Wadkin BRA 350 Radial Arm - Safety Help

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partsandlabour

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Newcastle upon Tyne
Hi

My new workshop has a wadkin BRA 350 radial saw saw left over from the building's former life as a coachworks in the 70's. The saw is in good order and runs very smoothly. It's got a metal roller bed and flip over finger stop on each side - it is awesome. I've got a new blade for it too.

What's the problem huh? Well, it's far from legal - front blade guard only, no spring return, no e-stop, no brake (stopping time 1 minute 47 seconds!!). I've got a lot of timber to chew next week and this saw would be great for it, but I'm pretty wary of this beast!
We had a holytech radial arm saw at work which was fully compliant with the regs and had side blade guard too, I've always been very happy using that.
Is there anything that I can do to the wadkin to make it safer for my work next week with a view to making it fully compliant later?

If I can't add some guarding I may just use my makita LS1013 chop saw.

What would you do?

Does anyone have a good source for cheap retrofit brakes for woodworking machines?

Ta
 
Do you employ anyone or are you a one man operation. If you work by yourself you don't need a brake, I think. If the saw returns into boxed enclosure you don't need a break. One way to install a break would be to use an inverter then you could program it to stop within regs.
HTH
 
Thanks for the replies fellas.

Anders, that brake looks like just the job. Doe's it get the machine to stop in under 10 secs? A single phase version would be good for my table saw too.

Wallace, I don't have anyone on my books as such, but I do use freelancers to help me with bigger jobs, so I'd prefer the workshop to be compliant, otherwise I'd have to do all the cutting!
Do you have a source for an inverter? I'll compare and contrast to Anders' solution.

cheers!
 
wallace":1lqkznz0 said:
Is the saw 3phase, whats the hp

I had a look yesterday and couldn't find the motor plate - it may have been painted over with all this horrible red paint..
 

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