Tuesday, September 08, 2015
The Swing Saw
Tools of the Trade: Keith Rucker, of VintageMachinery.org shot the video below at the Georgia Museum of Agriculture in Tifton, Georgia. It’s of a swing saw (also called a pendulum saw) designed for use in a mill. Instead of pivoting like a chop saw or sliding like a slide miter or radial arm saw, it pivots in line with an overhead line shaft—a configuration that allows the blade to be powered by a leather drive belt.
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3 comments:
This saw is so vintage! It is basically simple machines on steroids to accomplish a task/power a saw. The belt system, while simple, is also pretty elaborate in function and definitely super interesting to watch work. In terms of safety, it is pretty crazy that this saw genuinely wants to climb towards the operator while having very little resistance to keep it from doing otherwise. My main question – I guess – would be, WHERE IS THE E-STOP ON THIS THING? Were E-Stops just not something in common practice until recently? Is thing able to just be unplugged, or is the only way out the lever to activate the belt system? I am still amazed by the functionality of older wood working shops where all the tools would be powered by the same motor and only having something as simple as a lever keeping all the machines from going at once. Things like this should definitely be put on displays and featured on classic wood shop tours for educational purposes.
This saw doesn't look that safe compared to the kind of saws we have now. Most of our saw are covered my hard shells of metal to avoid injuries. This machine is huge and may work efficiently, but every machine needs maintenance and this saw seems like it could kill or hurt someone really badly if a part of it were to snap off or fall. It's understandable if they are still being worked with, but this is a little unnerving to watch. The way it shakes and the sound it makes. Just working in that room would keep me on my toes. There's not even a safety chain on the saw? How does this company expect their saw to continuously be made if they seem super unsafe to the potential costumers. It seems to do the same work as a radial alarm saw and I would rather stick to that saw then this swinging saw.
This saw is so old-school! It’s amazing how big the power behind the saw is- how the belt goes all the way up to the ceiling and then across the room. What really interests me is how straight the saw cuts. Was it really accurate? I have a hard time believing it was because it is swinging back and forth on a belt connected to the ceiling. But the video makes it look like it is really straight. I would be terrified to work with this saw because it has almost no shield on it to stop you from sticking your hand right under the blade. And you have to reach behind it to turn it off! And it’s not like the lever to stop it is like a light switch; you have to actually move the belt off the one wheel and onto the wheel that will turn the belt for the saw, which would take a lot more force, I think. It would be amazing to see one of these in action, or even just in a museum. It’s these every day tools that aren’t actually that old that get left out of museums. How cool would it be to have an old time shop set up with actual carpenters working in it as the museum exhibit?
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