: I cut strips with a Craftsman 10 inch contractor saw. It has worked very well
: for cutting NWC into strips, canvas canoe planks, rib stock and a lot of
: hard wood to boot. What I did to really help me in cutting all these
: things is convert the motor to 208 volts. It cuts up to 3 1/4 inches
: without stalling the motor, the blade will sometimes slow but only it I
: push to hard. This is a good modification that Craftsman gives conversion
: instructions for, in the parts maual. I also installed a 10 Thin Kerf
: Freud blade and keep it sharp. When it starts to burn wood I replace it
: with a sharp one.

Hi Erich

A couple of little tips I have learned and used over the years......

1. You will save some horsepower loss if you go to a two-gang pulley setup, and only the turned alluminum type and not the cast metal. The turned type will balance better and save vibration. You willprobably have to go to a regular machine shop or someplace where they sell power-tools only. Find out where the local cabinet shops pick up their tools, cause it's not Home Depot or the local ACE hardware. The two belt pulley setup eliminates a lot of slippage at highspeed when you are running thick stock. That is usually where and why your blade slows down.

2. Watch your blades when you see them burning the wood or grabbing. Before you pay to get them sharpened, look at the carbide teeth ( I'm assuming you use carbide ) and check for the deposite behind the teeth. Pitch or resin from your wood stock. It builds up and eventually gets as thick as the thickness of the barbide tips. When it does, it causes the wood to burn and holds the wood away from the cutting edge and causes the slow-down. You can remove that residue with some Easy-Off Oven Cleaner.... Just spray it on, wait around 10 minutes and wash off with warm soapy water. The blade will cut just like new, because it is!!! I do a lot of woodworking and use plain ole Sears carbide blades and haven't sharpened one for over 6 or 7 years. I just clean them and they are fine. Sappy wood or Some hardwoods with a lot of oil or resin content will require cleaning more often. Pariicle board, with the glues they use require it more than any wood I know of. One cabinet shop I used to work for did volumn work and I was the cut-out guy. When the units of particle board came in, we would unload them next to the table saw and cut all the stock to 3 widths, for the different type cabinets we made. I would go through 2 or 3 units of particle board and take the blade off and have one of the guys clean it while I kept cutting with another blade. In the 2 years I was there, I don't remember ever having to sharpen a blade. We found out that the place we took them to was doing just that. Cleaning them!! And charging us for sharpening. We never knew because they cut like a dream when we got them back.

If your Sears table saw or radial saw motor is less than 5 or 6 years old, you may have to order a special motor to get the 220v model. The older ones were convertable, but in the past few years they have gotten away from the Dual/convertable motors. ( 110v - 220v )

Hope this helps!!

Rehd