Need help revamping an old mitre saw

[No skills]

Hi all, bit of a ramble but bear with me..

I've got an old makita sliding mitre saw thats fallen into bad repair, I've got it sitting on a shelf at work doing nothing and having to cut stuff up by hand or skill saw at home

The main reason its hiding at work is the repeat visits the local thieving scrotes make on my garage - but thats a story for another day. So I'm getting the arse ache with it all and want to get this once nice piece of kit sorted and fit for use again.
Its got a bolt/handle missing that secures the compound angle at the rear of the saw - not a problem I can make something for this. One of the adjustment bolts has sheared off in the rear of the pivot assembly, hopefully I can drill and extract it and sort a replacement without too much hair pulling, lastly theres some corrosion to sort out as well (still supprising smooth action considering!).
Once I have all that done I will have a nice saw again BUT it will be completely out of adjustment and not even close to cutting square - so has anybody got any tips or advice on hows best to setup something like this? Obviously owners manual is a good start and I'll see if I can find one but I'm sure its not as easy as all that

Cheers

 

[goldeneyedmonkey]

Hi No Skills...

I've recently cleaned up a Makits LS1214, and got it working beautifully, all I had to do though was clean it up and grease the rails, so not as extensive as what you've got ahead of you I assume. But I've gotta say it's awesome now it's done, cuts beautifully, great sliding action on the rails and pefectly square. I did however have to order a few parts that were missing, including a few bolts and the red painter pointer/ marker that indicates the angle of the cut. I got these from Miles Tool & Machinery Centre, so give them a look if you want the spare parts for your saw.

They also show exploded diagrams so it's very easy to understand what bits you need and how they go back together.

Which model is it? The manuals are pretty easy to get hold of, I'm sure you can find a PDF of whichever model you have pretty easily.

Good luck mate, _Dan

 

[Hudson Carpentry]

Quite simple really. You can adjust the fence to make the blade 90deg to the fence using the bolts behind the fence. To make the blade 90deg to the base there are some adjustment screws to the rear of the sliding gear. Obviously you just use a square off the fence or of the base depending which your adjusting for.

I would do the fence first.

Once all square you can undo the little arrow markers and twist them back to 0 if its needed.

 

[No skills]

Dan

Thanks for the link, bookmarked it for now - might be easier than making my own bits

From memory I think its LS1013, I'll have to check tommorrow. 10" blade 13" width of cut if memory serves me (doesnt usually). When I had it 'new' it was a joy to use, very smooth - powerful too. I got it as an ex-display (not used) for less than half price

I think the refurb will be fairly straight forward but I do remember that it wasnt 100% cutting straight when I got it, fiddled a bit and improved slightly but it wasnt perfect, so I imagine getting it cutting as it should will be tricky after I've had it in bits.


Hudson

I'm familiar with the fence adjustment but the rest at the back of the saw is something else, once I've got the thing useable again I might post up again make sure I'm doing it right. Got to get a decient square first as well.

Thanks for the info!

 

[OPJ]

Yes, you should be able to find all the spares for this saw available from one of several different online retailers. I can highly recommend MTMC (as mentioned above) from personal experience and also Tool Shop Direct. Still waiting for the order I placed with Power Tool Spares though, which was placed one week ago... (None of the others carry Hitachi parts).

If you e-mail Makita UK and ask them nicely, they should be able to e-mail you a complete manual in .PDF form as well.

A year ago, I bought an LS1013 that'd been used heavily on site for several years and, with the minimal amount of work to clean it up and replace a couple of parts, it still came out to be the most accurate saw I've ever owned. I would consider adding a spare set of carbon brushes to your shopping list, especially if you haven't had a chance to start the saw up yet. You may eventually find that the fence is very very slightly concave in the centre (a common problem with mitre saw fences, over time). This can easily be rectified by shimming out the low spots with masking tape and fitting a sacrificial MDF or plywood facing on the front, which would also help to prevent breakout, etc.

 

[No skills]

Cheers Olly, looked at it briefly today but no time to start sorting it out. Motor should be fine but I might get some brushes for spares.

 

[matt]

Easiest way to check the accuracy (then adjust, and check again, then adjust etc etc etc) is to cut a large piece of timber then rotate one piece through 180 degrees and see whether it butts up square to the other piece. If not, the machine is out. Adjust accordingly and have another go. Once the two sides of a cut piece butt up to each other without gaps (on both planes) then the machine is cutting square. Set the angle indicators to zero and you're away.

 

[No skills]

Thats a good tip, thanks.

 

[Eric The Viking]

I'd also recommend one of those little digital bevel boxes for getting the blade perpendicular to the bed of the machine, and a British Standard engineers' square for checking the horizontal right angle. Don't be tempted by a cheaper square: I now have two recently-purchased ones, which really aren't! FWIW, I think my good one came from Tilgear, and wasn't hugely expensive.

The other thing to check is the depth of blade projection below the bed and behind the fence - determines depth of cut. If it has trenching you need to check it runs parallel to the bed too. My guess is that if you get the 90deg cut right, the mitre cuts should be fine.

Following from Matt's tip though, if you set it to a 45 mitre (tilting), then turn one piece over, you should have a perfect 90deg notch, which you can check with a square (put the cut wood on a piece of glass plate to check, if you have one). If it's acute or obtuse, the saw is out.

It's a really good feeling when you do get these things right!

Hope it works out.

E.

 

[doorframe]

It's a really good feeling when you do get these things right!

Hope it works out.

E.

Yes... a very good feeling. When I get my saw (10" Axi) set up right it's great...for about 3 cuts... then it's out again. Couldn't work out what was wrong, till I discovered that there is sufficient 'play' in all the moving parts that it will NEVER be consistant in it's cut. Any lateral pressure when operating (especially on the slide) will result in an off-square cut. This has been since brand new. Now about 3 years old. All in all, a poxy piece of junk.

I got better results with the 8" Power Pro (B & Q) untill the gears sheared.

Roy

 

[No skills]

Were on our second cheapy mitre saw at work, first was a B&Q PP and the current is an Erbauer (sp??) from screwfix, for sub £150 machines they werent too bad - one had a slide action that rivaled my mikita. The first just died after doing a couple of years work in 4 months the screwfix one is still with us, tbh I dont think its quite as good as the B&Q one for build quality overall - havent noticed much slop in either BUT neither gets used for accuracy so its a moot point.