[Warning: I’m all over the place today. I’m cogitating while messing with power tools and it comes out odd. I promise this is the last time I’ll post about old crap from Sears or Montgomery Wards.]
Change comes to us all. All we control is how we react to it.
Not a flake of snow has landed but I already know this winter will be different. (Summer and fall have had their own drama. It has been that kind of year.)
I’m not saying winter will be inherently worse, just different. Diminished health has me on a short leash. I’m improving but may necessarily “take it easy” all winter. Unfortunately, I suck at “relaxing”. I’m prone to “adventure” and will do so if I get half a chance.
The thing is I live where winter is the real deal. It’s merciless. If I don’t carefully monitor myself I risk being a Darwin punchline. It’s bad to wander in barren windswept ice when you’re not in the right physical state for it. (Then again, nothing is impossible. Maybe I’ll heal faster than I’m projecting? If so I’ll finally “camp on the ice”?)
As a distraction, I’m prepping my workshop. I intend it a place to keep me busy (and out of trouble while still nominally inside).
Betsy the woodstove is ready to go. Nothing beats an antique kitchen stove for an inviting environment! It whispers “sit in this rocking chair and relax”. (Maybe I need to build a rocking chair?) I’ve also cleaned/organized some (not all) of the rest of my shit crammed in the single stall workspace.
I hope to lure myself into spending more time puttering around Betsy. Thus, spending less time freezing my ass off in nature.
Planning ahead, I turned my eye toward my least favored power tool. My radial arm saw is from 1973 or so. It runs as it should. It does what it’s supposed to do. It helped me build a whole goddamn sailboat (a very small boat). It has been handy and useful on my homestead for well over a decade. (I do have to recalibrate it every year or so. It occasionally gets out of whack and cuts at 89 degrees.)
Unfortunately, radial arm saws worry me. They’re useable but sketchy; born in a time when “safety” wasn’t the thing it is today. Some of the shit advertised back in the day as “things you can do with the radial arm saw you just purchased” are terrifying! I’m not saying they can’t do all that various shit, only that I’d rather rip with my cheap-ass tablesaw than roll the dice ripping with a table saw.
I’m not the only guy that thinks this. They’re not commonly sold anymore. You can probably only find a new one, if you haunt a specialty fine woodworking venue. (No stores like that anywhere near where I live.)
As far as I can tell, radial arm saws have been replaced with miter saws. Miter saws are said to be “safer” (not that I know from experience).
It turned into almost a superstition. It’s like the saw is just waiting for an opportunity to draw blood. Not that it has drawn blood, only that it wants to. I’m not saying radial arm saws are murder machines (something said incorrectly but often about things like motorcycles and chainsaws… both of which I love to operate). It’s just that some things radiate concern to each individual and the saw does it for me. When your subconscious is telling you something, listen.
Also, I’m not wrong in being careful. Check out old carpenters. Observe how many are missing a finger or two. Pirates on peg legs is a fictional trope, but carpenters with a missing finger is a thing I’ve seen with my own eyes.
Even so, I’ve been dithering for years about buying a miter saw. They ain’t cheap. The radial arm saw has done everything I asked of it. WTF is my problem?
I was locked in analysis paralysis. One day this summer I was talking about miter saws; really just fretting over the cost. My kid, who has wisdom well beyond his years, cut the shit. He listened to me blather over the pros and cons of a new tool and asked the “kill shot” question.
“Which costs more? A miter saw or sewing on a finger at the ER?”
DAAAAAAMN!
Nothing like an external point of view to slap you into action! I got it used and cheap and it served me well, but it had to go. Sometimes you’ve got to park your trusty Studebaker because you want air bags.
I bought a Rigid 12″ dual bevel compound miter saw. It’s overkill. I know that but I occasionally build weird shit. I’m one geodesic dome or another sailboat mast from angles most people would never require. YMMV.
Knowing little about miter saws, I bought one locally at a box store. How does one evaluate a thing which they’ve never used? With uncertainty. I cut the Gordian knot of a question I lack experience to resolve and made a purchase, for better or worse. I made it while I had all ten fingers.
(Warning, Amazon seems pissed off at Rigid. It’ll move heaven and earth to keep you from buying, or even seeing, the saw that I bought. However, if you click the link and buy anything I get a small kickback. The kickback costs you nothing.)
My initial review of the saw is as follows: Wow, it’s a beast! I’ll give more details after I’ve used it for a while.
So you’re thinking I chucked a perfectly good 50+ year old radial arm saw? Nope!
I posted it on Craigslist with a carefully selected price. If I asked for a pittance, some dude strapped for cash might show up and lop off fingers before he even got down the driveway. If I asked too much, I’d have to chuck it. I asked for a middle range hoping to find a skilled woodworker who knew what it could do but ideally was a smart, experienced, geezer who isn’t out of his league messing with the thing.
It happened just like I hoped! I got a call very quickly. The dude showed up and he was just what I was hoping. He almost certainly has forgotten more about woodworking than I’ll ever know. He might have more than one radial arm saw already. He had all ten fingers too! He was delighted over what he considered “a steal”.
I provided not just the saw but the cabinet upon which it was mounted. The tabletop is out of whack. I have to replace it every few years and it’s a pain in the ass. The guy who bought it could probably swap it in an hour. I also included manuals (which I’d never looked at) and a book (which I never read). I threw in a few gadgets for the saw’s more “exotic” abilities. (I’d never used any of that stuff.) Dude got “a barn find”!
I was super happy it went to him. The most important part was that the saw go neither to the dump nor to a n00b who’d get hurt. I sold it for about what I paid for it maybe 15-ish years ago (I forget how long I’ve had it).
You know how they tell kids “we sent the old dog to a farm in the country where it can play and be happy”? I did exactly that for real. I did it for a funky old machine. I’m such a softie.
Pics or it didn’t happen:
My grandfather went to his grave missing the two middle fingers on his left hand because of a radial arm saw. I have no idea how he managed just those two but you nailed the safety aspect of it.
Educated Savage
Nothing does half lap joints on long stock like a properly set up radial arm saw.
And nothing is more terrifying to operate than a radial arm saw big enough to trim finished PALLETS to size. When that thing grabbed a nail and tore it out of the pallet, it was like a freaking bullet whizzing by.
I got rid of my Craftsman radial arm years ago. I might still have a Delta somewhere in the shop, buried under other things. The pivot mechanism on the Delta was different from the Craftsman and there were some cuts you just couldn’t make any other way. Now, sliding miter saws will make almost all of the same cuts.
Better safer than sorry with a radial arm. Unless you have a special need, better tools are available.
Good choice.
nick
Nice work, AC!
good on you!
New tool days are great days!
Agree radial arm saws are the lurkers of powerful tools. A 12″ slider is pretty dang close to a radial! But the fact it won’t do a 90 on you releases all the anxiety.
Interested to hear how often that slider is a pro versus a con in a couple years. My Dad’s similar saw is a beast to move and find space for. My cheap little 10″ Hitachi is super handy but runs out of cut a bit past 2x6s. Which happens more than I would’ve thought.
I got an old radial saw from a friend sometime back. It sat in my garage awhile, and when I went to see where I could put it and use it, I reckoned I’d cut something off with it, so I put it out in the alley with other junk for bulky pickup. It seemed even older and less safe than the one you show here.
About the only way I’d entertain a radial saw is if I could convert it to CNC operation. I agree with Nick that they are versatile and if you know what you are doing but thinking about the job while operating one is skating on thin ice.
Nope, CNC operated so I could retire behind a steel enclosure “just in case” would be the way to go and let the thing go through its programmed cycle. But you are talking more bother than it is likely worth it.
Phil B
Good for you. I hate radial arm saws. They are at the top of the dangerous list, with pointers as number two. If you can, keep your eyes open for an old Craftsman or Delta cast iron table saw.
Jointers, dammit. Jointers. Damn autocucumber.
Uh oh, I was thinking I might someday want a jointer.
Neon: Thankew for that clarification. I know little of power woodworking tools and was wracking my brain over “pointer”.
“Autocucumber” hahaha. Oh, wait, it really is a pitiable situation we are in with auto-this and auto-that. Free thunkers, untie!
You want a rocking chair?
Hit Cracker Barrel!
They took care of their “marketing” department and now are the same good old thing they have always been.
By the way, consider getting a reservation there for Thanksgiving dinner to save Momma some work!
A personal tangent: “Nothing beats an antique kitchen stove…“sit in this rocking chair and relax”
Long story short: parents died. Rented their place at 25% market to a “friend of the family” because I had a life in another state. Got screwed. Got sorta-retired-against-my-will. Moved into the house. Had plentiful free stove wood. Ran stove 24/7 as a memorial to my folks. Bottom line: rocking in the chair by the stove in the dead of freezing-ass winter in the workshop is immensely therapeutic. Highly recommended.