Setting up the Wadkin ags10

UKworkshop.co.uk

Help Support UKworkshop.co.uk:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Peter G Denmark

Established Member
Joined
17 Nov 2010
Messages
89
Reaction score
0
Location
Sweden
Hi.

Any of you Wadkin owners have the same problem as me, when setting up the Table on the ags10.

The old american Delta unisaw had the bolts for fitting the top to the saw on the OUTSIDE of the saw. On the Wadkin however, the bolt are buried inside the saw cabinet, which makes them very inaccessible, when trying to tighten them after fine tuning the top, so that the mitre slots are parallel to the saw blade.

To make matters worse, the inside of the cabinet is so close to the threaded rods that stick out of the tables underside when mounted, that there is only JUST room for the bolt to go on the rod, so fitting a socket wrench over the bolt can't be done, because of the thickness of the walls on a standard socket wrench top.

That leaves using a regular spanner - the fork par (sorry - the word eludes me in english). But you can only get about a 1/6 turn, before having to reposition it. All this is done blind, because there is no way to see the bolts while performing the operation.

I've used me wife's make-up mirror to see just a little bit of what i am doing :), but it's still near impossible, and when fine tuning the top, tightening and loosening the bolt several times to get perfect alignment is not unusual.

The bolts on the table underside is very long (about 8 cm). You only need about 2 cm to get a tight hold on the threads with the bolt. Maybe cutting of part of the mounting rod would help.

Any of you found a good solution?
I've thought about welding 4 suitable bolts to 4 suitable socket wrench tops, and grind them down, so the will get past the cabinet wall. That way i would be able to put an extension on the wrench, and only worry about hitting the bolt once.
 
you have found a way to tighten, and you only have to tighten once (twice)

nip them up nearly tight, then 'adjust' the top with a rubber mallet (carefully) . when you are happy, just tighten up fully.

You should only have to do this once.

In fact, mine was square when I bought it, after maneuvering out of one shop into mine. And it's still square now.
 
Ok - thanks :).

The thing is, that i like to take the table of once in a while to really clean the inside properly, so i was hoping there was a trick to the table top.
 
Peter G Denmark":3gbfbsif said:
Ok - thanks :).

The thing is, that i like to take the table of once in a while to really clean the inside properly, so i was hoping there was a trick to the table top.

If you're just worried about cleaning it, can you blow it out with compressed air?

Or, if you do need to adjust it, retract the blade, remove the fence, and turn it upside down? Frankly, it sounds like a "if it's not broke, don't fix it" situation.

Kirk
 
Have you considered changing the hex heads, to socket heads, that should solve the problem?

Roy.
 
Hex haed to socket heads? Not sure i know what you mean?

On my Wadkin there are threaded rods mounted into the bottom of the table. So there is a hex bolt that threads onto that from the underside.

But your idea is sound, if i remove the threaded rods from the table (if possible without damaging anything), and replace them with socket head bolts.
 
Hex heads = normal bolts. Socket heads use a hexagon key into a matching hexagon socket in the top of the bolt, thus no spanner is needed.

Roy.
 
Peter G Denmark":w2no756x said:
But you can only get about a 1/6 turn, before having to reposition it.

From my experience, that is the situation with about 30% of all nuts and bolts on machinery - very good for teaching patience :D

But seriously, the advice to nip the bolts up to within 1/2 of a turn of full tightness, do the fine adjustment then fully tighten is the best solution. And for cleaning, a workshop vacuum cleaner is a much safer solution than dismantling, and probably nearly as effective.
 
Ok - thanks guys.

I will follow your advise, and just use patience and a spanner :).

I will have to dismatle it once more though. I need the saw to build furniture for my shop (just about to finish a 100 m2 stand alone - taken me a year to do it alone), and i need the shop to be in order, before i can resore the saw with new bearings, stripping all the paint of, and give it new coats of primer and finish, etc. The Wadkin is worth it.

Since i'm pretty confident with a mig welder, i will construct a new t-square style fence for the Wadkin within the next few month inspred by this great how-to article http://joe.emenaker.com/Table-Saw%20Fen ... 0Fence.htm
 
what's wrong with the Wadkin fence ?

Mine seems fine. Slides easily and locks square and tight.
 
Thank you. I have the manual though.

The hook on the back of the fence has been fixed with at dodgy weld. I will try to fix it, but i'm not sure it will ever be prefect again.
Furthermore the fence surface is pretty banged up, and the previous owner has hit it with a saw blade more than once, so getting at true 90 degrees, in trelation to the table surface, on the full length of the fence is imposiible.
The sacrificial fence improves this, but the fence just doesn't inspire confidence.

I like the t-square type fences, and if i don't like the one i will try to make on the Wadkin, i'll mount it on my 16 inch direct drive Luna saw.
 
Sorry guys - another question:

There is a bit of slack in the rise and fall mechanism, and i can se a bit of distance between the worm and the gear i fits into. Is there any way to adjust this. I've tried to refer to the manual, but i can't figure it out.

It's a professional saw, so there must be some way to get the worm closer to the gear. It isn't a huge deal, since it's just a couple of mm, and the wieght of the motor and the trunion it self is pretty substantial, so it is unlikely to affect the quality of cut, but none the less i'd like it to be perfect.
 
Bump...

Have any of you adkin AGS owners have slack in the rise and fall mechanism of your saws? I would say there is about 1mm of play, and i can't figure out if you can adjust this?

My fear is, that the force of a stacked dado would actually lift the blade that 1mm, and cause problems in general with non-through cuts, because the play ould allo the blade to lift slightly if enough upward force was present.
 
Peter, I'm in the same position as you over adjustments and fence, just not so far along. I suspect wear and tear may have caused our problems and this might be a 'live with it' scenario?

As to dadoing, that's a Stateside habit, frowned upon by the Elf-in-safety in GB; could a nice meaty router bit do your dados, trenches, rebates? I do mine with a 2-point-something horespower clone of a Elu, and patient multiple passes with a half-inch shank bit. I also rough out material on the Axi. TS200 I have and then smooth to a proper finish with one pass of the router.

I recieved a LOT of help with my AGS 10" from members here. Hopefully, this thread bump may draw in their attention. Have fun and be safe.

Sam
 
Hey Sam.

Thank you for the feedback. I know stacked dados are illegal in the EU, and a lot of people frown upon the use.
Thing with router bits is, that the ones that actually work on ply, are very expensive. The inexpensie ones makes a lot of splinters. Doing half lap joint in 2x4 stock is also a pain with a router, because you have to make multiple passes to get the rigth depth, hich in turn makes it harder to get the exact half depth - unless you use two routers - one for roughing out the bulk, and one that is set up for the exact depth.

It is possible to work around the rise and fall slack by clamping the trunion with a c -clamp, but it's just wierd that there isn't a way to adjust it in the saw. I mean - a bit of wear will occur over time, and most inexpensive contractor sa have an eccentric shaft that the worm gear is mounted to, so out can turn the shaft a little, and hence press the worm closer to the gear.
But on the Wadkin ags10, there is a fixed hooe that holds the shaft, and this is a serious design flaw, if there is no other way to adjust the mechanism.

Hmm - i hope i'm wrong, because the worm and gears doesn't look that worn, so if there is a way to push the worm closer to the center of the gears, or raise the worm a bit, the play would be gone.

If adjustment is impossible, where can i get a hold of the part they call "racked quadrant for rise and fall" part no.1026/14 for a wadkin bursgreen. The Number on the maschine is 10AGS7615428. That is the gear part - the worm looks pretty new.

Thanks
Peter
 
Peter:

Have you tried it and actually experienced the problem? 1 mm isn't very much, and a dado set isn't going to leave a perfectly smooth surface anyway. From your description, unless I'm reading you wrong, you're worried about the distance between the tooth top of the gear and the base of the threads on the worm. You need a little space in there because they're not supposed to rub on each other--the tooth sides and the worm threads are doing the work. In addition, the whole assembly is pivoting on a trunnion, not riding on the worm, and it shouldn't have any movement except the the rotation on the pivot.

Have you tried to grab the blade (when stopped, of course) and pull it up to see how far it moves?

Kirk
 
Hi Kirk

The blade moves up and down about 1mm, but since the motoer and trunion is pretty heavy, you have to lift that weight (45 kg??) to lift the blade.

I haven't had a problem yet. Since i'm avare of the play, i keep the feedrate pretty low, so there upward force is reduced. The play is naturally only a problem on non-through cuts, which is not the main use of a saw :).
That being said, i can make the blade lift that little bit, if i feed fast. I would be pretty sad if that happened hen making a shoulder cut on a tenon. But i guess most of the force from cutting deeper non-through cut would go toward you, and not downwards.

I see your point with the gears not "bottoming out", but the sides of the teeth would make solid contact on both sides, with room to spare in the bottom of the gears, if i could lift it 0,5mm.

Damn - sometimes it's hard to be on the "more time than money" team :).
 
Peter:

I downloaded the manual in the above link and had a look. It seems pretty standard. Your gear should not be resting directly on the barrel part of the worm--they should only be touching at the teeth. Try this: Raise the blade up above your final height. Lower it down to the final height. This will ensure the worm surface will be resting against the gear teeth. Use the locking knob to secure the height. Now pull up on the blade with your hand to see if it will move. If so, see if the arbor assembly is pivoting slightly around the slide bracket pivot pin (part 24 on the trunnion assembly diagram), or whether the pivot pin itself is being pulled up. If the latter is happening, your pivot pin has worn and you'll need to replace it. If the former is happening, see whether your rise and fall shaft (part 44) is moving back & forth. Since you have it locked, it should not be moving. If it is, you'll have to check your locking mechanism--maybe your handwheel washer (part 53) is missing.

If everything is tight, and the blade won't rise, you just have to remember to lower the blade to the height you need, then lock the height. This should prevent your arbor assembly from rising because the gear will be rubbing against the worm.

Kirk
 
Hey Krik.

Thank you for the amount of work you put into this.

I understand what you write, but a worm, should touch the teeth of "both sides" of the gears they are engaging, to prevent play. My pivot pin is fine, and the lock down mechanism works great, and all washers are in place.

As mentioned before, most quality contactor saws hae the ability to press the worm closer to the gear, because of wear over time. I realize that when the worm or gear i so worn, that the gears touch the barrel of the worm (or vice versa), it's time to get a new worm and/or gear.

The locking mechanism for the rise and fall only locks the shaft that holds the worm, so if the worm only engages one side of the gears (because of wear), you'll still have some play (the amount thats been worm away over time).

Raising the blade up, and then lowering it to the rigth height won't help. To better explain, there is a link for table saw tune up her http://eberhardt.bz/GME_Wood_Land/GME_W ... blesaw.pdf that explains how you should adjust the raising mechanism - which one can't the Wadkin i seems.

If i loosen the screw that molds the balbearing housing for the worm shaft, and push it in a little, so that the worm is more "centred" on the gear, there is no play, but there is no way to lock the housing in this position, since the bolt holding it to the saw itself fits into a hole in the housing (not a slot) - so no adjustability option here either.
Guess i could try and elongate that hole, and shim it, and in that way force the worm forewards (and more to the center of the gear).

The tilt works flalessly without any play at all.

Peter
 

Latest posts

Back
Top