Saw Insert and the Router

Treated ourselves to a homemade ‘Spoons’ breakfast this morning.

It was delicious!  No doubt the colon will complain later today

I’ve made a blade insert from some scrap Jarrah timber for the DeWalt table saw. 

You can see the difference in the width of the saw blade slots between the original yellow insert and my homemade version.  The purpose of the new insert is to reduce the amount of sawdust and scraps dropping down beside the blade.  It should also provide better sawdust extraction as it should limited the amount of sawdust being thrown upwards and onto the table saw top.  Finally, it’s supposed to reduce blade ‘tear out’ leaving a cleaner cut.

My new box joint maker was delivered by the courier this morning.  It fits to my new mitre saw protractor.

 

The protector is far superior to the basic one that came with the saw.  My plan is to build a new workshop table which has the DeWalt table saw and a router lift inbuilt.  I’ll then be able to sell the Triton router Table and all the router accessories.  This should give me more room inside the shed.  I also hope to create more space by installing a French Cleat storage system.

The router carbon brushes have been replaced.  It wasn’t an easy job and I suspect the router designers gave little thought about replacing them.  After disassembling the top I identified the ends of the brush cables were located inside the body of the router in a very awkward position.  .

 

Initially I thought I’d have to disassemble the entire router.  Then I rethought my approached and decided to look for a manual online.  Not easy with an old router.  Well I found something in a different language.

Unfortunately it was little use.

I managed to work the old female spade connect off the terminal only to discover the new connector wouldn’t fit.  Eventually I realised the old and new were slightly different sizes.

The old is slightly wider than the new.

My solution was to remove the new spade terminal and solder the end of the old wire on before fitting a small piece of heat shrink insulation over the join.

 

It was then a simple not so simple case of fitting the brushes and terminal connectors before reassembling the router and testing it.

Good to go for another 15 years (I hope).  Total cost of the repair was £14 (including postage to Oz).   A new Festool router with similar functionality would cost approx $1900 and a Makita $600.