OK.. I'm *finally* getting to the modification I wanted to make over Christmas vacation.? ?These are:
1. A guard to protect my down feed cylinder when loading long pieces of steel (I banged my cylinder once).
2. A blade scraper so I can run cutting fluid/coolant/lubricant on the blade, especially when cutting aluminum.
The blade guard is pretty self explanatory.? ?I made it out of 16 gage sheet metal.? I slotted the holes so I could adjust the height, but I decided to have it sit about 3/16" of an inch below the table height.? ?The guard is the same length as the table.? ?I jsut want it to set the material that I'm going to feed the saw and I didn't want it to interfere with how the part sits on the saw table.
I also made a blade scraper.? ?I decided to make this out of 26 gage sheet metal - I would have preferred to make it out of 20-22 gage sheet metal but I didn't have any.? ?It consists of a plate that is folded on the bottom to create a race for the two scrapers.? I made another plate that just goes in the folded part to set the scraper race height.? I used a spring that I had left over from upgrading a couple of can lights to LED can lights.? ?I bent the spring by hand.? The spring is allowed to pivot on the flat head screw and puts a slight force on the two scrapers which put a small force on the blade.? I did this design because it was something I could make with my tools, it was light, it was adjustable and it would put a uniform force on each side of the blade and wouldn't deflect it.? The scraper would also follow the blade if it had any thin spots (like the weld area).? I have about 1/4" of allowable blade movement in my design.? The blade scraper uses the stock table as the backing surface and uses the stock screws to hold it together.
Dave
