Have you thought about the blade on your tablesaw, or in your circular saw, and actually considered how the power of the motor is transferred to the blade?
Although the arbor is spun by the motor, the power doesn’t transfer directly from the shaft to the blade. Instead, it is the arbor flange, and arbor washer that do the final transfer of power, and that is achieved through the tightness of the arbor nut. Yes, yes – what is the point I hear you ask.
Simply, the more contact area there is between the arbor washer & flange and the blade, the less chance of slippage. Not only that, but these two items also provide significant stability to the blade, especially thin kerf blades.
About the only weakness I’ve found with my powerful TS10L is the arbor washer. It appears to have been formed by a stamping, rather than a machining process. Over time, this has compressed / collapsed, so the contact area was reduced to a thin strip all round, and has gone from contacting on the outside edge, to a ring very much (and undesirably) closer to the centre.
So it has become time to replace. In the first instance, I have replaced it with a very stocky, machined arbor washer. However it has also reignited a desire to track down blade stabilisers. They don’t seem to be very common. CMT have some in their range, so I am trying to source them through Carbatec. They are effectively a large arbor washer for both sides of the blade, providing excellent load transfer, and primarily significant blade stability. They do have a drawback that they reduce the maximum depth of cut, but for cuts where that is important, you can always remove them and resort to the normal flange & washer.
Replacement washer, Original (crushed) washer, Nut
A blade stabiliser is 2-3 times the diameter of the typical arbor washer.
Filed under: Tools Tagged: | Arbor, Flange, Nut, TS10L, Washer
Infinity do blade stabilisers. Was in Northwood a fortnight ago and Colin had stock.
My arbor washer was very small so I went to http://www.toolco.com.au/ and got the infinity stabilizer and I just use it as my arbor washer. There is about twenty times the contact surface and less chance of getting a wear ring around my blade which is also an infinity.
Stu,
Having the same saw and similar problems with the arborwasher, where did you source the new washer from?
Hi
I got A nice set at “Lee Valley”.
Stu,
I have just recently bought a TS-10L from Carbatec Perth, having discovered they had just received a shipment. Only thing is , there was no dado insert with the saw. What do you use when using dado blades with the TS-10L?
Hi Tasso
That’s an easy one- check out my video on making zero-clearance inserts Episode 45. Same technique is used for dado blades. In fact I rarely, if ever use the supplied table insert.
Congrats on getting a TS10L – What do you think of it?