ss350 Help

[knothead]

I have an ss350 and am getting blade travel from front to rear between 1/8 and 3/16 of an inch. It is killing me. On fretwork it will jump out of its own slot and wreck the piece. With sprial blades its an nightmare. HELP!!!
Very Frustated
knothead

[Dragon]

Welcome knothead. I cannot help you because I don't have enough experience yet but you've landed in the best place around. The best talent is here. Someone will be here to help you very soon. Be patient.
Diane

[Green Frog]

check blade tension it will have to be tight as a bandjo string ,sounds like blade mabe slipping in the blade holder Make sure the holders are tight

[SharonW0111]

welcome knothead and as soon as I swallow this bite of cold chicken thigh I will tell you how to fix your saw.
Sharon

[SharonW0111]

Now that the grease is off my fingers ( no I didn't lick them --or wipe them on my shirt)
On the underside and top of your saw there are screws that hold your blade tight.
These set flat against your blade and holds tight. well unless there is a burr on the screw.
remove the screw and run it across a bit of sandpaper a few times and make sure you keep the screw level or you will have to sand it until it is. now replace the screws and have fun.. it is simple to fix but a headache when you don't know why it is doing this. you will probably have to so this ever so often as you wear into the set screw.
you may also check and make sure the stop screw is set flat againt the holder. it will throw your blade off also.
Hope this helped.
now back to my chicken.
Sharon

[PuzzledMoose]

now back to my chicken.
Sharon

Sure it's not duck, Sharon?

[Scrollingrickster]

On the underside and top of your saw there are screws that hold your blade tight.
These set flat against your blade and holds tight. well unless there is a burr on the screw.
Sharon

Sharon, Could you explain this for me as I can't picture what you mean? I have the SS350 and I don't have set screws that hold the blade in place. I have a screw that goes through two pieces of metal that are flat on the insides and grip the blade. There is a thumb nut on the (as you look at it) right to tighten on the top holder and on the left to tighten on the bottom holder. The screw doesn't actually hold the blade in place they tighten the two metal pieces and you push a lever to "lock" the blade in place. I also thought that on C-arm saws (like this one) there is some difference in the blade position when the blade all the way down as compared to when the blade is all the way up. Kind of like this (looking from the side) but not this pronounced - arm down | , arm up \ .
Now I did lessen the amount of difference by loosening the two allen head screws on the whole blade holder assembly and move it forward a little. I don't know if this will make any difference or not as I haven't tried cutting anything since I did it but the blade "travel" seems to be a little less.

Thanks for any help, just newbie trying to learn as much as I can.

Thanks
Richard Sava

[SharonW0111]

Richard that is what I am calling the set screw-- if you ever break off the thumb part you will find that there is a screw in there- I have broken mine because I use a wrench to tighten mine ( lack of strength ) . but those do touch the blade - or at least mine does. these sometimes have a tiny burr that prevents them from setting flat.
Sharon

[GrayBeard Phil]

Knothead:

Front to back motion travel of 1/8 to 3/16 inch on a Delta ss350 is way out of any expected performance. There must be something wrong mechanically.

I presume you have a delta ss350, type 1, with the long arms with a large pivot bolt about 17 to 18 inches inches back on the upper and lower arms. If both pivot bolts are screwed into the frame of the saw, there should be almost no front to back movement on the arms themselves. Be aware, the two pivot bolts are screwed into soft iron on the frame. It don't take a lot of torque on those bolts to strip the threads on the frame. The pivot bolts act as a pivot bearing and there should be almost no movement front to back (or up and down) by either arm on their pivot bolts.

You do remove the pivot bolts, clean them, and re-oil with SAE 30wt non-detergent oil now and then, don't you? (that is 3-in-1 electrical motor oil in the BLUE can.)

Your quick release blade chucks on your delta, are attached to the arms with a roll pin. Again, if all is connected correctly, there should be almost no front to back motion as the blade travels up and down on it's stroke.

If you examine your saw very closely, take special note of any, repeat any, cracks in the metal near or close by to any of the above mentioned mechanical connections, including the lower arm near the attachment point of the lower blade chuck. Now manually rotate the motor thru a couple of revolutions, with a blade installed and tensioned. Observe if any cracks you may have discovered to see if they open up during part of the blade cycle.

(I presume it is insulting to remind you to unplug the saw during the manual rotation of the saw.)

Again, this should be something serious, because Sharon has covered the obvious blade chuck problems.

Phil

[Rolf]

My SS350 has that same agressive front to back blade motion approx. 1/8
I have completely relubed and tightened every thing. the problem is in the area where the top blade clamp assembly slides onto the upper arm. there are a couple of allen screws that you can loosen and move the assembly forward or back to minimize the front to back blade movement. On my saw ther wasn't enough room for adjustment. I will revisit that problem sometime.
I only use my G4 now.

[GrayBeard Phil]

Rolf:

I must concede to your updated information on the SS350. I checked the Delta web site for a parts diagram. I must have been thinking of an older delta model.

I still stand by my opinion that there should be no movement front to back at the pivot bolts in the long arms. Once the blade is installed and verified to be at 90 degrees (perpendicular) to the table top (front-to-back and left-to-right) , there should be very little front to back motion.

But obviously there is! As I looked at the parts drawing, I can't find any where an 0.125 to 0.187 inch motion of the blade front to back can be introduced. Yes, I can believe 1/32 inch movement, or maybe as much as 0.050 inch, but not 0.125 in.

The adjustment that you and Sharon mentioned I took to be an adjustment to the blade chuck assembly to insure the blade gets installed perpendicular front-to-back to the table top. Under normal conditions, the blade will not always be installed exactly perpendicular, but it should be close enough not to make any difference. An 1/8 inch does make a difference.

I must go with your claim that cleaning and mechanical inspection has no affect on this fault. But where could such a large motion be induced. I doubt the motor linkage to the lower arm could be causing this, as the lower arm pivot bolt would restrict that motion.

But where could this front to back motion be coming from?

Rolf, thanks for correcting my post.

Phil

[Rolf]

Phil,

We may be talking about different things here. We are not talking about slop or play in the mechanics, for a $180 saw my SS350 is very tight. The problem is the blade motion front to back is very aggresive and that is part of the design. This discussion comes up fairly frequently and if you search the older threads you will find explanations better than mine.

On my RBI I can move the bottom blade clamp forward or back with an allen wrench to introduce or minimize this front to back motion. On the Delta the only thing that can be done is some small movement of the upper clamp. The rest is dependant on the saw design.

[Stan]

Looks like I also got one of the SS350's with the aggressive movement front to back. Tried moving the upper mount, only to strip out one of the clamp screws.

Guess I'll be ordering some parts for my just over a month old saw.