Question
I picked up a Rockwell/Delta table saw for a song. 12/14" 5hp, the works... Guy just didn't know what he had.
My question is the saw blade. The arbor is 1 1/8". I have had some trouble finding saw blades with an arbor hole that size. For the moment I had a blade bored to the size, but I get a lot of runout. It really needs to be factory machined. Forrest can do custom boring, but ouch on the price. Anyone run into this? Where do you get yours?
Forum Responses
(Furniture Making Forum)
From contributor C:
I wonder if you could take the motor out (assuming it's direct drive) and clamp it to the bed of a metal lathe, and let nature take its course. I would think if you take it to a local metal shop, they could manage to turn the arbor down and replicate the threads. I would not leave it as an odd size unless you can find a reliable supplier of blades.
Now about your arbor. The earlier 12/14 had interchangeable arbors to accommodate the collection of blades a shop may have. The flange on the arbor should have 2 holes that are to be held with the original arbor nut wrench that came with the saw (one end of the wrench was for the arbor nut; the other, a spanner wrench). On the end of the arbor should be flats machined to accommodate an open end wrench to unscrew the arbor from the flange. Remember, this will be a left hand thread (unscrews the same direction the arbor nut does). The original manual shows several arbors - 1", 1 1/8", 1 1/4", in several lengths. Unfortunately they were not available when I bought my saw, but I had the ability to machine my own. Since then, Grizzly Imports has copied the 12/14 and offers a saw with interchangeable arbors and they appear to be the same ones as the 12/14. In fact they have come up on E-bay several times. Someone on E-bay had listed a 5/8" arbor (which the Rockwell 12/14 never had available) for the 12/14. Obviously these are made overseas. Sometime in the '70s they changed the 12/14 over to a straight 1" long arbor. The spanner end on the arbor wrench is also needed to unscrew the retaining ring to remove the inboard bearing.
Comment from contributor S:
I am a shop teacher in a Long Island school district, and we have a 1959 Delta Milwaukee Crescent 12"/14" table saw with a Rockwell serial number. I too had the problem of having to bore new blades from a standard 1" bore to a 1 1/8" bore. The cost of boring often exceeded the cost of the blade. I contacted Delta, and they had me read the casting numbers from the trunion and table extensions to them. They had a 1" arbor that fit my saw. I bought it and it works perfectly, and now I can use standard 1" bored blades. I can change the arbor at will to use my old 1 1/8" bored blades, but I found it's easier to buy bushings and snap them in rather than to change the arbor.
I have an old 7" Black and Decker hand circular saw that has a 1-1/8" arbor and it's a beauty. I found that turning it down to 5/8" is not an option because the arbor slides onto a splined shaft that's almost 9/16" by itself. I researched having blades re-bored at over $17/blade and decided against that too. Now I've decided to have the arbor altered to accept blades with the diamond shaped knockout removed. It seems to be the most economical approach.
