In Apr 2020 I was given a Hare and Forbes 12" Table Saw from The Christian Brothers High School in Lewisham Sydney NSW. The Woodworking Dept upgraded to a Sawstop, I am not sure who got the better deal! I brought it to Brisbane and did some maintenance on it, made it Mobile, removed the key lock, and fitted an hourmeter. It was manufactured in May 2003 and its serial Number is A3010. This makes it a Spring chicken of just 22 years of age. Since I have have had it the only items needed attention were, belts, blades and Cleaning it has done just on 100 hrs of work with me over the five years I have had it. It has been instrumental in just about all of the projects you see posted.
however as it was shutting off this week I heard a slight squeak
I open the access door and removed the belts and blade, spun the motor no problem, spun the arbor and found some friction there. I sprayed the arbor shaft bearing with some MX3 and tried again. The shaft moved freer but not completely satisfactory. I consulted the operators manual for maintenance schedules but there were none. I did find a Exploded Parts Breakdown and Part Numbers but no bearings specs. Part No 5 and Part No 18 were the items I needed
So upon visiting YouTube I found everybodys favorite Engineer Mathias Wandal has a post on the subject. It appeared you need to remove the cast Iron table to access the arbor mechanism. which was effectively a two person Job, so that was out of the question. doing some Detective work I determined I may be able to remove the mechanism through the saw opening in the table. So feeling like a vet trying to deliver a foal I set to work It looked like the Arbor mechanism pivoted on a shaft held in place by a grub screw. So in I went removed the grub screw and using a couple of bolt and a lump hammer I started to tap tap tap Sure enough I saw it was moving! You beauty! Tap tap again and it appeared. I an not sure how many taps it was but consider it was more than five! Eventually the reduced shank of the pivot appeared and I snapped on some vice grips and used a screwdriver to lever it out. I jiggled it off the frame and out the access door. It may have fitted through the saw blade opening but I didn't try. Onto my work bench and continue removing another grub screw in the pulley off it came! hey hey hey next was a soft faced hammer to try and dislodge the shaft, sure enough out it came. Removing the shaft I was left with one bearing on the flange end.
No way I could get any of my small motor bearing pullers on it so a Bearing Splitter was used. Upon removal I saw the bearings were both the same size and were 6203 ZZ
Although marked 6203 with a single Z. No really understanding why a maintainable bearing would be used in such a restricted space I fitted 2x 6203 2RS and reassembled everything, finding everything fitted back perfectly.
Conclusion:- Curious as to why the one bearing was sticking in the first place I conducted an autopsy
after cleaning all the balls I found them to be perfect and then using a calibrated finger nail inside the race grooves I found no defect there either. Just goes to show what 7 balls can do ! I can only assume over the years the build up of fine sawdust restricted movement. I powered the saw back up checked the alignment and was obviously chuffed and gave it a fond pat! and importantly the squeak was gone
Kill that squeaker! 😄 6203 is a common as dirt bearing. A lot of people are scared to open up old machines, but there is always a bearing available. Nice job!
That’s the best part about old machines, IMO (although I guess 2003 isn’t that old…): you can work on them. Like you used to be able to work on cars!!!
Ryan/// ~sigh~ I blew up another bowl. Moke told me "I made the inside bigger than the outside".
