Wadkin BGS10…The rarest table saw Wadkin made. Full Restoration

[David Young]

Very interesting stuff. I have a BGS12 that I served my apprenticeship on, I've been using it now for almost 40yrs and my father before me. It's certainly needing new bearings for the sliding table. Has anyone fabricated anything to make it extract better. There's an attachment on my crown guard but it needs the under table extraction improved.

 

[MilesH]

Not much thought was given to extraction when they designed them, for sure! Here's one attempt at improving things on a BGS10

 

[deema]

The parts are all painted and we are now waiting for it to fully harden up before starting to assemble the saw. Unfortunately, a short delay is forced upon me. Doing a good deed and cutting my parents hedge I managed to get a cutter love bite. Sooooo trip to A&E and a big bandage but nothing missing and just a deep laceration. But, I’m not to use my hand for a few days.
For a quick update however, the photo is of the parts when they arrived back into the workshop.

 

[MARK.B.]

Ouchlets hope it heals up quickly so you can get back to work

 

[screwpainting]

Great thread guys,thank you.

 

[David Young]

Can't wait for your hand to health to see the next stage! You're certainly encouraging me to give a bit of TLC to my workshop machinery, it all works well but just needs a little pampering to keep them going.

 

[deema]

Work has resume, well, I should say that Sideways has been working and ably hindered by Deema three fingers and one poorly finger! So, progress at least has been made. I would also like to also say that my photography is poor, I’m no David Bailey, and I’m disappointed with how some of the (read almost all) the photos have come out.
The first job was to remove all of the masking and to coat all of the machined and bright surfaces with Metal Guard. Everything is grease free, so it would have all started to corrode very quickly without something to protect it. We mask off all threaded holes and as required drop a tap down them if necessary.

First off, a schematic of how it goes together borrowed from the AGS10 manual. Most of it is exactly the same, just the sliding table that is different.

 

[deema]

The paint has hardened up, and although still won’t have reached its full hardness is tough enough to work with.

Although all the bright work and machined surfaces are shiny and silver, the photos have come out making them look dull and grey. Not sure why and the paint colour isn’t showing correct, a bit washed out. I will try to do better on other photos.
All of the machined surfaces were masked off, I’ve found that on some original painted saws this was done and other weren’t. Ideally all bolted together surfaces should be free of paint. Paint isn’t very hard and will compress allowing the bolts to loosen.

The bottom of the main casting which bolts to the top of the fabricated lower body.

Top of the main casting

Some of the parts that go into the saw.

Underneath of the sliding table,.

 

[deema]

First off, the two feet are bolted to the fabricated lower body. There are spacers (I’m not sure what else to call them) that are located at all corners. I am yet to see a need for them as the cast feet will hold the lower body ridged. If anyone knows the purpose I’d appreciate knowing..

The cast iron upper body is them bolted to the lower body. Each is bolted together with six bolts. There are taped holes for the bolts.

Four spacer collars and locking nuts that will be used to level and adjust the main cast iron table have also been added. The spacers have a castelation on the underside to allow them to be lifted or lowered when the main table is on top. This is different to the AGS10 tabke that just bolts straight onto the casting. The spacers and locking nuts are lubricated with white grease.

 

[deema]

The shaft for the worm gear that tilts the blade is next to be added. The collar on the opposite end to the handle is first pinned to the shaft, then the bakelite washer before being inserted into the casting. The shaft is supported / runs in two bronze bushes, one at either end that are a press fit into the casting. In most cases we replace these buses as they are worn. You need to make a home made puller to get them out and they need to be reamed to 3/4” when installed. We often use sintered bushes when replacing them as they hold lubricating oil within their matrix.

The shaft slides through and then you add another Bakelite washer and a further collar that will lock the shaft in place. This is held by a grub screw. The worm gear is next and is pinned to the shaft. Often these can only be pinned successfully, ie holes all line up, in one orientation of the worm gear. It’s a nightmare if you don’t check alignment with a parallel pin punch or similar before tapping the rolled pin in. It takes a lot of getting out again! Don’t ask how I know!!

 

[MARK.B.]

Must be very satisfying to see it going back together again

 

[deema]

We next turned our attention to the spindle. Over the years, they tend to end up with a distorted clamping face due to the nut being either tightened too much / not being taken off for a long time and gumming up making it hard to remove. A bar is inserted into a hole in the flange to allow pressure to be applied to the nut. It is this and bruises the clamping face.

The spindle originally would have been turned between centres, and ideally this is how it would be mounted on the lathe to touch up the faces. However, the centre holes in the spindle are often damaged / corroded. We mount the spindle in a collet Chuck and clamp on the bearing journals to ensure we get the spindle running true to the axes of the bearings. The collet doesn’t damage the journals.
You can see how much runout / bumps there are in this spindle, which is typical.

The distortion also affects the recessed area (second video), so you have to skim all of the clamping faces

 

[deema]

This is the spindle after the faces and outside of the flange have been skimmed to clean them up. I will show the runout we achieve by doing it this way when it’s mounted in the saw.

The inner face of the flange I skim a fraction lower than the outer clamping face. You want the blade clamped by the outer faces and not just in the centre. Any crud on the blade / imperfections if this isn’t done will cause the blade to be only clamped at the centre. The blade will have more ‘wobble’ and not be driven properly / liable to slip.

 

[deema]

So this is how the saw looks at the end if the day.

 

[David Young]

Hi Guys.
This post is fantastic, you've encouraged me to sort out my rumbling spindle bearing and refurbish the rest of my BGS 12
Can you pass on the paint details please.

 

[Sideways]

Spray finishing is a must. Very much better than brushed....

Etch primer first on the aluminium nameplate.

 

[wallace]

On pre bursgreen machines I found it strange that castings were filled and painted after the machine was assembled. Have you noticed that on wadkin Bursgreen machines.
What is the RAL of the paint, 6011?

 

[deema]

I haven’t found any vintage of AGS saw to have the casting filled, normally if a hammered paint was used on a machine the castings unless there was a large void were left just fettled. Equally, the logo plate was also just a single colour, rather than picking out the lettering with a contrasting colour.

 

[MilesH]

................................ Equally, the logo plate was also just a single colour, rather than picking out the lettering with a contrasting colour.

On the ones I've seen with original paint work, the lettering was highlighted in silver. (see pic) Difficult to imagine that they would have left the nameplate a single colour!

What's the serial no. of this one Deema? I'd like to add it to the list.

 

[MilesH]

On the ones I've seen with original paint work, the lettering was highlighted in silver.........

An easy way to achieve this effect is to just cut back to the casting and use micro-abrasives to achieve a polish on the letters. Looks far better than using silver paint too!