Monday, May 18, 2009

What Have I Gotten Myself Into?

Let me start by saying that I am not going to promise to blog more often because I always say that and I never do so I will just say I'll try, but no promises.
Now on to the story that the title is referring to. As some of you may be aware I have taken half of my basement and turned it into a work shop for all the little projects that I am constantly working on around the house so i don't have to set up all my tools in the garage every time I want to get something done. Every little project ended up with two or three hours of setting up tearing down and cleaning up and I never got enough accomplished because of it. Now I have a place all my own to leave my tools set up and everything is at my fingertips as I need it and not tucked away in the back of a cabinet behind the lawnmower. So one of the last things I added was dad's old radial arm saw that he has had for years.




It's most recently been at Dennis's house and he was nice enough to bring it over because he was not using it anymore. When I got it I went on line to try to find the owners manual so I could get familiar with the saw, and to my surprise I found a bunch of recall notices for that saw. I decided to investigate and it turns out that with a click of a mouse I had a new safety guard on the way free of charge. Then I saw a link to the "users guide" so I downloaded it and after looking a little closer something was a little funny. The manual was about sixty pages long which seemed about rite, but as I looked closer I realized that this manual was just for the installation and use of the new safety guard I just ordered. Sixty pages to explain a plastic guard to go in front of the blade? That's when I first started to wonder, What have I gotten myself into? About a week later I came home from work and was greeted by the "guard" I had ordered. As I suspected the box, much like the users manual, was huge.







So I waited until Saturday and decided to dive into this thing with both feet. After opening the box I found, you guessed it, more boxes.






After unboxing everything I discovered a ton of new parts and accessories and I am proud to say that I managed to disassemble and reassemble the saw in just about an hour and now it looks and works like a brand new saw.






The boxes included a new table top as well which is something I was going to make myself because the old one was pretty torn up so I'm glad the gigantic box of parts arrived before I took on that little project.
Now that I have the saw and my workshop, or as Heather likes to say "the man cave", completed, I have on more excuses for avoiding the projects Michelle has for me to do, but those projects are what I live for. Just don't tell Michelle. That's all for now. I'll try to write something again soon.

6 comments:

JP2E said...

Give me a call and we can do a full "tuneup" on the saw. I used to do a lot of that for HD and Lowes a while back. I can set, align and adjust all your different axis to get you all square and true.
And maybe next time I need some help with a scout project we can swing a deal...

Peggie said...

I love it when you can "accidentally" get a new saw out of thin air!!!! LOL

Glad to have you back in blogland. I've got lots to blog about, just have to find the time (and inclination) to do it!!

Keep us posted on those "blasted" chores you have to do.

Talk to you soon.

Love ya!!

Katie said...

GREAT to hear from you again!! I think every man deserves a "man cave"... Glad you have one of your own. Maybe the next blog will be all about some project you've completed... Love ya!! :)

Big Jim said...

You asked for it.... You got it!!!!

Sue said...

You will have lots to blog about with each new project. You can have your own blog show like Norm of this old house. We just need to come up with a name for your workworking show. Any suggestions?
Mike's Man Cave

CShore said...

Man I am jealous of your man cave. I don't have room for anything like that here, and I too have the same problem with dragging everything out and having to put it back later.