Rapidor Manchester weight

[brightspark]

I just checked mine and it cuts on the forward stroke and the pulley runs clockwise as you look at it . get a tape measure run the bow forward by hand in the down position and measure up to the blade height of the base at the back of the bow if its 3 inch take note. keeping tape in same position run the bow backwards and it will change height and go higher on reverse. going forward the blade will go down on the tape measure

 

[graffian]

Cut on the push, the blade is angled so that's the way to go. I tried running the motor both ways one way was quicker and quieter.

 

[slim_boy_fat]

Quite enjoying getting it back into some sort of decent shape though.

I hope you're going to give us pics as you go along each stage?

 

[jimbo84]

I just checked mine and it cuts on the forward stroke and the pulley runs clockwise as you look at it . get a tape measure run the bow forward by hand in the down position and measure up to the blade height of the base at the back of the bow if its 3 inch take note. keeping tape in same position run the bow backwards and it will change height and go higher on reverse. going forward the blade will go down on the tape measure

Tried the tape measure today, and works out the same as yours.

Timed a cut with the blade how I had it (cutting on the push) and then flipped the blade and timed a cut on the pull, a lot longer on the pull, more than double so it is obviously meant to cut on the push.

I hope you're going to give us pics as you go along each stage?

I'll try but I'm rubbish at remembering to take pictures.

This was how the blade was when I got it, a 12 inch blade mangled together with bits of bar, washers and scraps. The blade wasn't straight to the bow by around 10mm due to the thickness of the bar used to extend the smaller blade to 14 inches so must have been cutting way off square.



New blade fitted as it was intended to be with a 14 inch


It has an idler pulley fitted to it as the replacement belt must have been too big, it's off centre to the machine's pulleys so I need to square it up.


There is alot of play in this pulley and the grease had gone solid in the grease cap (not sure of the proper name for these) so scraped out all the gunk and refilled with new grease and screwed on until fresh grease came out of the bearings, this took a couple of cap fulls to do so it hasn't had any lubrication for some time. Stamped with leeds on the cap.



The biggest task will be to sort out the vice. One bolt is missing from the fixed jaw, I'm guessing snapped in and the other is seized solid. The locking bolts for the adjustable part of the jaws are seized solid too. I am lacking a spanner or socket to fit these, they'll obviously be some kind of imperial but the metric equivalent is 23mm to wich I don't have any nor have ever seen a 23mm spanner. I have a very large adjustable (around 2 foot long) so I'll bring that home with me and give them a go with that. Every day I've been drenching them in WD40 but I'm pretty sure it's going to take some heat to do them.



I noticed @brightspark mentions in a thread somewhere on here about having plywood shims in the sliders but this one has some kind of ally lash up fitted.



Question,
How, what do you use and where do you guys that have these machines lubricate them? I've noticed some removable grub screws/holes where the bearings are at the conrods/main bearings of the tilt mechanism but not sure whether to try and oil or grease them.

Old school motor, which I don't think is original. Interestingly the saw was made in manchester, the pulley in leeds and the motor in Doncaster, when British engineering in the north was at its best.

 

[brightspark]

I have grease nipples on mine .2 on the crank shaft that's one each side then theres 2 of them on the conrod one each end and one on the countershaft pulley and that's it . the idler pulley helps the belt grip as it makes the belt run further round the bottom pulley ahnd also tensions the belt .without one the bottom pulley just spins on tn just spins on the belt and goes nowhere . when I use mine I just wipe amny crap of the guide bard and give them a squirt of oil . all the nuts and bolts are whitworth

 

[brightspark]

here

 

[graffian]

If you look at my saw from the side the blade and slides are not parallel, the blade is angled up at the front
in relation to the slides. So when the blade goes forwards it has to lift the frame, or you could say the
frame is pushing the blade down, this is good if it's forward cutting. When the blades comes back
it will have the weight taken off it, again good.

The direction of rotation will have a vertical component in both directions whichever way you spin it.
But the blade is angled, try spinning the motor both ways and time a cut. With my saw it was noisy and
slow one way and the other way was all nice n smooth and faster.

 

[brightspark]

your bolts holding down the fixed vice isnt a problem if it snaps on the way out its no big deal jus tpull it off and if any of the thread is stuck up just grind it off flush with the base .move the vice post over half an inch re drill the base and tap it and fit new bolts .metric will fit if you have a large enough drill and a metric tap

 

[brightspark]

if you cant get the swivel bolts out and you get the fixed one out you can slide both jaws out of the end .heat them up when its out of the machine and it helps loosen them t

 

[brightspark]

heres them out

 

[jimbo84]

I've been spraying it with WD40 the past couple of days and yesterday got some no nonsense oil from screwfix, gave it a good spray yesterday evening and then this morning.

Left it till dinner and just got them freed off, no snappages thankfully. Whether it was the WD40 previously or the no nonsense that released them I've no idea.



Followed by very BFS


This explains why one bolt was missing




Off to sort a tap and drill bit out.

 

[jimbo84]

Further questions...

Have I got this set up right? This is how I have it now..



There is still quite a bit of play in the sliders.

When I got it it had these aluminium shims in it, there was play in it.
Should there be some kind of shims around the square bar too or does it just run on the machined casting?

 

[brightspark]

it runs on the machine castings if the guide bars aren't worn take the shims off and bolt them down with the bow fitted slacken them off very slightly till the bow moves freely then measure the gap between the top plate and bottom where guide bars fit it mat be 4.omm or there about get some plywood a bit thicker make some shims up rectangle and drill a hole through them in the middle slip them on and bolt the top clamp up gently till the bow goes slightly tight on each one at a time and slightly back the nuts off the bow should move freely without any play on them . stick a bit of oil on them when u test it

 

[jimbo84]

Cheers @brightspark I'll do that. Where have you put the grease nipples on yours for the bearings? There's a bolt in each, what I call, the main bearings. I took the bolts out and put a grease nipple in it's place but no grease was able to come through.

This is where I've fitted it, left the old bolt next to it for reference.

 

[brightspark]

here the 1st picture has a tap still in supposed to be the holding bolt but I never got round to putting one in .the grease nipples for the bearing and shaft are just to one side of it .the other side in pic 3 hasn't got a grease nipple as it hardly moves pic 4 showing the plywood inserts for setting the clearance on bearing surfaces of the guide bars

 

[jimbo84]

here the 1st picture has a tap still in supposed to be the holding bolt but I never got round to putting one in .the grease nipples for the bearing and shaft are just to one side of it .the other side in pic 3 hasn't got a grease nipple as it hardly moves pic 4 showing the plywood inserts for setting the clearance on bearing surfaces of the guide bars

Thanks for the pics all makes sense now, I'll clear all the muck out of the smaller holes and get some lubrication into them.

 

[jimbo84]

All set up and gave it a baptism by fire today, sawing though some railtrack. Only took 35 mins good job I didn't buy it for its speed. Kept the blade covered in CT-90 and it ran through ok apart from the last section that clogged the blade up with swarf, a good blast with the no nonsense oil cleared it.

It's a good true 90 degrees on the horizontal as I squared that up with the adjustable vice jaws and it's out by about 1mm per 150mm on the vertical but I can live with that, not bad for a machine that's possibly 70 years old.

 

[brightspark]

All set up and gave it a baptism by fire today, sawing though some railtrack. Only took 35 mins good job I didn't buy it for its speed. Kept the blade covered in CT-90 and it ran through ok apart from the last section that clogged the blade up with swarf, a good blast with the no nonsense oil cleared it.

It's a good true 90 degrees on the horizontal as I squared that up with the adjustable vice jaws and it's out by about 1mm per 150mm on the vertical but I can live with that, not bad for a machine that's possibly 70 years old.

View attachment 214486

good only needs a clean and repaint now

 

[jimbo84]

good only needs a clean and repaint now

It's highly unlikely to get either of those at the moment but at some point I'll get round to it I'm sure.

 

[brightspark]

even if you just paint the tray under the blade its easier to clean the crap out with a paint brush