Vintage Lapidary Slab Saw Rebuild
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.ค. 2024
- I know that vintage saws are attractive due to the price but unless you have a shop and you're somewhat handy you might be purchasing a problem you can't handle.
In this video I share with you the complete rebuild I did on my saw.
Thanks for watching.
You will need a dial indicator with a magnetic base such as this one:
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Tap Magic Cutting Oil
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Here are some helpful links for your saw rebuild.
Pulley Calculator www.blocklayer.com/pulley-bel...
Belt Length Calculator www.calculatoredge.com/mech/vb...
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#CurrentlyRockhounding #SlabSaw #Lapidary
0:00 - Intro
2:10 - Parts
5:31 - Cutting Threads
10:46 - Vise Explanation
11:21 - Dial Indicator
11:58 - Assembly
14:26 - Blade Alignment
16:20 - Vise Speeds & Pulleys
21:00 - First Cut
22:00 - Conclusion
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I picked up an early ‘70’s era Lortone LS-18 slab saw from a guy that wasn’t using it anymore. It was a bit rough, but all there. I didn’t know much about it at the time so You could say it was a gamble. I got it home, filled it and started cutting. Not bad at first then it started acting up. It would start straining during a cut and then “jump”. The vice carriage that is. It would jump backwards a bit and make a muffled knocking sound. After close inspection I realized two of the machine bearings the carriage rolled on were frozen and upon encountering any agate chip on the rail, bingo the pause, strain and jump. I replaced them all ( I think it was an odd number like 7) and it has cut like a champ ever since! The blade is an old Congo and it’ll probably outlast me! I love this old equipment and how well engineered it really is. It’s simple design belies just how much thought was put into it to make it that simple. Really genius American ingenuity. I look at FranToms, Old HP’s, Panthers, Covingtons, etc. and I wouldn’t trade my old Lortone for any of them. I too have that same HF measuring device and I get incredible accuracy (5 1000ths of an inch) front to back blade runout. At first I couldn’t believe it. Since then I bought a new HP-12 mini slab saw and will probably be adding an LS-14 to the mix. Great informative video. Slab on!
There is an absolutely good feeling when you rebuild something yourself. Just a personal opinion, Hard material you obviously want it to cut slow to avoid damaging your blade, me personally I would just set it at the slow speed and leave it there. Just me, not criticizing yours. I acquired an old standing drill press, made in the 50's. It was free believe it or not, well free monetarily, bartered with the use of my truck. Its a Sears Craftsman but made by King Seely and it weighs a ton, all cast iron. Runs great but does need new bearings, they are quiet but have a lot of play just worn out. Love your old saw,
thanks for sharing.
Something I found to work really well in softening the drop of a slab is the blue synthetic pad material for a swamp cooler. Cheap, easy to trim up to size, let's oil through easily but catches lots of little chunks and greatly reduces slab breakage. Nice old saw you've got there. Should last a long time for you.
anything old will be so much better rebuilt than something new, and when you do the rebuild you will be the master of its mechanics after that, really cool .I had a used car once that we rebuilt, it was a 66 Malibu , old stuff is good stuff, thanks for saving a piece of working history.
Well said and I couldn't agree more. Things like this really give an in-depth understanding of your machine.
Quest for Details, You must be a big fan of the Emilio Estevez/Harry Dean Stanton movie "Repo Man." If you're not yet, you owe it to yourself to watch it. You'll see.
Thanks for sharing, I don't ever plan to get a slab saw. But, it's nice info. for those that do have one.
i'm not really that technical, not sure i really understand everything, but i appreciate the detailed information. here and there i got things that i can use in my own work with rocks. thanks.
Thank you!
👍
I just picked up an 18” Royal saw, they were made here in Portland Or. It’s a one owner machine, so lucky to have found it! Great job re-building you saw! The only advise I would offer is don’t grease the pillow blocks, those are usually shielded and sealed, and over greasing can make them run hot, or blow the seals out our both.
Happy sawing!
Congratulations on the saw! I guess I don't understand, why would pillow block bearings have grease fittings if you were not meant to grease them?
@@CurrentlyRockhounding I used to work at a portable sawmill manufacturing company, and I have had brand new machines come back with in the first month with burned up bearings, because the new owners greased the bearings every day! They literally seized the bearings. A small amount of grease yearly is plenty.
congrats on getting your saw put together and working,, cant wait to see what treasures you cut
Thank you, this is so nice to have back up and running in the shop.
@@CurrentlyRockhounding you must have all kinds of mechanical skills to get that done!! it would have been way above my pay scale to do that kind of work so fast
@@yoopermann7942 I have done a lot of things similar to this.
Very nice job on that! That amphibolite gets you everytime. Haha.
Thank you!
Absolutely great video. Did basically the same rebuild on my Lortone. Also bought the adjustable belts for slab saw and table saw. They are so much quieter especially at higher rpms of the
table saw. I sealed the top of the cowling over the pillow blocks where it goes through the side wall with a neoprene roof caulking---works great. Very good explanation on aligning the
blade to the vise carriage. I have seen people use a sharpie in their vise and run it across to get an approximate fix for the blade--- however the gauge does nail it down. Wondering if you
were ever a millwright as you have so many fearless skills. You remind me of my son-in-law who could fix absolutely anything and had that same "just do it" attitude. Commendable to
say the least. Have fun.
This is my first time using the adjustable belt and so far I'm impressed with it. It really is nice turning it on for the first time after a rebuild isn't it.
Hahaha I might not be good looking but at least I can fix things which is better than what most people can say.
Informative, I liked it. I watched the entire video, and didn’t fall asleep once. Lol good video😎
Hahaha keeping people awake is my number one goal.
Great episode. Thanks for bringing us along.
Thank you.
Thanks a lot. Fine video. Really appreciate your thorough explanation. I just got an old 10-inch Highland Park with a motorized vise. Haven't run it yet. Gotta clean it out, but the garage is cold. It's encouraging to see what you've done with your old saw.
Old saws if taken care of can last for ages.
I feel you on the cold, its really been a bummer for me lately not really being able to use the shop in the middle of winter.
@@CurrentlyRockhounding I'm getting addicted to old Highland Park machines. They built them forever. If only they would supply crucial parts like arbors, they'd be heroes.
Wait. Don't they have wood stoves where you are?
Thanks for the content post sir, very much appreciated! Great job on the rebuild and from past experience know exactly how satisfying it is to start up the saw after getting everything dialed in and it sounds solid and quiet and just churns through material.👍 Also excellent timing on the release of this video after your rebuild as I just picked up a fully running 18" Royal that am in the process of rebuilding to my own satisfaction. Doing a new 7" iron cast pulley to replace the aluminum/zinc pulley on the blade, new iron cast 3.9" motor pulley to replace the same aluminum/zinc, new slab catcher made outta steel diamond grid. Fresh paint all around and realign the arbor/blade to the deck. Fortunately do not currently have to replace the arbor or bearing packs as they are pressed into a housing and has a new 18" MK303 blade so that saves a bunch of money but do need to add a felt gasket and seal the chamber off against the steel housing. For the bottom nuts, am replacing with custom cut and tapped 1/4 steel strips. (one strip for each side tapped at each end) Am hoping that will make it easier to tighten and loosen for alignment??? 🤷♂️ Am guessing it'll be a few more weeks before I can afford everything including the time but appreciate you posting this. Got me excited to work on my own saw~ Thanks again sir, hope you'all have a great rest of your week!
Sounds like it shouldn't be too hard to breath some new life into your saw. You should take some before and after photos of it.
I'm in the middle of rebuilding a very early Highland Park 14 inch saw also from late 60's. I had exactly the same type of arbor issues. I had to have a new one custom machined.
Fantastic Job. Lots of helpful info for anyone wanting to do a rebuild. Now you're set. Thanks for showing your progress.
Thank you! I think most people could follow along with this pretty easily and maybe save some real money.
Excellent work. Glad it's back up and running for you.
Me too!
There's so much knowledge and skill that went into this video. It definitely demystifies the process of a rebuild. Awesome, thank you!
I know its not a popular topic of video but for those who will be doing this I think those people will find it to be valuable.
I for one really benefit from topics like this! It's like online machine school along with rocks. Incredible
Well done! I travel in a motorhome full time and I don't think it will fit. Maybe when we stop traveling. A lot of thinking went into your project and you can tell. Be safe and stay healthy ⚒😷
Yeah this is a little much for that but maybe in the future its something you can do.
@@CurrentlyRockhounding the seed is planted.😎
Great episode man, you put a ton of work into that saw and many people will benefit from this in future.
Yeah I know it's not going to be a popular video but when someone needs this, the answers are now here.
@@CurrentlyRockhounding Even if you bought a new saw, this info is going to come in handy eventually haha. Solid idea man and thanks for sharing, I have a few people that may need this video.
Cheers buddy
You could have had the pillow blocks milled down so they would have been the same as the old ones. On the shaft you can put a neoprene washer on it to keep the oil from leaking out. Keep up the great videos and God bless you and your family.
I thought about milling down the castings on the pillow blocks but I don't have a mill and we really don't seem to have an machine shops willing to take on a small job around here. Everyone has closed and all that's left are production shops it seems.
Thank you!
Excellent information 👌 👏..ty
Most excellent video dude! I've built a flat lap and a sphere grinding/polishing machine and have been contemplating building a slab saw. Sub'd!
A saw build would be really fun!
Love the quietness of it now, purrs like a kitten
I didn't realise how crappy my old bearings were, these are so smooth and quite.
@@CurrentlyRockhounding They were probably just as bad as my jeep hubs I had to replace a few months ago. Soooooo quiet now.
@@RagnarRocks It's like living on a farm, the smells and sounds grow with time and you don't realize it until its gone.
@@CurrentlyRockhounding Truth
I just got a "new to me" slab saw. It's an older Highland Park 10". It has a new Lortone, no sticker or markings, blade in it. I can't wait to get it up and running. I have a dial indicator, I'll have to remember to check the runout on the vise.
Those are really good saw, I know Highland park makes some stuff to improve them now like a new vise...etc.
I'm intrigued by the "Everclean" I saw on their TH-cam channel. The vise holds the stone with jaws on the front and back instead of top and bottom. Seems like that would limit the size of the stone quite a bit.
@@ssteele1812 I might be wrong here but I think that is mostly for holding round rocks. The Everclean does sound really nice.
If your little motor is running at 6 rpm with a 2 inch pulley going to a 4 inch pulley, your feed shaft speed is cut in half or should be running at 3 rpm. If you know the number of threads per inch on the feed shaft, you should be able to calculate the distance the vice should travel in a given amount of time. Given that the thread count on the feed shaft is a constant, the change is all in the pulley size. So, you went from 2/4 ( 1/2) to 2/5 the speed of the little motor. In this case, your feed shaft was 3 rpm and is now 2.4 rpm. This was a good informative video. What did you do about the larger hole for the arbor shaft? Pack it with some kind of felt to catch most of the oil? I have a similar situation with my 10" trim saw. I had to use modern parts that were close, but not exact and did the same thing as you. Enlarged the hold for the shaft. In my case, I use water, so I'm not worried if it leaks a little, although I don't think it does.
Awesome and interesting, always good to learn from others before I go out and get tools, nice and quiet, thank you 😊
I'm glad you liked it!
This is a great video! You should post more videos with your saw. Quality content in my opinion. I recently picked up a 16" Nelson slab saw and an 18" Royal slab saw. Lots of cutting to come! Cheers from British Columbia 🇨🇦
Thank you! I do have a few other videos on subject of saws but I think this is the only one I have dedicated to the slab saw.
Very cool.
Thank you.
That was really interesting to watch I've never seen a saw that cuts rocks before still new to all of this cool video Jared
I'm glad you liked it.
Thanks!
Thank you!
Thanks for sharing.I
My pleasure!
A decent saw shop should be able to fix that old bent blade. Some leveling and tension work should do it. Looks like there's a lot of diamond left on it.
That is true but the cost of the service exceeds the price a new blade.
Great video Dood!! I hesitated purchasing an old 14" Lortone slabber that needed work cuz I was scared. Your vid inspired me. Want a slab saw bad... Thanks!! I gotta ask you this. How long have you had those gloves, that you have on in the video?
Fine job once again CR!
I wouldn't be worried about buying an older saw like that. I have had them for sometime but recently put these out to pasture.
I just wondered what kind of shape the feed screw threads were in. Did you check them? It would not make any difference I guess except for accurate feed. You did a wonderful job and were wise to upgrade the parts. You a pro now lol. Havagudun Jared and happy slabbing.
The feed screw was in great shape, I assume because of how slow it turns. I would love to get some more stuff like this to rebuild.
@@CurrentlyRockhounding I didnt think of the slow rate. I just wish I could find a saw to rebuild. I found one in Las Vegas but the freight would kill me. Again, good job.
@@EDLaw-wo5it At least around here Facebook seems like the place to look for stuff as well as just putting feelers out with area rockhounds.
Great instructional build.
I was given a 16" Slab Saw and used it once last year. I can't figure out the brand or quite how to use it as there are brackets in the way of pushing the rock straight thru. Are there any sites I could go to that have old saws that I could maybe find out the brand and model? It sits in an open fiberglass tube and the saw blade can tilt up like a chop saw.
I'm not to sure about a website to go to with brands and models to look at but you could try the DIY Lapidary Group on facebook and post some photos there and you can always email me photos as well.
Thank you for the insight and offer. I knew you would be the guy to ask. I'll get the saw out in the next few days and get some pics. I need to have a garage sale anyway and I'll get the pics then. I also need to take some goodies over to the woman that gave me the saw and vibratory lap. For me, it was quite a gift and very kind of her.
Where did you get the little gear motor for your rebuild? I need one and how does it operate (I know nothing about electricity)
Are you talking about the tiny motor that spins the shaft that moves the vise?
Can you show the motor specs?
Its a 1750 rpm 1/2hp motor.
Front belt is too tight leave loose as possible
Wrong