I want to experiment with building a table saw
from one of these circular saws. So, I took one and removed
everything unnecessary, including the blade guard
and I'm left with just the motor.
I need to make some sort of mounting bracket for it,
so I'm experimenting with just making these out of cardboard,
for now just to, kind of, figure out how these will
work out. So, these will be pieces
of plywood. Maybe hinge it here
and have some way of depth locking it here.
All right, way too much thinking here.
So, it's time to just take these
and I've taken this one here
and, kind of, constructed a geometric shape
that matches the cardboard.
So, time to make some sawdust.
Got my plywood pieces cut out.,
and fitted on the saw with some spacers in between.
Right now, it's just, kind of, clamped together to see
how it goes.
And, here it is upside-down.
Well, one thing that's very important at this stage
is to make sure I can actually get the saw blade in there.
It has to be parallel
with the rest of the frame, here.
It looks to be about parallel in the vertical direction,
and then along this direction
it looks pretty parallel as well,
so, so far so good.
Of course, this is only temporarily assembled.
Next challenge is, can I get the saw out?
OK, good. If I can get it out, that means
I should be able to get it back in, once this is
fully attached.
I'm just putting the other half on with screws for now,
so I can still take it apart and make adjustments.
It's a very tight fit, and the handle actually
pushes up against this side here,
which is convenient. And, on this side,
I'm gonna put a spacer in here
to hold this part at the correct distance
so that this blade is lined up in this direction
not like this, or like this.
I thought I'd have to shim the back of the motor to get this
into alignment in this direction but, it turns out
the blade is already perpendicular
to this part here, and these two are actually
perpendicular to the plywood itself
so it looks like I'm pretty lucky I don't need to shim anything.
The way the depth adjustment is supposed to work
is I'm gonna have some kind of a pin here
and then from the operator's side, which is this side,
I can just tilt this whole saw to reduce the depth.
But, I also want to be able to tilt it to make bevel cuts.
And, so this whole saw is actually gonna be on a sub-frame
that's gonna be hinged, I think.
So, this is actually gonna be my sub-frame, and I've just
marked out the outline of where the saw needs to go.
I had to cut this one back a little bit to leave
room for the power cord.
So, I need something to lock this saw
in a particular position up and down.
And, I was initially thinking of, maybe a bolt across here
and something with a slot in it on either side and just
clamp that together. But, that gets tricky
because the hinge needs to mount here so I don't really
have any room to mount this.
And, then I was thinking maybe something between
but I don't want to really squeeze these things together
to cause pressure. So, the idea I've come up with
is to put something on the front But, this is curved,
this follows a curved path as it goes up and down.
So, I actually made a curved piece of wood
to match that, and that's actually just cut out of a piece
of 2 by 4.
And, that goes right here.
And, when this thing goes up and down,
it follows that curve, so this doesn't have to move.
And, then there's gonna be some nut through here,
and a knob on here, and I need to cut a slot here.
So, this is how the saw's gonna go on the bottom of the table.
So, let's move the saw all the way down.
And, the hinges are gonna go on here,
I think probably like this, because I want
that hinge pin to be as far up as possible.
And, then for the table, I'm actually gonna use
a nice piece of Birch plywood,
because I think this is actually gonna work.
With these cavities routed out
I can get the saw, a little bit, more into the wood,
which gets me a little bit more depth of cut, back.
And, hinges go here, but I still have
a bit of space between this bracket,
and the plywood, so I will probably put
another layer of plywood in here,
and also around here, I'll probably add
some more plywood to reinforce this.
Got the extra plywood layers glued on now.
These door hinges have the screw holes
far from the actual hinge pin, cause that's best for a door.
But, I didn't want the mounting holes close to the hinge pin
for maximum strength so I drilled a few extra holes in there
and I also counter-sunk them with a larger drill bit.
Now, with the hinges secured in place
I've got some spacers to hold
this platform level, so now I'm making sure
that the saw lines up with my cut-outs, in here.
I can now put this on here,
and mark where I need the actual hole locations.
I haven't got anything for locking the angle in place yet,
but I'm really keen on finding out how this things
actually gonna work, so, I'm just gonna
put a blade in there,
to give this thing a try.
There's my work fence, for now,
lined up with the slot.
Let's raise the blade.
I think the video's gonna be long enough already.
So, I will finish it up in another video,
unless, of course, these experiments kill me by then.
In that case there wouldn't be a video.