Woodworker John Heisz bought a used Busy Bee table saw and made it better than new. Busy Bee is a Canadian vendor that sells all the usual brands of tools plus OEMed saws that carry their own label. Heisz’s saw, which was 30 years old when he bought it looks a lot like a saw Rockwell made in the 1970’s—not the Rockwell that’s around now but the original Rockwell that later became Delta and is now Delta Power Equipment.
I like what he did to the saw. He didn’t just clean it up and replace worn parts; he made some improvements including:
- Replacing the v-belt with a link belt. I did this to the last saw contractor saw I owned and it greatly reduced vibration.
- Making the table larger by adding plywood extensions
- Moving the switch out where it would be easier to get at
- Building a stand and filled the bottom with concrete to make it more stable. It’s not the sort of thing you’d want to do with a saw that needed to be moved from site to site but would be fine in the shop.
Adding a simple dust collecting bin inside the stand.
