Gotta Love Free Stuff!

So let's go back a few days. I bought a radial arm saw from someone on Craigslist. I know I could have gotten a nicer one (after all, they're on there for sale all the time) but the price was right.

Or so I thought.

Sure it operated fine and was mounted on a stand and all that, but I overlooked one fairly important thing when I inspected it at the person's house, and that was everything related to the wood cutting surface, or top if you will. This one had a homemade top on it that was way smaller than the original. That was no biggie, I could just make another one like I had in the past for a saw that I used to own (it's still at Teresa's house in her basement woodshop). Upon further inspection I found that it was missing to support rails underneath, and the two screw clamps that hold the "fence" (that's vertical part of the wood top that you actually place the piece of wood you are cutting up against to saw it) was also missing. The homemade one had the fence permanently mounted. I know, I know--It's all technobabble, but the point is, the homemade one sucked and was missing some of the original mounting hardware.

I felt more than a little annoyed with myself after I found this out. Sure, the missing parts were still available, but that would have totally skewed the price of the saw. The two support rails were $8.95 each and the two clamps at the back were $13.95 each. I was prepared to make all the missing pieces myself for little or cheap (albeit labor intensive) when I found an alternative online.

I was browsing online woodworking forums for dimensions of the original table top and a pdf version of the operator's manual. I was on a help forum site pertaining to woodworking equipment when I saw that someone else out there was looking for the exact same thing. A person on the forum announced that there was a site online where you could get it all for free! What? It seems that the company running the site they referred us to is the one that made the saws for Sears and is involved in a long-running safety recall. They are retrofitting all the Craftsman radial arm saws in a certain year range (I guess it was a pretty large range) with new blade guards. What this also meant was that in addition to the new and improved blade guard, you also got a new table top! Well, I went to the site and sure enough, my saw was one of them. All I had to do was put in my model number, my serial number and my shipping address. That was last Friday as I recall.

A huge box showed up at work yesterday containing all my stuff. I was very pleasantly surprised last night when I opened it up that it also contained two new support angles and clamps--Both updated versions of the very things I was missing. Is that cool or what?

Now all I have to do is give the saw a good cleaning and adjustment, and reassemble it. It should be a very new-looking saw when I'm done, and better than when it was sold.

For anyone out there that owns a Craftsman radial arm saw themselves or knows someone that does, here's the website to see if they can get the complete update package for free as well:

http://www.radialarmsawrecall.com