. One night to take apart everything noted above, sand blast the column base and blade guard. I then wiped the guard and base clean with acetone, let them dry for an hour and primed them with the first coat. The second night I sandblasted the end cap and the base, the base took over an hour and a half!! There are 13 outward facing edges, and 17 inward facing. I am not looking forward to doing this two more times! I then cleaned those parts with acetone and primed the prior two with their second coat of primer. I gave the newly cleaned parts their first coat of primer. Tonight I primed the second set of parts with their second coat of primer and gave the blade guard its first coat of metallic silver. The rest of the night was spent dis-assembling the GW-2 so I could bring it downstairs to the shop.

I'll have another update in the next day or two.

Restoration Process for a Vintage DeWalt Radial Arm Saw

Restoration Process for a Vintage DeWalt Radial Arm Saw

In doing some research on sliding compound miter saws in mid-2015 I stumbled upon a photograph of a beautifully restored radial arm saw by Shane Whitlock and the bug was born.

I have always loved rebuilding and fixing things and am bored when I have no project to interest me. That image above led me to begin my quest for some of these beautifully built machines to bring back to life; even better than they were before. Thank you Shane for pushing me in that direction with your work.

I began the process by scouring eBay and Craigslist in my local area for DeWalt’s for sale. I found three MBF’s within 20-30 minutes’ drive and bought them all for $100-125 each. Why three you ask? I wanted to end up with two perfectly restored saws and felt having three would give me a better chance of not having to scour for parts. Well, being my usual forward thinking self, while I was searching for the MBF’s I came across a GW-2 in great condition and I just had to buy a GE I found on eBay in reasonable condition, both those were had for $175 each.

I will be commencing the project of restoring the first MBF in the coming weeks as I assemble some of the tooling I will need to do the job properly. As a teaser, I picked this up on one trip to pick up an MBF, as I felt for the price, it was a great deal, although I felt sorry for the seller as I basically got an unused Grizzly sandblast cabinet for $200. I also bought the Puma compressor (back corner of image) from him for another $100. This way I can blast my own parts the way I want them.

Look for my next post on the tear-down process, sometime early next week. I'll post photos of all three MBF's then, when I have them all in my possession.